I know what it feels like to be the mother of the pitcher when things begin to fall apart. I have experienced the lump in my throat when my son was on the mound left to dig himself out of a hole, when the stadium was not big enough to get away from the fans taunting and criticizing, when all you want to do is sit alone and every man who has ever played an inning of the game wants to sit beside you and tell you what your son is doing wrong. That’s why it was hard for me to feel victorious when we got the win last Sunday against Furman. It was too painful to watch their closer in silent desperation load the bases with walks and then give up the runs to lose the game. Did we really win it or did he lose it? I guess I’ll always be a mother first and a fan second because there was certainly no doubt in Cole’s mind (when I later posed the question to him) who ‘WON’ the game. I remember when one of our coaches said ‘the baseball players with the shortest memories are the most successful’. But really, do they ever forget? Do they ever ‘close the playbook’? I don’t think so because I’ve heard too many play by play accounts of games long since recorded in the archives recounted like the players just left the field. Coaches remember for years what a 12 year old did in the state tournament long after the kid graduates from high school and goes on to play college ball. It fascinates me because Ted will recall something and I can barely differentiate between the schools much less which kid played short or second (for the opposing team). I guess I’m really not such a great ‘fan’ after all because I’m pretty sure if I was a true fan I would remember those things. 
We followed the team up to North Carolina a couple of weeks ago and my true character was revealed. I apologize if you witnessed behavior that was a little uncharacteristic of me but that’s why I now know that I am a mother first and a fan second. Because, you see, there was a group of drunk hecklers at our game (long since graduated from college) who took their taunting a little too far for a mother. It became very personal and ugly and had if I been just a fan I would have been able to laugh it off or ignore it but I couldn’t, it was too hurtful. So, adrenaline pumping, I decided I would have a few words with the leader of the pack. Now the only thing that could ever explain why some crazy white haired woman would think to do something like this has to be because the adrenaline has rushed to her brain and now she has become some Grizzly Bear Mother and truly feeling a little invincible (or crazy as I said before). Needless to say, things didn’t go well and I didn’t make much progress on teaching the young drunk the proper etiquette of the ‘Southern Conference fan’. But I did walk away knowing a little more about myself. I’m not going to run from a fight and I felt like the fight I was in was for ‘my team’, my boys, if you will. I felt like it was my job to protect them and be their mom because their mom wasn’t available. They probably didn’t even know what those drunks were saying but I did and I wanted their dignity upheld. So herein lies my revelation, my AHA Moment as Oprah would say. I’m not ‘really’ a fan; I’m just a mom who loves baseball and her team. I’m not a great student of the game; or scorebook keeper, statistician, or rule enforcer; I am just a mom who loves baseball and her team. And I guess that is who I will always be because you would have thought I would have ‘grown my game’ by this point in my fan career but I haven’t. But you know what, I’m ok with it. It’s ok that I still don’t see the balk clearly unless it is a very obvious one, its ok that I’m really not absolutely certain you can start a pitcher, take him out and then bring him back in as a DH. It’s ok because it IS who I am and I still love the game just as much as anyone else, and truly no one understood the feeling Coach Heath was experiencing at the USC game better than I did (when he got ejected) because the way he looked when his head was about to spin off his body was exactly the way I felt in Elon.
Passion is a good thing.
See you at the field.
