Today I have a guest post from someone who cracks me up. She’s quick witted, and if you aren’t following Stephanie on Twitter, you absolutely should.
I love her blog posts (The Red Clay Diaries) and can usually relate since we both have hormonal kiddos at home.
Thanks for this post, my friend.
Here’s Steph…
Last night Abby talked me into playing Wii Baseball with her. This means I really love her, because I generally stink at Wii Sports. In the real world, I have the same experience with every sport that involves a ball:
SOCCER + Asthma = Goalie (which might be okay if I could ever block the ball)
BASKETBALL: can’t dribble, can’t shoot, don’t understand the rules, hate running (see: asthma above). I can’t even play HORSE.
And don’t get me started on GOLF or TENNIS. Hitting a small ball with a long stick is completely outside of my ability.
With VOLLEYBALL, I can’t spike at all, but I’m a decent setter, so people at least let me play.
As for BASEBALL, it’s the only sport I actually played as a kid. For one year. At age nine. Girls didn’t play much Little League baseball back then (Thank GOD, for reasons you will soon understand), so it was actually fast-pitch softball.
I played left field. Not because I could catch well or throw accurately or far (I couldn’t. At all.), but because the girls in our league rarely hit out of the infield, and I had the third baseman AND shortstop between me and the ball.
And I’m SURE the only reason I was allowed to bat (not that I was begging to or anything) was because I’m a lefty. Back then, the nine-year-old pitchers that I faced were completely flummoxed by left-handed hitters. (Nowadays, they probably KILL by age nine.) Most of them could not throw even one strike for me, much less three.
Fortunately, this worked well with my strategy for batting: NEVER SWING. Since not swinging at enough “balls” gets you a “walk,” I probably got on base more than all the girls except the coach’s all-star daughter.
And when I got my inevitable walk to first base, everyone shouted “good eye!” As if I’d assessed each pitch, seen that it was not a strike, and kept myself from swinging. Yeah. In actual fact, I had stood rooted in place, just praying that a pitch didn’t hit ME.
The coach even handed me The Good Eye Award at the end of the season. (With a straight face. I admire him for that now.)
I discovered last night that my foolproof strategy doesn’t work in Wii. Since every flick of the wrist by the pitcher can be a strike, I had to swing. Wanna know how well I did?
My five-year-old struck me out almost every time. In the entire game, I got two hits. Yes, TWO. And I have no idea how or why. So I can’t even learn from the experience.
I think I need Remedial Wii.
Mii on our Wii. You can tell it’s not really me because she’s SMILING. And yes, she did get a home run. But she doesn’t know how she did it.
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A.) I think I’ve had about the same experience with baseball (and Wii baseball…). Terribleness.
B.) What’s with Steph and guest posts lately? haha.
Woo! Thanks for introing me to your readers, Bridget! And Brian, it’s a sign of the apocalypse. Prepare yourself.
Have you suffered any virtual injuries playing wii? Because I totally did something to my shoulder while wii bowling. My kids said its because I was over zealous.
Yeah…the technique is sort of hard to figure out, especially with the bowling. Okay with all of it.
When we first got our Wii, my kids played it all day long, stopping only long enough to argue about whose turn it was.
When I finally got my chance to play, after listening to them argue all day, I chose boxing. And I beat my sparring parnter to a bloody pulp. I pink fuzzy heart the Wii.
I love Wii sports. I do get a little too into it and tend to knock stuff over, but it is fun. I agree that it’s hard to figure out what makes it work and what doesn’t. The only one I’ve really figured out is the tennis game (which is probably why I play it the most). We haven’t had our Wii set up since we moved in January- time to do that I think!
Hey Steph, In high school we wore old fashioned one piece red gym suits. I looked like a freaky shaped radish. I was NON athletic.
When Mrs Smith called the roll, we answered thusly: With numbers…
1. dressed in radish suit.
2. radishely attired and planning to participate.
3. Both of the above…PLUS showering afterward.
4. Dressed in civies because we didn’t give a darn.
5. answered “R ” which stood for “resting”
( R meant we were having our “lady days ” )
I answered R so often that Mrs. Smith called my mother in
to suggest a visit to a
Lady Days specialist…BUSTED !
As to your homerun, every now and then even a blind squirrel finds an acorn. Oh look…a squirrel Can’t chase it, I am R.
We don’t have a Wii.
Question Steph….. In real baseball, one is considered to have a decent batting average if you hit the ball about a third of the time, right? So you are well on your way!