Jamey's First On-base

While driving home after a long baseball practice (normal practice followed by another hour with just Jamey and myself), we got to talking about hamburgers and how hungry Jamey was. He asked:

"How many hamburgers could you make from one cow?"

Not being much of a meat man, I could only speculate based on vague memories of how much cows weigh and a guess at how much of that was meat that could be ground into burgers.

I came up with 1,000...not claiming any kind of certainty.

But then I pointed out that you probably wouldn't want to make hamburgers out of all the meat on a cow.

"Why not?"

"Because there are cuts in there that are way more valuable as steaks than hamburger meat"

"ooooohhhh....steaaaakkk.....slurp slurp"

That's when it occurred to me that it would be reasonably cheap to raise the stakes so to speak, and give Jamey something to think about while at bat other than the possibility of being hit by a pitch.

So I offered him a steak dinner after his first on-base in Little League. Hit, Hit-by-pitch or Base-on-Balls...all the same to me...getting on base is the only concern.

For a moment he was tempted to allow himself to get hit by a pitch as that seemed the most likely of the three options for achieving first base. However, in moments he decided that would make the task far too easy and so decided to challenge himself to acquire his steak by nobler means.

In Wednesday's game, the third played game of the season, Jamey walked on not once, but twice.

Especially on his second at-bat, he exhibited split-second decision-making with a skill that is hardly imaginable, falling for none of the traditional temptations of first-year Little-Leaguers (the high pitch in particular, comes to mind). Instead he kept his cool, took control of the pace of the at-bat by stepping out between pitches and once taking 7 or 8 practice swings, until the coach told him to get back in the batter's box. But, the damage to pitcher's (too fast) rhythm had been done, and he was subsequently unable to pitch a strike.

On the first BoB he was stranded, but on the second, his teammates moved him through the bases and he provided the game-winning-run!

And so, for exceeding the challenge put before him so extraordinarily well, he has earned an extraordinary steak: Filet Mignon from the Laurelwood Pub in Battle Ground.