catch this………..

A game of catch between Dan and Cal summed up nicely in 1 little picture collage:

First… the glove.  Luckily… we are a multi-sport family; when all of your gloves are in Poppa’s car, you can go to your hockey equipment in a pinch.

As the 5 of us began our family fun day I asked, “where’s your first baseman’s glove?”  Cal (with the uhhh-you’re-a-dumbass tone), “it’s in Pop’s car.  I play first base mom.”  Interesting… you see… I was “being ridiculous” when I bought the boy a first baseman’s mitt.  I’m pretty sure it came in the mail on a practice day, Pop stopped to pick up Cal, Cal showed Pop the glove and Pop said, “…stupid, leave that thing here…”  and off they went; I stood there, thinking, “hmmmm that’s not quite the reaction I was expecting”.  Well so much for my “stupid” purchase… Anyway, he had no ball glove at home, thank garsh for our house overrun with good intentions – we have no time/opportunity for Cal to play hockey… Dan however, will not give up the dream.

We got to the field – the 5 of us – with 3 bats, 2 water bottles, 4 cell phones, a goalie’s glove and a bucket of balls.  The bucket of balls contained 3 baseballs, 2 t-balls, 3 regulation softballs, 3 smaller softballs, some whiffle balls, a  few hockey pucks and a thing that used to resemble home plate.  Basically…. we suck.  It seems to me – a family of sports fiends should be able to scrape up more than 5 usable balls; to reiterate… we suck.

So, anyway, back to the picture collage…  We all don our gloves – Cal looking ridiculous – and begin to spin our arms in an attempt to loosen up.  Cal immediately shouts, “I’m warming up with dad!”

Now…….

this pisses me off for myriad reasons.  First and foremost – I can’t stand not being picked first – plain and simple.  The thought of throwing with Alex was far from repulsive (my girl can play her some catch) but for Cal to jump all over throwing with Dan right off the bat… whadabbuncha bullshit.  (As an aside, Alex and I got Abby – there was no discussion, we are just better people than those 2 assholes).

“I’m warming up with dad!” – gah… so irritating.

The main reason I was ticked is:  we all fucking know I’m the best catch player in the family…  in any world other than my jackass son’s – if it came down to asking me to play catch or asking his father to play catch – there is not a single person on earth who would pick Dan.

Take a look at the pictures my friends…  Remind yourselves that earlier in this blog I mentioned Cal is a first baseman – you have to be pretty inaccurate for him to miss the catch (especially with THAT glove).  When I took these pictures – we had just started throwing, I was simply recording for prosperity, just randomly snapping pictures.  Only after looking through them did I notice the theme – Dan can’t hit shit.  It brings to mind my very favorite comment after an ESPN article (I’m a comments whore – I could spend all day reading people’s wit), anyway, a reader wrote, “Tavaris Jackson couldn’t hit a toilet with his own turd.”

Anytime I think I’m even remotely funny I humble myself by perusing the comments following sports articles.

So… I sit here laughing.  Cal had to know what was coming – he’s spent plenty of time playing catch with both of us…  He’s spent loads of time chasing errant throws from his father and he’s spent equal or more time playing ‘hit the glove’ with me (we put our glove in a spot and the thrower tries to hit it – I am the champion).

I don’t care… let ‘im chase baseballs with his dumb ol’ hockey glove – it doesn’t bother me at all….

I’m fine with it…

…you and dad have fun over there…. warming up…. your legs….