Baseball and Knitting

I have finished the heels, and am on the gussets of my Stage 1 Tour de Sock, The Secret Fan, by Adrienne Fong.  I haven't stopped to take any  photos, so I'll have to post those tomorrow. 

The heels are especially pretty for these socks.  They are a combination of regular ribbed heel and Eye of Partridge.  There is also a bit of cabling down the sides of the heel.  Sorry there is no photo today.  I can show you what the finished legs look like:

I put beads on the 2nd and 4th repeat on the first sock, and the 3rd repeat on the second sock.  I'm not sure how much I like asymmetrical socks, but I am determined to think outside the box.

Here are the backs:

These photos are bh (before heels) of course.

Baseball:

I went to watch my great nephew (my sister's grandson) play baseball yesterday.

This was a weird thing.  They take organized sports really seriously down here.  I mean, they can be pretty serious up in Bellevue, too, but this seemed a bit crazy.

He is 6 years old and in in Kindergarten.  There was a 4 year old on his team, the coach's son, of course.  Why of course?  Because this was not the right level for a 4 year old, but the coach was "playing him up," or putting the 4 year old in a higher level because he was "too good" for the correct level for his age.  Really.  This happens at 4 years old.

This was not Tee ball.  For those of you who don't know what that is, Tee Ball is a version of baseball for the very youngest players who are just learning the game.  Most kids can't hit a pitched ball at first.  They actually have a plastic Tee at home plate where they put the ball, and if the kid can swing level, he (or she) just hits the ball off the Tee.  This way, the kids can learn how and where to run, and the team in the field can try to catch and throw hit balls (something they can't really do with any accuracy in the beginning either).  When my kids were in Kindergarten, and they played baseball, they played with a Tee, and there were 3 innings.  They don't keep score, either.  They are supposed to be having fun, learning the game, and developing some baseball skills.

When they moved up a level, they played "Coach Pitch" where instead of the Tee, their own coach lobbed the ball to them, again, trying their best to let kids hit the ball.  I think these games had 4 innings each.  The uniforms were limited, too.  I think they got hats and T-shirts in Tee ball, and hats and baseball shirts in coach pitch.  When they were old enough for the "machine pitch" level, they played 5 innings, and wore hats, baseball shirts, and baseball pants. 

The restrictions on the uniforms keeps the league reasonably priced, and also gives the kids something to look forward to when they move up a level.  And believe me, 3 innings is an eternity with 5 and 6 year olds playing.  It is an eternity to the kids, too.  5 innings can be mind numbing. (Not if you have knitting, of course, which I did, but I'm thinking about the kids.)

Zach's game was 5 innings.  Five innings of machine pitch.  The kids could occasionally catch the ball.  We saw ONE play where the hit ball was caught, then thrown to the baseman.  In 5 innings.  To their credit, they didn't keep score.  But the rest of it was ridiculous.  They kids had uniforms with their names.  They each had their own bags with bat, glove, and batting helmet, all provided by the parents.  The pitching was by a machine.  At one point, my great-nephew lay down on the grass in right field in boredom or tiredness.  I remember my own kids picking flowers in the field at this age.  This is what kids do when they have to stand in one place for too long.

Crazy.

And a 4 year old was on the team.  That poor kid.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with some heels and half-way finished gussets.

Fans at the game