Starting in February, the twins joined their very first softball team. While they generally enjoy tennis, gymnastics, and other individual sports more than being team sports girls, we wanted them to at least have the experience of playing on a team and learning the game. Capo Girls is a really fun girls league that starts at the 6U level, which was perfect for beginners Samantha and Amelia. They’ve unfortunately inherited my lack of coordination when it comes to throwing and hitting balls, so we practiced in the weeks before the start of the league and the girls actually enjoyed playing catch and learning to hit the ball. Tennis definitely seemed to have helped their hand-eye-coordination! Amelia, especially was doing awesome hitting the ball without a tee, until she broke her arm. Bad timing!
Their coach, Coach Valerie, coaches high school softball and has a niece on their team. She makes the game fun and is so positive and encouraging. For their very first practice, she had the team playing tag to teach them running to the bases, and she always makes a game out of practicing catching, throwing and hitting. At the first practice, she announced their team color would be pink and asked the girls if they had any suggestions for their team name. Amelia came up with “Pink Penguins” and Samantha immediately seconded her sister. There were several other suggested names, but it came down to Pink Penguins or Pink Cocoa Bears from another girl (which I personally thought was adorable). The team voted and chose Amelia’s name– I guess it’s very useful to have a twin sister and always vote in a block!
Aunt Sarah had been in town for a few days visiting before going to Palm Springs for a conference. She had to leave before the twins’ first game, but as a former softball player, she was proud they were trying it out.
Their first game the week prior was postponed because of rain, and it was pouring on the morning of the rescheduled Opening Day and game too! Everyone huddled under tents and drank hot chocolate/ate breakfast burritos for an hour waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually, it did, and it was finally time for a little team parade and then their first game.
Go Pink Penguins!
I have to admit that half the appeal of softball is the adorable uniforms.
All the older girls made a big deal out of the younger players to get them excited.
The actual softball field was too muddy to play on from the rain, so they improvised and played on a field nearby. It was quite entertaining to watch the girls at bat!
Learning the rules…
Go Samantha!
They remind me of old-school Nintendo Mario Brothers running around. Those little legs!
Games are very low key at the 6U level. They don’t keep score, everyone gets as many tries as they need at bat (toward the end of the game, they do coach pitch), the outfielders’ only job is to throw it to first base every time, and the last batter up in the line gets to do a home run! As far as team sports go, it’s the perfect low key environment for non-competitive Samantha and Amelia.
Meredith is the team’s mascot and cheerleader. She’s already made friends with everyone on the team and everyone requested to play with her on the playground afterwards. She DESPERATELY wants to be on the team. Maybe she’ll be more in to team sports than the twins?
We make it fun by hitting up the snack bar after the games– food always seems to leave a good impression on the twins so that they are more motivated to play!
Lots of love,
