By Garret Leiva
Community editor
May 28, 2008 04:00 am You don't have to buy peanuts or Crackerjack at the old T-ball game. However, if you ever want to come back, you better bring plenty of snacks. T-ball, or the registered trademark Tee Ball, is a game that teaches patience, perseverance and sitting on wooden bleachers endurance. The kids out in the field also learn a thing or two. With one game in the books, the eight-week T-ball season makes a major league pennant chase look like an all-out sprint. However, I bet A-Rod doesn't get a juice box and trail mix after the second inning. While our six year old is more diva than switch hitter, this spring she signed up for T-ball. It was our first attempt at an organized sport. Of course organized is a relative word in a dugout full of 17 squirrelly six and seven year olds. For the uninitiated, T-ball is a sport based on the national pastime known as baseball. The biggest exception is that batters face an adjusted rubber tee atop home plate instead of a 90 mph fastball. For purists of the sport, however, this is not baseball. After all, there is no stealing, spitting or infield fly rule. Then again, there is no designated hitter, so that should placate George Will. While T-ball origins date back to the 1950s, with several people claiming to be the father of the game, it appears my mother wrote the rule book. First and foremost, there is no such thing as an out. No putouts. No shutouts. No "you-call-that-a-strike-ump-it-wasn't-even-in-our-zip-code" strike three outs. Everyone not only gets a chance to bat, but hit the ball each inning. You haven't fully experienced T-ball until you've witnessed a pitching dual between an inanimate tee and a batter with the swing of the Tasmanian Devil. Too bad these rules only extend to where bases are 50 feet apart. With unlimited swings at the plate and no outs, the Detroit Tigers would be in first place right now. Of course I'm all for having fun, which is the number one rule of T-ball. Although I did come across 41 other rules on one T-ball league Web site. Which proves that adults can take the innocent love of a game and legislate the heck out of it. Then again, someone has to keep the ball diamond from descending into Lord of the Flies chaos. Like kindergarten teachers and the bomb squad, T-ball coaches need a steady hand. It is a job akin to herding cats. After all, we're talking about batting orders determined not by hitting percentages but the number of pink and blue helmets. Besides, do you think Jim Leyland has to tie his first baseman's shoes? Thankfully, our daughter has her T-ball priorities straight. When informed of her first game, she yelled "we get to have snacks" before running out to the minivan. I grabbed her ball glove, just in case a grounder came her way. If only major league players were motivated by Fruit Roll-Ups instead of million dollar bonuses. For now baseball is all fun and games. That is until the next game -- we're in charge of snacks.
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Garret Leiva, Community editor