Happy Mother's Day. Pool Play Starts at 8:47.
The Mother's Day Classic is this weekend. So is the Mother's Day Challenge, the Mother's Day Slugfest, the GMB Mother's Day Diamond Classic, and something called Bombs for Moms. Mom asked for brunch. She got a 3-game guarantee, a parking lot at 6:18 AM, and a Gatorade someone left in the car since April. She is fine. She has been fine for four years. She will continue to be fine.
The Tournament Name
Someone, somewhere, looked at a calendar, saw Mother's Day, and thought: She'd want to spend it here. That person runs a baseball organization. That person has done this for eleven consecutive years. Nobody has ever complained. The tournament is called the Mother's Day Classic. There is a trophy. Mom is not on it. She is forty feet behind the backstop with a Yeti full of cold brew that stopped being cold at 9:04 AM. Bombs for Moms, though. Somebody workshopped that.Mother's Day Morning
She was going to sleep in. That was the plan as recently as Wednesday. Then the bracket dropped Thursday at 11:14 PM. First game: 8:47 AM. Complex is forty-seven minutes away. You are currently in a Pilot gas station at 6:22 AM. She has a pack of peanut butter crackers and a 24-ounce coffee that is mostly hot water with memories of coffee in it. You will find a Chick-fil-A. It will not be open. It is Sunday.The Setup
She has three chairs. She did not bring three chairs. Three chairs appear at every tournament the same way the pop-up shelter does — nobody remembers loading it, everyone is sitting under it by game two. The tent took nineteen minutes and one moment of genuine marital tension. It is now perfectly positioned facing directly into the sun. She will not move it. Moving it would require acknowledging that she set it up wrong. She did not. The sun moved.The Scorekeeping
She knows her son's at-bat number, his pitch count from last weekend, and whether the umpire has it out for him specifically. She does not know whether the current pitch was a ball or a strike until the crowd reacts. She has cheered twice for plays that were outs. She felt both were good efforts. She calls the opposing pitcher the big kid every time he takes the mound. He is eleven. They are all eleven.The Card
Your kid made her a Mother's Day card. He did it himself, at 9:47 PM on Friday, with a Sharpie on notebook paper that still has his multiplication homework on the back. It says: Happy Mothers Day Mom You Are The Best Baseball Mom Love, his full legal first name. No apostrophe. Both capital letters are wrong. It is the greatest document in your household. She cried in the parking lot after game two on Saturday night. She told nobody.The Last At-Bat
Bottom of the last inning. Two outs. Her son steps in. She has been in a lawn chair since 7:41 AM. Her coffee is gone. Her phone is at 11 percent. She has not posted a single photo because she was watching. Not documenting. Watching. He laces a single to right field. She stands up so fast the chair collapses behind her. She screams something she will never remember saying. The runner scores. They win.
The Bottom Line: Happy Mother's Day to every mom who has ever eaten a granola bar at 6:22 AM in a Pilot parking lot and called it breakfast. Who sat in direct sun for six hours and told everyone she was fine. Who drove home Sunday night in silence while her kid slept in the back seat with his cleats still on, and felt something she could not quite explain but would not trade. The tournament is named Bombs for Moms. She earned it.
Originally published at Mind & Muscle
Train your mind. Dominate your game.
