That's My (Surrogate) Grandson!

When my kids were little I loved playing baseball with them. Today the hub and I got to pick up our surrogate grandson from daycare. He greeted us with smiles and hugs then put his booster in the back of our car and I buckled him in. On the way home we discussed the Giants game and answered questions. Lots of them.

The little fellow's daycare is in Glenmoor and we live in Newark, so the trip was short, but highly informative. His favorite team is the Giants (mine, too) and his favorite player is Tim Lincecum (he could have been my biological grandson!). I told him that Timmy pitched really well today, but he didn't win. He also didn't lose and this was confusing to him. I have a hard time with that, too and I'm a geezer - he's only 4. But he accepted it a lot better than I did. Timmy probably did, too. I was a yelling, screaming mess.

Then my little nugget of cuteness asked "Is Timmy a boy or a girl?" I said "A boy" Then he said "Are there girls in baseball?" I may have droned on a bit about women in sports and Title Nine, the unfairness of the Old Boy's Network, corruption in college sports and a few other things. He said "Oh." Then "I'm never gonna cut my hair again"

I asked "So you can play like Timmy?" He said "Yes, I wanna pway wike Timmy" Me: "So you want to be a pitcher?" Him: "Yeah, an I wanna hit the ball and get home runs" I thought to myself "Well, Timmy's good but..." but I said "Cool, you'll be awesome!"

So we got home and while waiting for his mom to get home, the hub played baseball with the little guy. I sat on the bench and pretended I was in the dugout reading a baseball book which looked a lot like Sunset magazine. Then they got tired of shagging flies (the kid can hit!) and they recruited me for the outer limits field.

Oddly, that's the same position I played all through school. Its past the outfield and sometimes you have to take the ball away from goats which makes your mittens stink and the snow is real deep there. On our street there is no snow or goats but a couple of pit bulls that can keep the ball if they get hold of it.

Anyway, he won 12-9 and then his mom got home. Unlike Big Leaguers, he went and kissed her hello. I'd pick him up every day if we could talk baseball. And watch him run the bases with his stubby little legs. When he makes a great play, he reenacts it in slow motion and announces for himself. "...and he swides into fird!" I spend a lot of time fixing my shoe so he doesn't see me laughing.

Really, though, if I had to choose a kid to glom onto for a surrogate grandkid, I sure picked a winner. And if I ask him to, I bet he'd reenact our whole friendship in slo-mo with commentary. And in a year or so he'll do it with his hair flying. Just like Timmy.