Report From Baseball Camp

I'm back after taking my grandson, Connor, to a baseball camp outside Cooperstown, NY. His team of twelve-year olds didn't win all the marbles, but they had fun. And so did I.

Connor and his best friend spent the first night with the friend's dad and me in what was termed a "cottage" in the ad the dad answered. It turns out that it was a single wide mobile home, situated along with two others on a farm twenty minutes from the camp. So much for truth in advertising.

The next day, we drove to the camp and the boys joined more than two hundred others who were there for a week of baseball and fun. It was a beautiful complex. Eight fields, all perfectly manicured. Cameras with wide-angle lenses mounted behind home plate, streaming every game via the Internet back home to parents, as well as to TV sets in the lounge. (And, no, I didn't watch the games from there. The parents were there in person for every game).

The boys won their first practice game, but then we hit the really good teams and our next games were shortened by the "mercy rule" (ten runs ahead after four innings). But the boys bounced back--sometimes better than the parents. They won their first "tournament game" before being knocked out in the second round. But they had fun.

I won't take the time to show pictures of the ceremony where each boy received a replica "Hall of Fame" ring. I won't show the pictures we made on a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I won't even show the one of Connor and his friend, Paul, skipping stones across the Susquehanna River. I'll just show one more picture, my favorite.

Some things are just more important than baseball. Like family. Like taking time to have fun together. Like this was.

Have a blessed week. And don't forget to hug those you love.