Curly's Baseball Tournament

I wanted to tell you about Curly's baseball tournament, but I just couldn't write about it yesterday, since it was all too raw and emotional for him and for me. But wait, let me back up a bit so I can draw a little better picture.

This was the end of season baseball tournament and after committing to this team back in late February, it has been a long season plagued with rainouts and losses including one angry letter to the coach about mid-season that seemed to turn things around at least a little. Curly loves baseball and he is arguably their best pitcher and when he isn't pitching, he is playing 1st base.

The tournament started on Monday with pool play which provided the seeding for the actual tournament that was held on Friday and Saturday. We lost on Monday, then on Tuesday, and when we lost a 3rd time on Wednesday, the boys were pretty discouraged. Curly had originally scheduled a scout camp that cost me $60 for Friday and Saturday and we waited anxiously all day on the 4th to hear the time for our first and what we assumed would be our last game of the tournament.

We were hoping for a later time so we could still make the scout camp, but the 2:00 game made that impossible so we passed off our spot to hopefully another boy. Curly was excited for the game because we had actually beaten this team twice during league play, but with a win would come another game immediately after with the #1 seed in the tournament meaning an almost certain loss since we were the 8th seed.

Game 1 proceeded as planned and we beat the Bombers, but it took us the full 6 innings. Curly didn't pitch at all that game because of the crazy pitching rules, but he likes playing 1st, so he didn't mind too much. The boys were playing well as they began that second game against the 1st place seed. Curly was again on 1st, but he called the plays and kept everyone on task. Even boys who usually didn't play well were at their best as we took an early lead. Remember, we had a 15-loss/7-win record, so we were certainly not the favorite.

That early lead just kept building and except for one brief moment when the other team was 1 point ahead, our boys were right in there the entire time. Curly had been in a bit of a batting slump, but his coach kept at him and he smashed a double on his first at-bat. Then late in the game, with 2 boys on base, Curly pounded a long one over the center field fence, clearing it by about 10 feet. That proved to be the end of the fight for the Herriman team and we eventually beat them 12 - 8.

The boys were euphoric and the coach took them all out for pizza and ice cream after the win. If they could beat #1, they could beat anyone, right? In fact, on Tuesday, they had played their next rival and nearly beaten them with a final score of 12 - 14 in a heart-breaking loss that actually worked in our favor for the seeding. This second pairing was the semi-final game and everyone had high hopes, but our team that took the field on Saturday afternoon was very different from the one that had beaten #1 just the day before.

Our fielders were flat and we had errors on nearly every play. The coach was afraid to have Curly pitch just in case he was needed for the championship game, and after 2 clumsy innings with the Bulls scoring 12 and our team still sitting at zero, not even Curly's pitching could save the game. We were defeated by the mercy rule when the Bulls reached 15.

The boys were devastated. How could they have been beaten so soundly when they knew that a win was definitely possible? Curly blamed himself, then the other team, then finally his coach before he was resigned to the loss. The season was over.

Now it is on to football and the next page for Curly. I just hope it is as exciting as this one was... and maybe I won't sign up for any more scout camps anytime soon...