Chewing, spitting and scratching.

OK I'll admit it, I'm only a part-time grandmother. The rest of the time I'm still 25. Still, I have to return to the current time period because I love baseball and I love my shining-dime-perfect grandson's Little League baseball games. Despite almost freezing to death, sitting very, very still in frog-strangling rain and sucking the life from four perfectly good, newly-charged camera batteries at least once (and sometimes twice) a week, I have to say the games have been eye-openers right from the season opener. You probably think, as I did, that the baseball pros have worked hard and learned all those really interesting moves; the stretches, the wearing of tight pants, the lumps in between the cheek and gum, the tugging at tight pants, the bottom slapping, the scratching in obscene places etc., but it turns out baseball players are born knowing these things. As soon as they get the uniform, even at age 5 or 7, they turn into tiny little A-Rods & Jeters. Of course there's a big gap between looking professional and being professional. About a 20 year gap as far as I can tell. Usually there's more interesting action in the folding chair sections among the parents than on the field...and in neither area is much professionalism shown. Gotta bring the family (barking, defecating) dog despite all pleas by the team coaches and managers. Gotta yell (belated, totally useless) instructions ("Keep your eye on the ball" "Throw it to first!" "Tie your shoes!" "Do you have to go to the bathroom?") to their kids. Then there's the freely offered "constructive" criticism ("If that first base coach can't get it right I'll have to go out there and give him a lesson." "If that moron could field, my kid would've gotten up to bat again.") for the other people on the field. I try to keep my comments short: "Nice hit" "Good eye" "Good swing" and only occasionally enlighten them with succinct phrases to brighten the coaches and managers day ( "What a Maroon!" "Since when is in-the-dirt a call strike?" "He had his foot on the bag, four-eyes!") etc. They are lucky to have me, the only sane grandparent there.