Butler County Tournament

On Saturday, we traveled to Butler County for a baseball tournament.

 Needless to say, it was hotter than blue blazes!  The games on Saturday were "pool play" games and were back-to-back games starting at 12:30.  We got there early and while the boys warmed up out on the practice field, the spectators sat under the one lone shade tree in the park.  I will NEVER understand why no one plants trees at ballparks.  Anyway...Jacob's game was in the blazing hot sun.  The first team they played were the Ohio County Eagles...and they were SO annoying.  I can still hear, "Whoop, there it is," in my head.  Jacob played right field for the first half of the game and did not have a good game at bat.  Here he is batting...

 Matthew and I didn't last two innings until we packed our bags and headed back for the shade tree.  UGH!  The next game was on the other field and at least the sun was to our backs.  Jacob pitched the entire second game against Butler County 9U.  He did great pitching and only struck out the first time the first time at bat.

 We ended up winning the second game something like 12-2?  We played a wonderful game! 

 We played Sunday at 12:30 against the Ohio County All-Stars. (They had two teams in the tourney.)  The park was SO less crowded and we were able to park in center field.  Matthew and I opted to sit in the car and it worked out perfectly!  Look at this cheddar cheese Pringles face...

 Warming up...

 Jacob played third base...

 He hit the ball every time he was up to bat!

 I LOVE this shot...

 He smiled when I told him Bubby got a hit.  ;)

 Ha...this was supposed to be Jacob stealing third base, but instead turned out to be a nice shot of the coaches for the other team.  ;)

 See...here he is on third!

 And scoring at home!!

 We won 11-1!  Yay!!

 We didn't play again until 5:30 so we headed out for some lunch.  When we got back to the park, Matthew didn't want to get out of the car, so we decided to stay and watch from the outfield again.  While waiting for the game, rainclouds kept threatening, but for the time, nothing was happening.

 We played Butler County (10 year team) in our second game.  This ball went foul...

 This was a nice fly ball to right center field, but the fielder caught it...

 Jacob started pitching this game.  The other team was hitting him pretty good, so the coach took him out to try someone with a little more speed.  Jacob had complained to me in between games that his head was hurting and he thought he was getting too hot.  I had him to sit in the shade and never thought more about it until he started holding his head in right field.  One of the coaches saw him and took him out.  We cooled him down with towels and an icepack and I got some Motrin in him.

 I could not believe it, but in the last inning our team started making a comeback.  We were down 2-8 and ended up losing 7-8 after a little rain delay.  Chad put Jacob back in to bat in the last inning and he was walked. He was the tying run and was on third base when one of the other players got out.  I don't think it helped that the umpires were first cousins of the coach for the Butler county team.  (Someone also said that the one behind the plate had a kid playing on the team, but I don't know that for sure.)  They made some very crucial calls against us, but even with that if our boys had made a couple of better decisions, we still could have won the game.  I'm hoping for a tournament victory for the boys soon.  :)