This blog has been neglected and I have lots of photos and stories I need to catch up on but I will start with baseball.  Sennet started out with the same Central Seattle Little League team as last year.  We really like some of the parents and kids- they are are all cool people. However, it was a complete shit show moving from coach pitch to kid pitch.  Sennet is just so MUCH more serious about baseball than any of the other kids (except maybe William) and his overall skills are just so FAR above that we were pretty worried about him hurting someone.  We considered seeing if he could move up one more level (he was already playing one level up because technically he should still be on coach pitch) but thought that might be weird seeing the other kids from the team he was leaving.

I asked around at his school about other leagues and level of play and two different parents told me abut North Seattle Baseball (NSB) and said that it was very organized and pretty competitive but not in an annoying way.  Any kid can join NSB (so its not a tryout select team) but it is a Pony League w/o neighborhood boundaries and for whatever reason it does seem to be better players at least compared to SCLL.  I reached out to the director and told him what I just said above and asked if there was anyway we could move to their league even though the season was about 1/2 way through.  He got back to me pretty quickly and said he had never had a request like this before and he thinks that normally the answer would be no if all of the teams had full rosters but that there was one team that had a few kids with fractures and a roster that was smaller than they like.

The NSB is broken into age groups named after horses… get it…Pony League. We were interested in Sennet playing Mustang which is the 1st year of kid pitch but in this league it is 9-10 year olds and technically he would be playing 2 levels up…  the director (Clay) met us on a Saturday afternoon for a quick evaluation to make sure Sennet was capable of playing Mustang. After a few tosses- he said ok. I get it.  He can play up.  For good measure he had Sennet hit a few pitches and he nailed every ball.

That bring me to where we are now- playing with the Cubs from the NSB Mustang Division.  We really feel like we hit the jackpot as far as coaches and families go.  I cant tell you how many times I have been asked (baseball/soccer, etc) “Are you sure he is only 7” or “Are you sure he shouldn’t be playing with a different age group” to which I have often wanted to yell- “yes I’m sure!  I know when I pushed him out of my hooha.” I have never once felt like any of the parents liked playing with a kid that was so much better than their own kid. We’ve heard whispers from parents on other teams saying things like there is no way that kid is 7.

It has been so great with the Cubs b/c the parents and coaches alike have asked the same questions “are you sure he’s only 7?” but they mean it like “are you kidding me we have a kid that is 7 and will be on our team for 2 years and he’s only gonna get better.”  The kids have been so super cool too- Sennet was a bit nervous and as soon as we walked up to the first practice before a game- one kid immediately asked Sennet to play catch and from that moment he has been part of the team.

The Cubs are middle of the pack- they have won and lost about the same number of games but Sennet has not gotten so frustrated when they lose (like he did with SCLL) b/c they played well and just got beat that day.  He really needed to learn how to lose gracefully and this team has been great for that and I really credit the coach and the other kids for the way they handle a loss.

Anyway, this is way too long but here are some photos from his new team. These are from the game on May 25th against the Athletics. Cubs won 24-13… it was a route.

Luka, Cayden, Sennet
Teren, Cayden, Sennet, Brooks, Miles
Teren

Brooks, Teren
Troy
Owen
Miles

Coach Dan (he played college ball and is great with the kids)
Cayden (Coach Dan’s son)
Luka- he just turned 10 so will be moving up next year. He is a great player
Miles
Brooks



Teren
Coaching from 1st base

Notice the kid from the other team. He was a total jerk and wouldn’t shake hands and threw a huge temper tantrum after the game. If it was at all appropriate to go up to someone else’s kid and get in their face and tell them they were being an asshole, this would have been a time I would have been happy to do it.