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Mar
29
2024

Jimmy’s back, so is t-ball

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Spring is here, summer is right around the corner, and that means it’s time once again for the Perry League, Yellow Springs’ all volunteer, 10-week t-ball program for girls and boys, 2–9 years of age. It’s a non-competitive, beginner’s baseball program for all our community’s children regardless of their race, color, creed, sexual orientation, ethnicity, spiritual inclination or practice, ability or disability. And it’s free.

If you’re interested, or your kid is interested, then all you have to do is just show up June 6, the first Friday night of our 2014 season. You can come to play ball with us or you can come to just watch. You can be a kid, a mom, a dad, a brother, a sister, an uncle, an aunt, a grandma, grandpa, baby sitter or nanny. You’re all welcome, you and your children, one and all.

Perry League’s a special, often hilarious program and we pride ourselves on how loving and tender we are, how patient and welcoming we are, how our focus is on the children and doing everything we can to ensure they are safe and happy and having fun.

Every child is given the opportunity to bat, to hit the ball and run the bases; the opportunity to field the ball, to catch the balls hit off the tee, and throw them back to our many wonderful joyful happy happy enthusiastic volunteers — which are both adults and caregivers and the kids themselves — a lot of our older kids (being six and up qualifies you as an “older” kid in our program) love to throw balls out to the children in the infield after the child at bat has hit his or her ball off the tee. We throw out a half dozen or more balls after each kid bats, an idea one of our parents suggested some years back — it’s a way we try to make sure every child gets a chance to get her hands on a ball, gets a chance to field a ball and throw it back to the volunteer coach tossing those extra balls out in the first place — though the kids don’t always just throw balls back. Many of these little characters are natural comedians, jokesters who often enjoy throwing those balls back toward the person throwing them out, sometimes throwing the balls way over our heads, finding this calculated exacerbation deliciously devious and delightful. 

One other thing. This is the first time I have been on these pages since last June. As some of you know, I took a nasty fall and cracked my skull on the concrete spillway on the southern end of the Ellis Pond last summer. Last July 7, to be exact. I suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, broke my skull — now I know what that old rhyme about Jack and Jill going up the hill to fetch a pail of water really means. You remember, when “Jack fell down and broke his crown?” Well, that’s what I did, I fell down and broke my crown, and I was out of commission for the rest of the summer.

I am back now, on my feet, walking my dog, feeling and looking fairly “normal” again. And I have had such a successful recovery because of the grace of God and some remarkable caregivers – from the two people who “heard” me fall that day last summer and came 70 yards up the pond to pull me out of the muck; to the emergency, paramedic rescue squad people; to the two local Yellow Springs cops on the scene; to my wife and daughter; to the extraordinary medical people at Greene, Kettering, and Miami Valley Hospitals. And I have had such a successful recovery because of many of you reading this article right now, you who sent me cards and wishes for my speedy recovery, you who sent me your love and your prayers, your faith and your hope. 

I have been lucky, and blessed, in many ways because of and through this ordeal. I have been surprised as well, and one of the most interesting surprises and loveliest revelations to me was how important, how amazingly healing and therapeutic, all these cards and prayers, all this love and attention, all these wishes for my speedy recovery, were. Your generous outpouring of concern, your caring for me, your taking the time to reach out to me and my family, has been and continues to be a vital component of my recovery. I have all those cards and notes, and a slew of wonderful, unique, and eccentric pictures drawn by many of these sweet, loving, creative, and concerned t-ball children. I have all those cards and they lifted me up, they gave me life, they gave me strength and hope. They did. You did. And they and you still do. And for that, from my most vulnerable t-ball little boy self, I say thank you. Thank you very much.

Now, you wanna play some ball? Yeah? Well, good. Then come on out. Be with us again. We’ll be out there starting Friday night, June 6, at Gaunt Park, from 6:30–8 p.m. 

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One Response to “Jimmy’s back, so is t-ball”

  1. Bev Groner says:

    So glad to hear you’re back!! Can’t imagine T-ball without you.

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