Beesa Paya

Clark is turning into quite a little beesa paya  (baseball player). The kid can throw. The kid can hit from both sides of the plate. And he dubs most patches of grass a beesa feel. (baseball field) I swear to you, it is innate. My brothers both were both college baseball players, (one ALMOST made pro ball a couple times) I played college softball, and my sister played softball through high school. Brian’s dad was a college ball player as well. So it actually seems to be in his genes. (Not Cal, however. He prefers pushing the tee from the tee ball set around as a vacuum cleaner, but that’s another story for another post.)

 Brian and I are baseball fans, and from the time the boys were born we’ve joked about turning them into left-handed pitchers  (for those of you who don’t know, lefty pitchers are rare, so basically if you can throw accurately at medium speed, you can play in the majors, at least that’s the joke.)

Around Christmas Clark started squaring around and throwing—not a ball, but a shirt—fast and even following through on his throw. This was out of the blue and of course he got plenty of attention for it. He had never seen baseball played—aside from attending a couple softball games of Brian’s, though most of those were pretty early on in his life and he didn’t really watch the game anyway.

Next he started throwing balls the way he threw the shirt. Then the other day at the park he picked up a stick and started pushing an old muddy volleyball around with the stick. Brian started tossing the volleyball to him while he stood (with my help) in a batter’s position with the stick. I helped him the first few times and then he did it on his own. Amazing hand-eye coordination and focus. He kept wanting to do it over and over. When we tried to give Cal a turn he just started pushing the stick around “cleaning” the field, which angered Clark. If Cal likes to clean up messes maybe he’ll be a relief pitcher. Drum-beat, drum-beat, cymbal crash.

The day after the park ball and stick incident Brian came home with a chunky tee ball set for the boys.  Clark was all over it. His problem is that he gets so excited to hit it that he often stands too close to it and hits the ball up on the handle of the bat, so we’re working on hitting on the barrel of the bat. Still, however, each time Clark takes the tee out and carefully sets the ball on top, Cal usually comes along and swipes the ball off and starts pushing the tee around. You can imagine the endless frustration on the part of the little ball player. I try to restrain and/or distract Cal so Clark can have some quality time with the tee.

The Little Slugger

Over the weekend Clark took notes while watching his big cousins play baseball—after you hit the ball you run! So he has started tossing his bat down and running, when he remembers, after he hits the ball.

One day this week we took the tee, balls, and bat over to their friend Nick’s house with a yard.  Clark stood proudly next to the tee, posing, it seemed, for a baseball card photo shoot. Finally he started swinging, showing Nick how to do it. A couple days later he introduced his friend Philip to the tee while playing at the park. After only a few hacks at the ball, Philip was getting it down.

Now after Clark hits the ball he says FASS RUNNA! (fast runner) as he runs around, watching his elbow to see what a fast runner he is. He then usually falls down, since it is unwise to run without looking in front of you. But, he IS a beesa paya, so perhaps they have special skills for that.