I Love the Smell of Agrilime in the Morning

Today was opening day for the Irvine Girls Softball league. My daughter is on a 6U team, and this was her first experience playing a team sport. IGSA does opening day up in a rather large way. All the teams met up at 8 am today at the park right next to city hall. They had their photos taken, the teams got to march onto the main stadium field in a parade, there was a "motivational" speaker (essentially a former softball star from the area who had obtained a full ride athletic scholarship to the University of Washington). A local dermatologist gave an "importance of sunscreen" speech, and all sorts of other fanfare. It was pretty cool, albeit over the top compared to the youth sports scene in Minnesota.

In 6U, the girls bat off a tee, they all come up to bat each inning, and they all play in the field. I have volunteered to be the bench coach for the girls. It is quite a thing to see, having 12 girls in the field. The ball still bounces around for like half a minute, even with all those girls out there. No score is kept, of course, since it is about teaching the girls how to play the game. K had a fantastic time and immediately after the game, she told me she wants to play next year. Her team is named the Blue Dolphins. And, of course, there is another Blue Dolphins team in the 6U class (big grin). There are six teams in all in the 6U league, and out of the six teams there are a total of only 4 unique team names. There are two Angels teams in 6U as well (chuckle). Our Blue Dolphins team wears royal blue, and the other Blue Dolphins team wears aqua blue.

The uniforms are really really nice, albeit quite large. K could wear her jersey as a dress, and needs to wear something underneath it because the neckline plunges a bit deeply. We can't have any Janet Jackson moments here. The socks that came with the uniforms are a tie dye royal blue and white. The girls look very cute in them. Even if they do clash with the pink helmets, the pink gloves and the pink and black cleats!