Facing The Giants

Last night A’s Franklin Girls Softball team played a team from Spring Hill/Heritage.

A is 8 years old and plays in the 7/8 year old girls slow-pitch league. At this age, girls are just starting to understand the game and once in a while a shimmer of future greatness shows itself. In the game right before ours, the pitcher caught a pop-fly, ran to third base and got the runner out that had started off to home plate without tagging-up, and then threw the ball to first base to get the runner there out before she got back- a triple play.

As for hitting, these young girls are slowly developing speed in their swing, and once in awhile are able to manage a double or triple- sometimes a homerun, mainly because the grounder they hit rolls right towards a hole in the defense and continues its journey harmlessly into the outfield while several nearby defenders draw murals in the dirt or watch butterflies.

When A’s team met their opponent last night we all noticed the rather significant difference in size between the two groups of girls. I must admit that my first thought was that the team mom or the head-coach must be slipping steroids into their juice-boxes. These were large, large 7-8 year olds.

It was all fun and games until they started batting. The speeding grounders and line-drives started, and A’s team was stunned. Batter after batter nailed balls so hard that the girls barely had time to respond, and it looked like a shooting gallery. The inevitable happened- one of the girls on the other team, probably twice the height of our smaller girls, hit a line drive 2 feet off the ground right at our pitcher. Little AG didn’t move at all- she had no time. The ball struck her in the thigh with a smack so loud it quieted the stands. The crying began immediately- and so did the 4-inch round bruise- that started blossoming before the coaches got to the field to check on her.

The next inning a line-drive went 2 feet over our pitchers head traveling at about 40MPH, again no response from our pitcher until the ball was well past her. It was a frightening night.

Our team lost. But they lived through it.






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