Here Comes the First Pitch!

As I'm sure many of you have been eagerly awaiting, this Saturday marked the spring 2009 Opening Day for Smyrna Little League Baseball!

Smyrna Little League hosts a very fun and happy parade each opening day, led of course by police lights and sirens! The teams each decorate a pick-up truck and parade down Atlanta Road, through the Smyrna town round-about and over to the fields. From there the teams walked down through a crowd of cheering parents, grandparents and siblings to arrive at a pair of brand new ball fields - finished late last fall.

Here is Brady, his school and team buddy Greyson, Parker and Coach-helper Bill, sporting the Orioles orange.

The teams filed onto a field, were introduced and some nice remarks were made. The King Springs Choir (from a Smyrna elementary school) sang the national anthem and the first pitch was thrown out by the man to whom the field was dedicated. While the kids were bored beyond belief and spent the majority of the ceremony playing in the dirt... BTW, did you notice that Brady has WHITE uniform pants? ... the parents thought it was a sweet and fun event.

Brady has moved up in the ranks of Little League and now plays on a PeeWee team (rather than a T-Ball team.) So, instead of walking up to a perfectly placed ball and being able to smack the hell out of it without issue, the kids are now pitched to by a crazy looking whirlly machine! And surprisingly there were actually some really good hits... including one where Brady got a piece of it on the first pitch! I am looking forward to seeing the athletic leaps these kids will make over the next few months. Here's #5 Brady on second base:

After Brady's game we wandered across the street to visit one of the league sponsors - McEntyre's Bakery! McEntyres treated every baseball player (including our own pseudo player!) to a free baseball decorated cupcake to celebrate the start of the season. Oh, and yeah, Mommy treated herself to a carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese icing to celebrate as well!

Brady was not the only Plummer celebrating the start of baseball season - Parker decided to don Brady's old T-Ball uniform (baseball pants, old cleats and all) and became an "official" baseball player for the day. That little guy is SO READY to play, and I know that by fall he'll be hustling to take the field himself!