The Last Day of the Season

To Coach Hartwell, Coach Dodge, our baseball community, and the parents and families surrounding the players on our team:

As gravity took over and the baseballs’ path fell from the sky and rested finally into the opposing left fielder’s glove, my hopes for a miracle comeback were replaced with the reality that I knew could come. Almost immediately, I found the softer, sentimental side of me taking over and countless thoughts and memories started messing with my mind. I mean, I was still just making my way on to the field to shake hands with our opponents, and my mind was flashing memories of my own personal collection of “The Last Day of the Season”. As we shook hands, and I congratulated the other team and wished them well moving forward, a coach from the other team asked me to make sure that Goffstown, please, put in a bid to host the State Tournament next season. This was a vote of confidence and a compliment to how well our community had run the District Pool Play Tournament over July 8-14 this summer. Then, as I turned away from the end of the line, back towards our dugout, I could feel that choking feeling rise into my throat, and my eyes started to water despite my best efforts to keep such things at bay.

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Thank you Baseball

To Coach Hartwell and Coach Dodge:

This morning I woke wishing we still had games left to coach, or even tournament games left to organize. Excuses for me to be at Allard Park are easy to come by. Mostly though, I wanted to thank you both for welcoming me into your dugout. You two were selfless in regard to our pecking order and were very open minded regarding discussion, thought process, and decision making. I appreciate it very much. I enjoyed battling alongside you two over the past week as well as preparing in the weeks before, and yes, I miss it already. It was both a joy and a pleasure to be announced with you and the Goffstown team at Allard Park this week. The anthem still gives me goose bumps. I closed my eyes yesterday as we stood on the 3rd base line while the anthem played and I thought of how fortunate I was to be a part of the team and to represent my town. I sang the words silently to myself as the sun shone down, pondering the thousands of past baseball heroes who had been so lucky as me. Thank you guys. It was wonderful to pace the dirt floors of the Allard Park dugouts again, and to look up and down the bench at kids playing for their home town community spelled across their chests. Thank you.

Little river trip

Yesterday the twins and I took a little ride to one of our neighboring towns, New Boston, NH. We enjoy the river and the kid-friendly trail which is partly made up of the original bed for the old Boston and Maine Railroad. This trip though, was more about playing by the water. So, for about an hour the kids and I played at water’s edge. A sudden cloud-burst of showers drove us to the van after I let us all get wet and have some fun with the rain. The twins lifted their pine sticks above their heads and called them umbrellas while the rain fell on us. Then they made their own ‘sock-flags’ in the van from their wet socks. These ideas were created by their own imaginations and ingenuity.

Theodore and Jacqueline playing alongside the Piscataquog River in New Boston.

The twins hold up their ‘stick umbrellas’ while crossing the footbridge in the rain.

 

With wet socks peeled off, Theodore led this idea to make ‘sock-flags’ with their sticks and wet socks.