Softball not the only summer past time for Fitzroy Junior and the Caveman

....from this week's West Carleton Review

Absent from the photo: Their husband / father who was putting clubs in the car.

Christmas breakfast request

In the spirit of the holiday season last night while trimming the Christmas tree, Mrs Fastball generously offered to prepare whatever breakfast we wanted on the morning of the 25th. The results are in:

Fitzroy Fastball & Mrs Fastball: Mrs Fastball's family has a tradition of making a turkey on Christmas Eve, and serving up a fresh turkey sandwich for breakfast. Good eatin' and good enough for Mom and Dad.

Fitzroy Junior: Eleven year-old Fitzroy Junior asked for waffles. Mrs Fastball offered to make fresh waffles and use the real maple syrup we have left over from last spring. Fitzroy Junior insisted on Eggos and Aunt Jemima.

Caveman: As  readers of the blog know, the Caveman, eight years old, has an interesting palate. His precise, detailed request for breakfast on Christmas morning:

• Uncle Ben's "Bistro Express" Risotto (one bag)

• Bacon (one pound)

• Hot dog weiners (two, no bun)

• "And for dessert I think I would like a shortbread cookie."

Caveman Practice Plan

As all veteran coaches know, you have to have a good plan to make a practice successful.

Since I am coaching Fitzroy Junior's Squirt Boys team, the Caveman's Atom team will be coached by his mom. Caveman is very excited for the upcoming season. While Fitzroy Jr and I were away at practice tonight, the Caveman asked Mrs Fastball what they would be doing at his practice later this week.

Because he was so keen, she let him devise the practice plan - and it actually isn't too bad!  See below, spelling left intact.

1st practist stuff

1. blob tage
2. runing throught 1st base
3. cathing driles
4. infeileding / outfeileding
5. how to hold the bat
6. tell posetions

End!!!!!

While his spelling needs work, it's actually not too bad a plan for a group of 6-8 year olds.

Teacher's pet

Mrs Fastball is a grade eight English teacher. At the end of the year, she received nice written notes from her students. This one in particular I think really demonstrates her effectiveness in her role - copied verbatim:

Mrs [Fastball],
You definately will be missed. You were such a great english teacher. I enjoyed being in your class TWICE a day. You absolutley is the best. Have a good summer. Love Rylie.

What every mother wants to hear

Today being Mother's Day, it was a nice sunny day with the family, ending with the Caveman's first 5-pitch game of the season (Mrs Fastball head coach) and Fitzroy Junior's Mites practice (yours truly calling the shots).

Of course the boys made some crafts for Mrs Fastball at school which were presented first thing in the morning.

Fitzroy Junior's creation was a couple of paper flowers, which were scented with coconut smelling hand sanitizer. Mmmm good.

The Caveman created a nice card in his French class. Photo of him giving the thumbs up in the middle of a flower on the cover (ahhh cute) and then inside, the letters of MAMAN spelling out special things about his "beautiful momma" as he calls her.

Here's a recap for blog readers, and photographic evidence.

"M" - merci  (nice to thank her for being his mom)

"A" - amour (who doesn't love their mom)

"M" - magique (ah yes, magical momma with her direct line to Santa Claus when he acts bad)

"A" - aime les câlins (she does like to cuddle)

"N" - ne pue pas - (translates as "she doesn't stink" - what every mother wants to hear on their special day!)

When asked about this choice for "N", Caveman's answer: "Well, she doesn't stink Daddy." Tough to argue with that.

Cruisin' Caveman

During the March Break, the whole Fitzroy Fastball family went on a cruise for the first time. (Financed by the big money I make from the Blog, of course.) Great time had by all - a few of the highlights below, including some Caveman antics and a few tie-ins to fastball.

- Due to the price of flights, we departed from the Albany, NY airport. On the way down, we went through Croghan, NY which used to host a men's fastball tourney. (Do they still?) Anyway, it's totally unfair, but I now hate Croghan. As we entered the area, a blizzard began to fall, making the roads treacherous and slick - and for some reason according to Mrs. Fastball it was somehow my fault. Good times white knuckle driving to start the vacation. Fortunately Fitzroy Junior and Caveman were not phased and just continued playing their video games (aka "nerd boxes") in the back seat.

- Once we got there, the cruise was excellent, especially the food. The Caveman dream came true: bacon every morning for breakfast. The kid does like his cured pork products.

- We had three stops on our ship, including St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Beautiful island - made more beautiful by the fact that on our tour there, we saw some young kids playing fastball at school.

- Caveman certainly made his presence well known on the ship. By day three, some cruise staff were greeting him by name!

- He also enjoyed himself throughly at the "Kids' Club". He was excited to meeting another boy with the same first name as him (his real first name, but let's substitute Caveman). He noted a small difference: "Daddy, there is another boy in Kids' Club named [Caveman]. And he's a brown guy - I'm [Caveman] Brown and he's Brown [Caveman]!

- The ship also featured a 'sports zone'. With Mrs. Fastball and Fitzroy Junior off snorkeling at one island stop, Caveman (who was too young for the activity) and I stayed onboard and kept ourselves busy with mini-putt golf, basketball and ping pong. Caveman really took to ping pong and by the end was pretty good. He told me that his new rankings of favourite sports was now 1. Hockey 2. Ping pong 3. Softball. Yikes!

- Cruise protocol dictates that each cabin gets the same 'steward' to clean up after you for the week. The guy assigned to us, Dexter, was a very very patient man. For some reason, the Caveman really took to him. Each day, Caveman peppered Dexter with questions and he was a good sport about answering this little maniac's queries. A summary of a few of the questions (at least the ones I can remember) is below:

"What's your name?" "Dexter"
"Where are you from?" "Nicaragua"
"What is your town called?" "Managua"
"Where do you live now?" "On Deck 1, down in the bottom of the ship"
"Do you have a wife?" "Yes"
"Does she live here too?" "No"
"How old are you?" "Guess"
"21?" "Higher"
(They go 'higher and lower' until we figure out Dexter is 35.)
"Do they pay you?" "Yes"
"How much...."(I cut that one off)
"How did you learn to make all those towel animals?" "Practice"
"Can you make one for me tonight?" "Of course"
"What sports do you play?" "I used to play baseball, now I play softball"
(I followed up, Dexter plays fastball back home in Nicaragua when he's off work.)
"Do you play hockey?" "No little man, no hockey where I'm from"
"What's your favourite colour?" "I like red"
"Can you come for lunch with us?" "How about you bring me back a steak?" "OK!"
Note - this is just a sampling of the questions. We left a pretty good tip.

- Asked Fitzroy Junior about his favourite things during the week: "Snorkelling, the hot tub, steak for supper every night." Caveman's version: "Ping pong, meeting Dexter, bacon and the kids' club."

Anyway, vacation time is over getting ready for the West Carleton Minor Softball pitching clinic next week and sorting out all registrations for our teams this season.

This week's collection of miscellany

A few selected thoughts on relatively random items:

The readers have spoken: Over the last three days the votes have come in with 30 people suggesting that the Caveman original story was worthy of submission to the Softball Ontario contest and not one vote dissenting. I'll send it in and I'll let you know if I hear anything back.

Rules quiz: Mrs. Fastball's question about the Ryan Shannon shootout attempt in the Sens-Rangers game tonight (asked seriously): "Are they not allowed to raise the puck in a shootout?"

Friday night action: Speaking of hockey rules, I'll be enforcing some (or at least trying to) at Game 4 of the Rideau-St. Lawrence Junior B Conference Finals with the Athens Aeros visiting the Winchester Hawks at 8:15 with the home team up 2-1 in the best-of-seven. C'mon out and watch, Jr B hockey is great at playoff time. If you can't make it no worries - they are live streaming it online. (I'll be the slow old guy in the striped shirt.) The Hawks are managed by a familiar name to many GOFL'ers - "John Boy".
In the other series, the Metro-Valley Conference finals, the Clarence Castors are up 3-0 on the Renfrew Timberwolves. The game at the Ma-Te-Way Arena in the 'Frew starts at 8pm - if you can't make that one, it will be on "MyFM Radio" and you can listen live online to another name familiar to local fastballers - Larry Regan, former organizer of the Renfrew Merchants fastball team that used to play in the Upper Ottawa Valley league does the play by play.

Fitzroy Junior Hockey Update: Fitzroy Jr's West Carleton Novice team is currently in the Novice B Championship Final against, you guessed it, Edgy Jr's Carleton Place team. Loser leaves town grudge match on Thursday in CP - we'll let you know how things finish.

The Twitter: Originally, I thought it was kind of stupid. But actually I'm getting to like this Twitter thingy. Check it out and if you sign up follow Fitzroy Fastball.

A site to bookmark: If you haven't already, be sure to bookmark Fastpitch West and check it out regularly. Very professional layout, especially when compared to this ugly thing and it always has interesting articles from across the world of fastball, edited by Jim Flanagan out in sunny Cali. And I'm not just recommending it because he's giving this blog props!