This picture was from opening night for little league, back on the 30th of March. It was COLD, but that didn't stop the crowd from showing up, or the players from playing.

I think the more time I spend around it, the more I may actually be 'getting' this game ... but not just the game, the whole aura of it. The sounds, the smells, the food and the dust. There's also the atmosphere at the ballpark. And the Little League ballpark is different ... especially here in the country. Everybody knows everybody. People work together, shop next to each other in the aisle at the supermarket, go to church together ... so there's sometimes a tension that develops when teams go at each other and emotions run high.

I'm writing this almost two and a half months into the season -- it's almost over. At today's game, Caleb's team won. They are apparently in first place. The game ended roughly. It was well played, and hard played, but there were moments when the kids were ... more angry kids than they were athletes. So it goes. I don't know all the ins and outs of the game enough to understand exactly what happened, but I came away a little more aware of the subtext involved in the competition between two teams facing off. It's not just the teams. It is also the coaches, and the umpires, and the assistant coaches, and the parents.

There was a little drama that played itself out after the end of the game. The pitcher for the other team (who started yelling and calling the boy who hit the winning run in -- and hit an inside-the-park homerun at the same time - a cheater -- and was promptly picked up and carried away from the direction of the stands by the assistant coach) came around to our side of the field just brimming with anger ... (he ran off the field in tears) and he got a hold of a tennis ball, and was tossing it - hard - between his hands ... kind of like he was getting ready to haul off and throw it at one of our players. We stayed around, kept our distance, from both him AND our team and their coach as he was going through some debriefing with them ... and finally one of the mothers from the other team walked over to him and started talking to him ... it seemed like she was his mother, but I couldn't say for sure. The parking area was there as well, so everyone associated with both teams was starting to mingle as they went to their cars. I think one of the younger brothers of one of the other players (who was not, as near as I can remember, watching the game, but rather was playing with the other boys who were accompanying the families) started yelling 'cheaters' at our players, and several of the players from the other team picked it up and started yelling as well. The coaches were there, and they did nothing to stop them from doing it. Our son's coach I think probably told his team members to ignore them or at least to not respond, and they didn't. I was proud of them for that.

All that to say, it was an interesting glimpse into the dynamics in small-town little league ball. The coaches know the umps and the parents and the kids ... our coach in fact coached the parents of some of the kids that are now on his team. So there's a lesson there. Just trying to get my brain around just what it was.