Matthew Monday: First Baseball Game

Oh, Matthew (and I) love baseball.  I guess he gets it from me.  Now over the course of his young life, he’s played soccer and basketball, and I have posted on those activities.  For the past few years I had been trying to sign him up for baseball.  Unfortunately I was looking in the wrong places.  I thought the Catholic School system would have baseball as well as the other sports.  And they do list it on their list of activities.  However, they have given up sponsoring baseball.  It’s too complicated I think.

This winter I finally found the little league system here on Staten Island.  So without hesitation I signed him up.  We bought all the equipment: helmet, cup, cleats, even what’s called a heart guard, a shirt with padding over the heart.  We had gloves and a bat.  We were ready to start in March.  Then corona virus hit and shut the world down, including our little league. 

When we entered Phase 2 of the recovery, baseball with certain virus preventive limitations was re-started.  On the evening of July 21^st, he had his first game.

Here’s a picture of him in right field.  Coach put him in right because he’s got a strong arm.

He got to hit twice.  Here’s his first at bat.  What you’ll see is a walk, he steals second and third base, and scores on a wild pitch.

His number is 18 as you can see.  He’s still learning to hit.  It’s the one thing I could not really teach him.  Here is his second at bat.  I went behind the plate for this clip.  You’ll see him get hit by the pitch but the umpire thought it hit the bat and called it a foul ball strike.  Ultimately he would up walking as well. 

I didn’t film the base running.  He stole second but then got thrown out at third.  It was a good game.  His team lost 10-7. 

Now what Matthew wants to really do is pitch.  Coach hasn’t trusted him with that yet, but he told me he really likes his arm.  Maybe next game.