Bad News Bears Make Good

My sixth grade son is playing his last season of sports outside of school. In order to get the boys at our school ready, my husband compiled first a basketball team, now a baseball team. These are boys with a ton of confidence but negligible ability. Oh, a few here and there can hold their own, but for the most part, it is a matter of imagining their athleticism as quite different from what it really is.

So in basketball, they lost every game—but they beat the first place team in round one of the end of season tournament. You’d have thought they’d taken the NBA trophy! They next game, they received a trouncing. Then they moved to on—to little league baseball.

Yesterday they played their seeding games for the end of season area-wide tournament. They won both games, scoring 11 runs in one game, 12 in the other. After the second game, my husband gathered his team and asked, “When did the aliens come in and replace the team that’s played for me all season?”

And it was true. While they did win a couple of games this season, they mostly looked like the Bad News Bears. Remember? They had some pitching, but little else? Their efforts in the field were simply a series of blunders? (I won’t compare the two coaches. Needless to say, my husband doesn’t resemble Walter Mattheau’s character in the least!)

So suddenly our team finds itself catapulted into the quarter-final game. Yes, they may lose today. They may lose badly. But they will arrive at the game with two incredible wins to remember.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid it will only feed their overactive 12-year-old egos.