Palm Springs and the End of a Season (week 446)

The Super Regional Tournament for Southern California U8 Pony Baseball culminated in Moreno Valley this week.  So instead of driving back-and-forth between Long Beach and the desert through some of the worst traffic in the country, the Armstrongs invited us to stay at a friend's house in Palm Springs Thursday - Sunday.  And after 4 days are 5 games, the U8 ELB Red Pony All Stars fell to Aguora 8-3 in a game that just didn't go our way.  In the end, too many sick kids, errors, passed balls, and late starts caught up with us--and after a 27-7 campaign, the season was over.

It wasn't so bad for the rest of the guys on the team because they are all planning on playing travel ball together year-round.  This was just one stop along the way.  For me, however, it was totally depressing.  Since my parents won't let me play travel ball, I had to put my gear away until next January.  Actually, I get to go to Dirtbag Camp at CSULB next week but it is not the same as looking forward to 2 practices and 3 games a week until 2016.  Not only did I suffer an emotional collapse after the last game (I really thought we would go to the World Series in San Jose this year), but my immune system also collapsed.  Actually, the entire family's immune system collapsed at the same time and we all got whatever was going around the team.

The fun part about the weekend was the time we were able to spend with our friends in Palm Springs by the golf course and in the pool.  We kids all had blowup mattresses in the living room and the parents got to stay up playing cards later than normal.  It was hot outside so we had the air conditioner going on inside most of the time, but the night and mornings on the golf course grass--with the sprinklers going were beautiful. And Chris said that he loved the Palm Springs lifestyle. Actually, he got out of going to 4 of my 5 games--instead staying back in the swimming pool with Jackson and Emma--so it was his dream come true.