22 March 2012

swing, batter-batter-batter, swing

My week has mostly consisted of moments of wanting to pull my hair out, interrupted by people who needed something RIGHT NOW.  But for a couple hours last night I got to hang out with my nieces.  It made the chaos go away for a little while.  Heaven.

Both girls play a variety of sports, dance, do crafts, climb trees - you name it, they will try it. Here is M. at softball practice.  She was warming up waiting for her turn to bat.  She's still perfecting the level swing.


















I tweaked this photo to make it look like a film one that might be from the time I was playing ball.  As I stood out behind the school watching the girls bat, run, and chatter (with the coaches yelling "girls! pay attention to the ball") I was thrown back in time and flooded with memories.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I have 2 older brothers, all of us close in age.  So when I learned how to play games and community sports, I played with them.  That meant I played baseball for the first couple of years.  At one point, the boys were big enough and they community had enough kids to create separate baseball and softball leagues.  I was no longer allowed to play baseball, because softball was the girls' sport.

 I did not like it.  Not one bit.

I couldn't understand why if the girls were "weaker" we had to hit the bigger, heavier ball.  Then, what was with the arching pitches? (Yes, we played slow pitch).  Who wants to hit that kind of ball?  It was the beginning of my education about how men and women are treated (and expected to act) differently.  I played a lot of years and will always love sports of all kinds, but the little girl in me never really got over my mad about not being able to play baseball with the boys anymore.

M.E.

7 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

ha ha. :)

Linda said...

I only had one brother growing up, and we lived out in the country, so there was little baseball to be played. And I was a sissy girl, so probably wouldn't have played anyway. Wait, I still am a sissy girl! I consider photography a sport... Having established that, I loved the title! One of my very favorite Trace Adkins songs! And the treatment of your photo gave it a nice, soft feel.

Halcyon said...

I like the effect on this photo. It works. :)

Laura said...

I never played slow pitch softball, just fast. Although as an adult I think slow pitch sounds like a lot of fun - way easier and no sliding required. I'm a chicken and when I had to learn to slide into bases is when I quit. Well, I learned to slide, but it was awful and I was too scared to do it in a game. I love that you're able to support your nieces. I hope someday I'll be near my sister's children and be able to be an actively involved aunt.

Justine said...

what a funny post and I love your shot

Justine said...

what a funny post and I love your shot

Inger-M said...

We don't have a tradition for baseball or softball :-) but I love the look of your photo. I wondered at first if it was a scanned photo from the 70's :-) Well done!