Little League Champion

I was not much of a baseball fan until last spring/summer. Sam's 7-8 year old, machine pitch little league team had a 3-7 record going into the post season. With this record, you can only imagine how rough their season was. And how hard it was to watch game after game these little guys loosing.
Then came post season and our little leaguers hit their stride. They came alive beating the top three teams in the league in succession to win the championship.

The rested of the post is written and documented by Sam O'Brien himself.

I got FOUR triples, a bunch of doubles and a lot of singles (I'm not bragging, only stating the facts. . .again, want to remind that this is written by Sam).


I liked to play at third base, what a minute. . . I LOVED 3rd base .

I also loved getting on base, I mean who doesn't?

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We won! We're the champions (you know like that song?)!

We were pretty happy pretty much because we won the championship.

After the game we (dad and I) went to the pool to cheer on my siblings who were in a swim meet (and to show off my AWESOME trophy).

My dad was my coach. one of the best ones, because he led my team to a championship VICTORY!

Post script by Sam's mom. . .we are very happy that Sam has a TON of confidence, but are going to be talking to him a little bit about HUMILITY!!!

Fall Baseball

Fall Baseball for Ben has been a little more successful than Spring Baseball. He struggled last spring when he moved from machine pitch baseball to kid pitch. The great thing about fall ball is that it is so much more laid back and the coaches really try to instruct the boys in many different positions, even stopping the game to explain how a play could have been done differently or more successfully.

Ben had the same coach as he did in spring ball and a few of the same players. His coach after EVERY game would give a play by play of the game via email. In his game descriptions you would have thought that Ben (all the boys in fact) was an all-star in every game. Here are some of the things he wrote about Ben.

BEN O’BRIEN got his first call to the mound tonight, and did well! He struck the very first batter he faced (turns out, it was his good friend Dominic!) and held his own in his first foray into the world of pitching. Ben became our TENTH Red Sox player to pitch for us this year…

BEN scored our final run of the night, after walking and working around the bases on wild pitches. D.C. walked, and Brayden walked, and with bases loaded and one out, BRAD singled home Ben with the fifth run of the inning, pushing our lead to an insurmountable 14-7.

TREVOR (1.000 OBP, two runs, three steals), BEN (second pitching performance), and SHAUN (10 pitch inning, 3 up / 3 down) all received game balls tonight…

Ben happy about his first pitching experience.

Ben and his good buddy Trevor (fellow church member and Cub Scout) was on his team this fall.

Grandma and Grandpa Thompson got to come to a few of our fall ball games.

Sam also had his posse with him during fall ball. Rusty was his coach again, and Sam got to try out several different positions. Here is Andrew, Sam, John and Tanner.

Sam HATED catching. Therefore, I think he only did it one or two times.

Meg entertained Molly a lot by reading to her or, because we were at the ball field about three or four nights every week (the season is only four weeks), she would do her homework.

Ben playing with Molly before his game and during Sam's game.

Molly loved fall ball for one reason--her friends' brothers played on Sam's and Ben's teams and, therefore, she always had someone to play with at the games. Here are Emma and Eva with Molly.

Molly and her bff's just chillin' at the ball park.

I put this picture in because it shows how Molly hauls EVERYTHING with her EVERYWHERE. She always has at least a few books, stuffed animals, dolls and of course, "the Blank."