New approach with the All - American Game

Today the boys and I went over to the park to throw the baseball around. As we were there the few kids who seem to have a predisposition towards violence were fighting amongst each other and seemed to decide even with me there they'd come and stand around watching us to see if they could intimidate the kids- (I say this because of repeated attempts to beat up my children and several others at the park, on the bus, and anywhere else they've caught kids they can intimidate and beat up) - they started laughing at them for bad throws, bad catches etc. So I asked them if they wanted to play - my kids almost fell over - they all said no ...I asked why not - since they were standing around doing nothing but talking crap why not come and show my boys how to play the right way...well what choice did they have because being the hard assses that they think they are they had been called out and had something to prove.

So, we split up into teams. I tell them I'm the umpire and we have at it - well these boys have never played baseball in their lives - I assure you - one tried to put on a glove on the wrong hand and backwards....I showed each of them what they needed to do in whatever area they were having trouble with - We played 7 innings of very fun baseball - the crap talking stopped because - well they all kind of sucked - but those boys were all high fiving - they were jumping up and down for each other when a good hit was made, or when a nice tag out happened - and afterwards they asked if we could play again tomorrow - I told them if they could play to stop by our house after 1:00 tomorrow afternoon -

As we were leaving the park all the boys were saying goodbye to each other - I doubt that this will resolve all the problems, or possibly not any of them - but for one afternoon they forgot who was white and who was black and who was tough and who was not and they played ball - it was pretty cool and a lot of fun.

Nothing much else today - the house is clean I still need to actually get real grocery shopping done as I only got a few things last night. Okay, have a super day and ride safe!