Tomato, Tomahto

Cold is cold, whether at an NCAA Division I or Division III softball game.  And bad pitching is just the same, along with the size of the crowd and the bad umping and the dads making sure the world can hear their every comment.  The one big difference would probably be the heaters.  Valpo and visiting parents carried around portable propane ones while a plug-in unit warmed up at least part of the Valpo dugout.  I couldn’t tell if the other side had one, too.  

This was the first softball game I ever watched without my daughter putting in an appearance on the field.  Oh, I could hear her, all right, shouting “Out!” from the dugout, for an outside pitch.  Clare had figured out the visitors’ signs and shouted them out to the Valpo batters.  She’s also working with a girl who has a Craig Counsell, straight-up batting stance that could use a little modifying.  So, the ex-Bluejay is learning and teaching, which is good.  But why can’t there be a fifth year of eligibility, based on good conduct or average distance of home runs hit in a career?  I could go for that.

In the meantime, there’s nothing like 35-degree temperatures to make a person feel old.  That or the parents in the stands really were that much younger than me.  Still, we’re basically alike, geezers and young folks.  We pace, we yell, we feel the agony and the ecstasy that goes with being the parent of an athlete (or aspiring coach).  When it was all over, the Valpo parents huddled around an open-sided tent for chow.  That was one thing we never did in D III.