Coach-pitch baseball on hot Kansas night

On a hot Kansas evening, I was reminded of the pure joy of watching a 5-year-old play baseball. My great nephew, Jaxson, lives in Georgia, but he and his sister Emme have been spending several weeks of the summer in Kansas at their grandparents.

Being home on vacation last week, my dad, my sister and I went to Jaxson’s coach-pitch/T-ball game. Players get four pitches from a coach to hit. If they don’t hit the ball, they get to hit a ball off a tee.

A couple other rules, for this league anyway, are everybody bats — twice — and the game is over, hitters run to second base no matter what, fielders throw the ball to second base unless it is the final batter then the ball is thrown to home, and everybody slides at home plate.

Jaxson is a whirling dervish of energy on the field. There’s the ever popular playing in the dirt while an opposing batter tries to hit the ball. What about “hey, my teammate is going around in circles over there. I can do that better right here.”

When the ball was hit or thrown to the outfield, Jaxson took off running along with several teammates. It was a race — and sometimes a battle — to see who would get to the ball first. He does throw pretty well for his age and experience. Jaxson is a lefty.

I watched him hug one of his coaches in the outfield. He stood with his left arm straight up like he was expecting the batter to hit the ball right at him and the ball to settle in his glove. Jaxson’s a talker on the field too. He talks to teammates, coaches and opponents. That was all in the first inning.

Jaxson’s team was up to bat. Grandma Sheets — my sister-in-law — tells us with pride, “Jaxson can hit the ball and loves to slide.”

She was right. Jaxson was on of the few hitters in the game to connect on a pitch from his coach. He did it twice that night.

Jaxson slides head first into home plate with dust billowing up around him. Reminded me of the Peanuts character Pigpen.

He looks up from the dust pile and smiles.

It was well worth the hot temperatures in the Kansas sun.

Speaking of baseball, I must mention my Kansas City Royals. Four American League All-Star starters, although Alex Gordon is now injured, and two more named to the All-Star squad. Oh, yeah, the AL All-Star manager is Ned Yost.

Love those Royals.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com