I’m typing this during an all-day spring rain. It’s chilly and windy and grey and it makes a person – or, at least, my person – want to prune away in a bath while eating Raisinets. I filled up my car with gas earlier today and it was raining enough that I had to wipe off the pump screen to read it. “Would you like a car wash?” The screen asked me. I guess so.
My ten-year-old’s first baseball game of the season is tonight. If you know youth baseball, rainy and chilly and windy and grey mean there’s now a 99% chance of baseball happening rather than the normal 100. I can’t remember the exact rules are for weather-related baseball cancellations, but the overall sentiment is “If the field is fine, you’re fine, too.” There is something around cancelling if lightning is visible, but I can tell you that the number of times I’ve sat in my car in the parking lot and texted Coach Kyle, “If that lightning gets any closer and our child is still out on that field, you had better hope that lightning strikes you a new wife” is more than zero.
Ten is now my second child to go through youth baseball and so I’ve gotten pretty, pretty smart about the weather over the years. For tonight, for example, I have set out a winter coat, rain boots, a beanie, two waterproof blankets, and my baseball chair. (I’ve written about my folding chair before because I love it; I bought it when Fourteen was ten and I spent too much but it’s oversized and has many robust cup holders. It weighs a ton and is the size of a small throne so I carry it around in a wagon. “Oh, Amanda, that sounds kind of obnoxious,” you may be thinking, and urrryeah, it’s totally obnoxious.) I will not bring an umbrella even though a lot of people bring umbrellas because my dad and I once spent a baseball game trying to keep our umbrella from turning inside out and/or blowing us over the back of our chairs (that was when I was still using a normal-sized chair; ugh).
When Fourteen was eight or so, he had a night game that went into extra innings. Ten was the age where “Mom going to baseball” meant chasing Ten around the playground for two hours so I hadn’t planned on attending, but Kyle texted me when he was pretty sure the game would run long and so I drove in to bring them some snacks and sweatshirts and maybe watch my babe hit a ball.
We lived in the country at the time and it was a 20-minute drive to town. It had been drizzling before I left; somewhere around minute two, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. By the time I got to the field, the stadium lights were on, the extra innings had now gone into extra-extra innings, and everyone was wet and cranky.
“This should be almost over,” Kyle told me through the dugout fence as a player struck out, possibly because he couldn’t see through the rain, or possibly because his bat was slippery, or possibly because he was a little feller and the theme of little fellers in youth baseball is “If you don’t swing it’ll probably be a ball, if you swing it’ll probably be a strike.”
The game went into extra-extra-extra-extra innings. Ten-Then-Four stomped in puddles and played in the mud. The parents, huddling together in youth baseball camaraderie, started shouting missives at anyone on the field in the hope that something would inspire the game to conclude. In response to the weather and the hour and the fact that they were like eight years old and OVER IT, the players began to cry.
Each at-bat went like this: sniffling child walked up to the plate. Pitcher pitched. Sniffling child either hit the ball or didn’t. Sniffling turned into full-blown crying when it became evident that the hit/non-hit would mean the continuation of the game. Rain rained. Repeat.
Finally, the game ended. In celebration, everyone grabbed their children and hustled to their cars and their homes and their bathtubs and their Raisinets.
“What did you think of that game, buddy?” I asked Fourteen-Then-Eight once we were in the comfort of our seat heaters and tinfoil-wrapped hot dogs.
“Good!” he said. “We won.”
I told you I was writing this an anticipation of Ten’s first game tonight; poetically, I just received an email that it was cancelled due to weather. I called Ten up to my office to let him know it was off.
“WHAT?” He said, supremely disappointed. “But I wanted to play!”
“You’ll play on Wednesday,” I said.
“That’s bull,” he said, gesturing to the rain. “It’s not even that bad out!”
The photo above is of Fourteen and was taken on Martha’s Vineyard in 2012. Speaking of Martha’s Vineyard, my best friend Raemi’s fifth Martha’s Vineyard mystery is available for pre-order. Check it out!
This week on North Dakota Today, we talked about Megan Frankl-Mann, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as a family donating their time to the Larimore Food Pantry. (Valley News Live)
Plaza’s John Otto is being bullied by a baby bison named Georgie. (Cowboy State Daily)
Over 100 North Dakota veterans have returned from the latest Honor Flight to Washington, DC. (KFYR TV)
Look at all of these nice folks who helped clean up Turtle River State Park. (Facebook)
In good news for children and germs and bad news for parents, Chuck E. Cheese is back. (Fargo Forum)
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