It’s a beautiful, Chamber of Commerce day here in San Antonio.  The sky is blue, the grass is turning green, and thanks to a sufficient application of sun block, my pasty yet freckled skin has avoided turning red.

So far, a better part of my day has been spent at the ballpark.  Opening day ceremonies which were originally scheduled for last week were moved to today because of rain.  TharpSter Jr. and I went over there early this morning to help people park their trucks, SUVs, and even their cars (scoff) in a temporarily dry creek bed which has been known in the past to wreck havoc on those baseball diamonds during the rainy season.  Naturally, before we left the house this morning to go wave people into the tightest of spots possible, we took part in a few muffins for breakfast.

They weren’t any old muffins, mind you.  They were Malt-O-Meal muffins.  The TharpSter Executive Chef made them this morning just for the heck of it.

That will be enough about our breakfast habits.  It’s of no real consequence at this point.

A little later on in the day, we packed it all up in the TharpSter Truck to go back to the baseball fields.  It should probably be stated at this point that with the return of our Pit Bull Hope, we are still a little befuddled as to how she got out of our yard a few weeks ago.  As such, we still leave both dogs inside when we leave.  Leaving the dogs inside has become a science in and of itself for that matter.  We make sure to pick up the remote controls, the day planners, and anything else that can’t withstand the average bite strength of a Pit Bull.  At the same time, we also took the steps to get the remaining Malt-O-Meal muffins in a storage bag.  The storage bag containing a dozen or so muffins was subsequently placed at the back of the kitchen counter up against a wall and behind the mixer.  Such positioning was done on purpose, as I wasn’t really interested in eating only muffin stumps in the coming days.  The TharpSter TreadMill has already made it known to all of us under no uncertain terms that she appreciates the vitamin packed goodness of a Malt-O-Meal muffin, specifically the tops.

With headquarters sufficiently doggy proofed, we made our way back to the ball fields to watch our young nephews play their very first game of tee-ball.  I played it sometime in the 70’s, TharpSter Jr. and the TharpSter Girl also played it during the turn of the century.  Over the years, and even in the last ten, tee ball has changed a little bit.  Way back when, we had 9 players on the field and all extras riding the pine.  We had the umpires and kept score.  A batter could strike out if they kept hitting the tee instead of the ball.

That doesn’t appear to be the case now, and I’m pretty sure it’s a result of today’s touchy, feely mentality that equal outcomes reign supreme.  Nowadays, they don’t keep score.  The only umpires are the coaches on the field.  As far as the tee is concerned, a pint sized player can go up there and hit that tee all they want to until they make contact with the ball.

Even more amusing is the number of defensive players which go on the field.  There’s a standard minimum these days, and that minimum is all of them.  Add to that the fact that they all play infield.  Notice in the picture that there is one runner bolting for 2^nd base.  The remaining 11 kids along with the catcher (out of frame) are all on defense.  Regardless of such, it was still a good game to watch.  I would bet that over 90% of the kids that played today were signed up by their parents, whether they expressed an interest or not.  Even still, it was obvious they had fun.  I had fun too.  Even though TharpSter Jr. has been playing for 10 years and now plays on a standard diamond with a 90 foot base path, I still flash back to his first season playing tee ball as one of my favorite years of his baseball career.

Upon returning home from the game, we found that everything for the most part was okay.  There were no electronics or parts thereof spread out all over the floor.  No literature had been selected from the bookshelves and subsequently reviewed and chewed.  The mixer on the counter was still intact.

Sadly the muffins were gone.

If the litter bugs had just thrown the storage bag away instead of leaving it lying around, I’m sure we would have never noticed such an illicit transgression.