This weekend Alex finished up league play in a halfway good game on Saturday night. We ended up in second place for the tournament and third place for the season.
When you decide to do something new/different with you child and they are not fully on board you fret about whether you are doing the right thing. That is how we felt about moving Alex to a different little league this year. The league that we were in before has always been a good league for softball until the last couple of years. It became increasingly more of a boys league with the girls program really suffering. Their fields were ill prepared for games and we didn't always have umpires. We had kicked around the idea of changing leagues the season before but decided to give it one more year. We were going to have to get Alex a waiver to be allowed to play in the other league and that seemed like a lot of trouble. This year, though, we decided we would just go ahead and give it a try. Did we do the right thing? This time we did. The new league she played in was much more competitive, had a lot of close games, and a LOT of good players. It is unbelievable what they can learn from good, close, competitive games with umpires. Umpires who know the rules. And don't change their minds. And show up to the games. Early. With the field lined. And know the rules - did I say that already cause that is a biggy. We could play by softball rules and not softballized baseball rules. Of course, she knew very few of the girls in this league at the beginning of the season but she has made a lot of new friends. A lot of them she will play against again when Middle School season starts. I think that will just make it a lot more fun. I am proud of her for taking this step alone - not many of her friends made this move - and doing it well.
One of the drawbacks of the previous league was that there were not a lot of pitchers so that is the only position she ever really got to play. There were some outfield positions when she was much younger but for the last couple of years she was on the mound.
At her new league, where we had four pitchers on our team, she got to play a little bit of second, shortstop, and third. And LOVED it.
And a little bit of catcher.
Al is a very funny girl, who has personal space issues. So, the first time she struck someone out she turned around and was surprised to see all the infielders there to smack gloves. Not during the whole season did she get use to this invasion of her personal space. We joked that they should line up outside the pitchers chalked in circle.
Alex had a great year, learned a LOT, and made great friends. We made the right decision. This time.
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