take me out to the ball game

We're knee-deep in baseball these days. Jacob is playing in a machine pitch league. Wow -- does that ball ever fly out of the machine! I was really surprised that it would be pitched that fast for these little guys and wondered if Jacob would ever learn to hit it. I'm happy to say that he has. He is thrilled every time he gets a hit, and if he gets all the way around the bases (with others batting, too) he does a happy dance. Love it. I just wish I had a picture/video of it -- pure joy! In the meantime, here he is warming up:

And finally, the view through the fence as Jacob goes up to bat.

To compensate for being one of the smaller kids on the team, Jacob has had to learn that he has to stand near the back of the batter's box, rather than the center, in order to hit the ball. If he doesn't, the pitch tends to be too high for his swing and he'll strike out. I'm glad we got that figured out!

I spend a lot of my time at Jacob's baseball games watching what Matthew is up to -- he's all over the place. One evening however, there wasn't a game being played on one of the fields and so Matthew decided to commandeer the pitching mound. Watch him throw out that (pretend) pitch! Step one: take the mound and eye the batter...

Step two: pick up the ball...

Step three: wind up and let it fly!

Hmmm, I wonder what position he wants to play when he grows up?