I went to my favorite 4 year olds ball game on Saturday. It was so much fun. I think these games should be televised. The rules are; they play for an hour. When a team is at bat everyone on that team takes a turn batting.
A person pitches 5 balls to the batter and if the kid doesn’t get a hit they get to swing at a ball sitting on a T thing. You swing until you hit the ball and then you run (or not) the bases. Every kid switches positions each time outfield.
I particularly enjoyed the enthusiasm with which the players went after the ball. If a batter hit it to, say, 3rd base, pretty much the whole team ran over to get it, including the 1st baseman.
The longest of my video’s is 25 seconds.
This is the start of the game LOL! The outfield is ready to go. In the background you can hear a dad bitching about the kids, 4 year old kids, sitting down. The orange team takes this game very seriously. I think the dads are reliving something (possibly quite awful) from their childhoods.
In the TV version of this you’d have to include things like the mom giving her kid a pep talk before he goes up to bat and telling him to be sure to run the bases. She tells him this about 4 times and the last time she offers incentive. “I’ll give you a cupcake if you run all the bases”. Hell, I’d run all the bases for a cupcake.
Lucas runs to 2nd and then back to 1st for no apparent reason. I love that no one cares!
One of my favorite parts of the game was this very long sequence between the runner and my little guy at 2nd base. I have no clue what they were talking about. A heated exchange or just chatter?
There was a problem with a lot of the kids throwing the bat. The coach would say “Don’t throw the bat”. That brought the teacher in me out. After the game when I was praising the coach for how positive he is with the kids; doesn’t pressure them at all, I also explained to him about 4 year old brains and the word “don't".
What they actually hear when told “Don’t throw the bat” or “Don’t slam the door” is “Throw the bat”, “Slam the door”. They literally don’t hear the word don't. So we worked with them on “Drop the bat”. I got a hug from the coach. (He’s the one standing behind the plate getting hit by the bats!)
My boy slides home!