Saturday, March 26, 2011

Wintery Weekend

This weekend the team plays 4 games. Tink and I planned on seeing 3 out of the 4. Generally, when a person watches baseball, your skin may sunburn. This weekend, we had wind burn. It was windy and frigid. I looked at the temperature on my cell phone once and it read 27 degrees at 2 pm. Yikes, it was like we were at an Olympics ski event.

Knowing that the temperature was going to below freezing motivated us to shop for the hand and feet warmers that hunters use and are found in sporting goods stores. The first place we stopped were out of them as the manager stated that the season was over....did he watch the weather report last night? Obviously not.....we were in luck with the second store and spent $35.00 on the warmers ($30.00 more than I had planned). However, they came in very handy and helped to keep us warm. Oddly, they became very very hot a few hours after the game.

At last we were prepared physically for the game with the warmers, heavy coats, triple sweaters, long underwear, heavy socks and boots. We could barely move in our attire as we tried to cover ourselves with a blanket. Tink and I are not very outdoor-sy. Play ball! Buddy's team won the game. The pitcher threw all nine innings and he did not play. I saw the back of his head and jacket twice. My hands were too cold to take a photo of his back for the 100th time so the camera stayed in its case.

Before we arrived at the game, Buddy texted me and told me that one of the assistant coaches was joking about him behind his back and saying that they should not be surprised if he turns into a serial killer. Naturally, the big guy was quite offended and could not figure out why the "coach" would talk "smack" about him in this way. I think that the serial killer joke was beyond funny and somewhat grizzly. Now, if he said that he was a "cereal" killer and ate all of his Rice Krispies....then it would have been funny.

Needless to say, Buddy was livid and wanted to talk to the coach about it after the game (which he did not do). At dinner, we talked at length about the comment or stupid joke. Could there be a bit of truth in it? Not from the killer perspective, but perhaps our Buddy is too intense. Perhaps he should relax a bit and laugh more. Perhaps the coach should watch what he says and keep his idiotic thoughts to himself.

While we chatted, Buddy admitted that he is very focused on the field and during practice. It is his way of preparing. Some athletes have a routine while preparing, practicing or playing a game. I watched today's pitcher deliberately side step the lines along the base path so that he would not step on the line. This pitcher also wears a Mike Tyson sweatshirt before each game. Other players eat the same food, swing the bat the same number of times, shave or don't shave, wear the same shirt under their jerseys, don't wash their socks and so on....all athletes have their way of concentrating. Buddy is no different, just the focus of the assistant's jokes.

Buddy sees nothing wrong with the way he prepares and his concentration level. "Mom, it got me this far to D1 baseball, why should I change?" Why, indeed.....So, I am not going to throw stones at the coach. He obviously made a very weird joke and is not funny. What I will say is, I am proud of Buddy as he navigates this new world of his and meets all kinds of odd people. Some will have your back and others will stab you in the back. With that said, it is important to know who your friends are and to ignore sophomoric statements from individuals who really should stop by the sporting goods store before the next practice to "buy a clue".....

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