Travel, from Toledo to Amsterdam

Clare came late to travel softball because we tried baseball first—four levels of Pony to be exact.  She made the transition in eighth grade and has been traveling ever since.

I never cease to be amazed at how quickly the notion of travel sports has caught on since the 1990s; before that, it was pretty much Little League or nothing.  Now, parents go where the travel schedule tells them.

Among the memorable places for us were Kankakee, IL (overflowing garbage cans and a midnight game); Toledo, Ohio ($50 spent at the concession stand for water); and Salisbury, MD (stunningly bad coaching and a possible concussion).  The nice thing about college softball the last three years is that the season kicks off in Florida.  After Chicago winters (and before Chicago springs), I’ve grown quite fond of Orlando in March.

Last year, Clare heard about an organization that sponsors softball trips abroad for high school and college players.  My sister, who believes in the many benefits of travel, agreed to pay for nine days in Holland.  What does it say about me that my daughter has a passport and I don’t?  With luck, nothing too bad.

Apparently, the Dutch like their softball to the extent of having six teams Clare could play against.  The girls did their sightseeing during the day and ballplaying under the lights.  My daughter visited the Anne Frank museum and showed herself to be one of those modest Americans who did not quite understand what she saw in the red light district of Amsterdam.  The prostitutes are on display in front windows that double as doors.

Our traveler brought home three different kinds of cheese to go with five hits, three for extra bases.  I tend to keep track of these things.  

1st Day of Last Year of Softball

This is how you know our daughter Clare is home from college for the summer—the television is turned on to ESPN, with the NCAA Division I woman’s softball world series on.  I’m either on the couch watching or on call, expected to drop anything when summoned.  Clare plays Division III softball at Elmhurst College.

When you take the lump of human coal home from the hospital for the first time, their personality is up for grabs, or maybe not.  Either Clare was on her way to becoming a violinist had we only given her the instrument, or she was destined to be a ballplayer.  She did spend a lot of time on my lap as a two-year old watching Frank Thomas hit.  Two years later, she was lining a wiffle ball at my head.

And now it’s almost eighteen years after that.  My wife Michele and I, with five college degrees between us, have raised a jock of a child who is entering her last year of defining herself as an athlete.  Unless, that is, she tries out for the women’s professional softball league.  Personally, I’d rather she go back to baseball.  She played it through seventh grade, which may explain how she hits homeruns.  No one at Elmhurst has ever hit more.  

What I’m up to here is following my daughter’s last year in college.  The timing seems strange, I know, given how softball won’t start again until February.  But the jock in our house is never at rest, and she’d make a decent sportswriter if only we didn’t live in such a digital age.  She has opinions, and so do I.  The mix of them might be interesting as we count the calendar down to next year.

Anyway, she’s just come back from nine days of playing softball in Holland, where they don’t run the bases in wooden shoes.  Who knew?