Getting there...

The All Star tournament starts on Saturday morning with a game at 10am in Benicia. That will end what has been a 14 day break between our last game - the Tournament of Champions Championship Game - on Father's Day. Its been steady baseball for the boys, though - practices for all-stars began the Monday after the TOC. But as far as Douglas is concerned, this has been an interminable dry spell. By this afternoon, he couldn't stand it. "WHEN DO THEY PLAY BASEBALL AGAIN???" he asked in his six-year-old-mix of plead, desperation and frustration. "Saturday, Buddy. 10am. Between now and then its just practices." "Can we go to a practice then?" Well, as it turns out, practice was happening at the field we pass on our way home, so we did go - and here are a few images from practice. We weren't there 5 minutes before D was in one of the cages with two other little brothers, all showing off their 'sneaky curve balls' and 'circle curves' and 'fastballs.' And 5 minutes later, several of the bigger boys had drifted over and were teaching them how to do it even better -- Dahlene caught, Cal threw, and a revolving group of boys wandered behind the net to give tips on hitting. Cal even threw a brush-back to Douglas, just so he'd get the idea of what to do. How can anyone not love baseball with guys like these showing you how to play?

Put me in, coach.

A piece of the action during the regular season.

...in their biggest fans.

What the boys inspire...

The Boys of Summer

This picture, for me, captures the very best of the boys in Napa Little League. This was taken during one of the Rookie Giants games this spring - these boys, having already played or waiting to play, their Majors games came to the dugout of the littlest players to cheer them on and give them some help. They made the Rookie boys feel like All Stars that day.

This is just testing my ability to update the blog by text message...

West Regional Tournament San Bernardino, California August 6 - 15

Just in case anyone needs to make tentative plans for where to be in August... http://www.littleleague.org/series/2010divisions/llbb/qualify/west.htm

Welcome to the Team

I have never blogged about anything. But I do apparently demonstrate enough enthusiasm for this group of boys from Napa and the way they play baseball - and almost as important, they way they have taught my son to love baseball - it was suggested to me that perhaps I SHOULD blog about THIS. I've thought about it for a few days, and decided that is a great idea. My hope is that this one site will keep the extended fan base in the loop in one streamlined update rather than the myriad of emails and text I have been sending to the ever changing list of people who could not make a particular game. Here it is - in somewhat intimidatingly more organized fashion - my color commentary and 'calls' for the 12-year-old Napa National All-Stars for the 2010 tournament. This will most definitely be a learning process for me, so feel free to leave feedback :)