Riley's Baseball Season Ends. With Lots of Tears

June 13 --  Riley had a playoff game tonight and it was an unbelievably emotional game.  His team was in the lead nearly the whole time and then, in the second to last inning, the other team just exploded with hits.  There was truly nothing to do;  the kids were just smashing the ball.  Within minutes, the opposing team had taken the lead and then left Riley's team in the dust.

Riley's friend Jack was pitching.  His mother is a total sweetheart and even as her son kept getting battered with hits and walks, she cheered him on.  "C'mon Jackie" she called.  We all called out with her.  But the other team plowed ahead.  What could we do?  It was the spirit of the game after all.  It just wasn't our kids' night to win.

When the side finally was retired, we had last ups.  There was a brief rally and then, an out at first and a stolen base gone bad.  With two outs, Jack hit one into the outfield and made it onto base.  And then, Riley was up.  When he connected with the ball, he smacked it hard and the pitcher, having just finished his follow-through on the throw, just stuck out his glove and caught the ball.  The game was over.

And that's it for the season.  Except for the tears.  Riley thought it was his fault for making the last out.  We tried to assure him, he had an awesome hit -- but the pitcher made an equally awesome catch.  I don't know why the other kids cried, except to say they were totally bummed.  It was a sweet team with a lot of really nice boys.  I was happy to see how much Riley enjoyed going to practices and playing in games, win or lose.  ANd because he didn't make it to majors, he played the whole game through.  Every game.  And had a lot of fun as well.

I wonder a bit why it has to change when they hit the "majors."  Why it has to get so intense.  Sure it's great to win but it's important to deal with losing as well.  Tonight, the other team played better and that was that.  But what I loved the most about tonight was how, when Riley came home, everybody -- including his siblings -- worked together to make him feel better.  That, to me, was the best part of all.