Dodgers Playoffs

Starting in the 7 year old division, the baseball season ends with a tournament.  All the teams get to play in the double-elimination tournament.  The Dodgers finished the season in 4th place (out of 7 teams) and had the good fortune to play the 5th place team (Yankees) in their first playoff game on 5/6.  They had already beaten the Yankees once, and tied them, so we had high hopes for a good outcome in the first game.  It was raining that day, and the field was super muddy, but luckily Zachary's team had the early game that day.  They were able to finish their game, but the teams playing after them weren't so lucky.  By the time our game was over, the field was in no condition to play on again, so they had to postpone a day.  The Dodgers were on fire, and beat the Yankees 17-6.  They looked like a completely different team!  It was so much fun for them to come out of the gate & win game 1.

Two days later (5/8), the Dodgers played their 2nd playoff game.  Unfortunately in this game they got to play the Braves - the Braves beat them 3 times during the season, all by the mercy rule.  We weren't so optimistic about this game.  I think that the Braves felt like it would be an easy win too, which is why it was so amazing to watch our Dodgers stay in this game.  The game started with each team scoring 5 runs in the first inning.  The Dodgers had scored a total of 5 runs against the Braves in all 3 of their previous games (2, 2, and 1 run), so to score 5 in the first inning was amazing, and gave our boys a boost of confidence.  There was no mercy rule called in this game.  They went all 6 innings, and other than that first inning, every inning (except one half) ended by 3 outs, rather than 5 runs!  They played SO well!  In the end, the Dodgers came up just short, and lost 14-13, but nobody - and I mean NOBODY - left that game feeling sad.  The kids were SO excited to have hung in there with the Braves!  It was the most exciting game all season!

The following Saturday (5/11), the Dodgers played their 3rd playoff game.  At this point, they were in a must-win situation, since they'd already lost one game.  For this game, they were matched up with the Giants.  We weren't really sure what to expect here, since we'd only gotten to play them once (I think they were rained out against them like 3 times).  But we were pretty optimistic about our chances.  The Dodgers won 16-10, and the kids were so excited.  I was so happy for them that they had made it this far already!  Plus, this game was followed by the team party, so it's always more fun to party coming off a win.

Two days later (5/13), the Dodgers played again.  This was a tough one because Liam had a game at Webb Bridge at the same time.  Since it was Josh's birthday, I had signed up for snacks, and had planned to bring a birthday cookie cake to celebrate.  But as soon as we found out that Zachary would be playing at the same time, Josh decided that he needed/wanted to be at Zachary's game.  So I ditched the cookie cake idea, and my mom took Liam to his game, and they just had regular snacks afterwards.  Zachary's team played the Rangers in game 4.  The Rangers and the Braves were the only teams that the Dodgers had not beaten in the regular season, so we knew this would be another tough one.  Zachary hit his second triple of the season, and the kids tried so hard, but lost by 1 run again, 20-19.  This was a much harder loss to swallow - not just because it eliminated them from the tournament, but just in how the loss went down.  The Rangers weren't exactly playing fair.  For starters, they had trained all their infielders to block the bases - I watched several of our players (Zachary included) push their infielders out of the way just so they could get their foot on the base.  Not cool.  But the worst part was the scorekeeping.  Since the Rangers were the designated home team, they had the job of keeping score.  I think technically we should have been keeping score in our own book, but were weren't, for whatever reason.  In one inning, 2 of our players scored, but their scorekeeper only gave us 1 run - apparently she hadn't seen the 2nd one.  So one of our parents went over to ask her about it (because even their third base coach saw the 2nd run).  In the process of investigating, they found out that we weren't keeping a book, and at that point, it was over.  They decided that since we weren't keeping a book, that we had no legs to stand on.  Their coach even went so far as to yell at our parent and tell him to get back on our side of the field - IN FRONT OF THE KIDS.  Also, not cool.  It was an ugly game all around, and it made me SO thankful for the coaches that we had on our team this year.  They were so kind, patient, and supportive of our kids - even when they did boneheaded things.  It was eye-opening to see what other kinds of coaches there are out there.  We all left this game a little sad, and a little angry.  The only consolation was that the Rangers lost the next night.

This was a really fun season!  Earlier on, I was sort of bummed with our team - they were OK, but not super fabulous.  I was bummed that Zachary wasn't on a winning team.  However, I would have rather lost every game all season, than been on some of these other teams.  Other teams where winning seemed to be the main priority, where the coaches teach dirty strategies, and poor sportsmanship.  They wound up finishing in 4th place, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything - he had awesome coaches, and some pretty great kids on his team this year.  Hopefully our paths will cross with some of them again next year.