Tonight Ariana and the Canadian Jays took on the Martingrove Red Sox at Lloyd McConnie Park in Toronto. The Park was originally Martingrove Gardens West and it is still referred to by this name but the Pewee baseball diamond was re-named to honour Lloyd McConnie, who was an volunteer with the Martingrove Baseball League.
Andy and I had the opportunity to see both Aaron and Ariana in action tonight as Aaron was umpiring (his 3rd game for this week) the Martingrove Rookieball game at the diamond right next to where Ariana was playing. I wish they had more diamonds close to each other, for parents with multiple children.
Aaron's game started on time right at 6:30 p.m. The other Umpire for the Rookieball game was anxiously waiting for Aaron...as it was the first time he umpired a game. His mother said he was nervous and had no clue what to do. I guess you could say Aaron did double duty tonight...umpiring and mentoring!
Ariana's game didn't get going until around 6:41 p.m. as there was some delays with the Umpires. The head umpire in tonight's game was Kai...who is one of the players on Aaron's Rep AA team. I had to make sure and warn Ariana not to talk back to the Umpire since she knows him!
The Jays were up to bat first. The Red Sox had a girl pitching for them tonight and she walked most of the players. The Jays got an easy 3 runs in and then another kid hit a nice ball and brought in 2 additional runs to end the inning. Mercy rule of 5 runs per inning at this level.
The Red Sox went up to bat and got only 3 runs, even though the Jays pitcher wasn't that great. Ariana sat out this first inning.
In the second inning, the Jays got 2 more runs. Ariana took a walk but was left on second base when the inning ended.
The Jays pitcher didn't want to be on the mound but the Coach sent him there anyway. You could see from the way he was pitching that he didn't want to be there, and the Red Sox was able to get their 5 runs and took the lead with a score of 8-7.
In the third inning, the Jays got another 5 runs. Ariana struck out on a full count. She had just witness the Red Sox pitcher hit a kid on the back...this is the 4th kid that got hit by a pitch tonight! This pitcher was also pitching a bit harder than all the others so far. Ariana kept moving out of the box when the pitches came so the Umpire called strikes against her. Andy kept telling her to stay in the box but she said she didn't want to get hit. Aaron walked over just as the last strike was called on her, and said 'good call Kai'!
At the bottom of the third inning, the game was tied as the Red Sox got another 4 runs in. It was already 8:00 p.m. but the Coaches decided to play another inning.
After watching the game for a while, Aaron said he felt like going and pitching for them! I laughed when I thought of him pitching and Kai back-catching. This is the kid who once back-catched for him...and fell over when he caught the ball!
The Jays were only able to get 1 run in the 4th inning and the Red Sox got 5 more. Ariana went up to bat and got a walk after a full count. When she heard ball 3, she was cheering herself on and when ball 4 was called, she threw her bad and ran off excitedly to first base...but she was left there when the inning ended! It was quite entertaining as he put out her hand and told Andy to shush while she was batting! Yep, the have a comedian on the team this year.
The game ended with a final score of 13-17 in favour of the Red Sox.
The game ended with a final score of 13-17 in favour of the Red Sox.
We were talking about the game while going home...the pitching in particular and how bad it was at this level! Aaron turned to us and said that he believed Ariana could pitch better than most of those kids. Well she's been practicing with a Rep player for a long time so she must be good!
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