The Omaha Adventure Day 6 and Day 7

After a tough night where we stood (and sat) in the rain, we get up in the morning to go back to the fields for the tournaments last game(s).  I'm still thinking about why the game was cancelled.  If we win the first game, we play int he Championship.  If we lose the first game, we start on our trek home.  Unfortunately, since you see that I grouped both Day 6 and Day 7 together in one blog, you know where this was headed.

3rd Place Isn't Bad, I guess

Quick aside.  C's baseball coach always started the same kid in the big matchups.  If we had three marquee games all year, this kid pitched all three of them.  And he was not even in the team's rotation!  He would only pitch in the big games.  He was not trusted to pitch in the Division games that would get us into the playoffs, but once we got there...give the ball to him.  End aside.

This game was not going to be close.  We were playing the St. Louis Gamers, who scored 18 runs a game in the tournament and in the lead in group of games.  We kept it close though and ended up only losing 8-4. We made it game in the late innings as one of C's buddies hit our only home run of the tournament and we scored 4 late runs to make a game of it at the end. Not bad really.

And that's it.  I start to pack up the car and try to shuffle in the kids as quickly as possible.  I want to make it back to South Bend before the end of the night.  I give my World Series tickets to one of C's buddies who is not flying out until the next day, so at least someone gets to use them.  And our time of departure means that we are are driving through Chicago during rush hour.

"Come on boys, let's go." I implored as the boys were loitering around the ball field.  Finally, after about 15 minutes of pleading for mercy, the boys hopped in for the ride.  10 hours later we arrived in South Bend.  We went back to Legends for dinner and stayed at the hotel across the street from the hotel we stayed at on our way out.  I went down to the hotel gym and had the treadmills to myself.  I started thinking about the good times that we had.  Ping pong in Toledo, the Tiger's game, the inability to get to the Notre Dame, the three College World Series Games, the Tournament, all of the memories in between.  It started to hit me in a rush.  I had a great time.  Maybe the boys will think so when they get older, but i know that my time with them like this is starting to run out.

And as I wake them up the next morning I had the road to myself.  It was dark, early int eh morning actually and the boys were still asleep.  I had even more time to think about the last 6 days.  It was an adventure all right.  I hope they get the chance with their kids to do this. 

Now let's just hope a tornado doesn't touch down in Albany, Jesus!