The Softball Journey Continues

From the time she first discovered the sport at four-years-old, Delaney has been In Love with softball.

When she was barely big enough for knee pads to even stay up on her legs, she was out in the field giving it her all-in-all. Small in size, she's always made up for it with an uncanny natural ability and a heart for the game...

In her third year, when she started pitching, Delaney really began to be a "student" of the game. She always knew what was going on, as evidenced by how she's keeping a pitch count with her fingers in this picture...

And when she wasn't playing, she was wishing she was out on the field...

She's not so small anymore (although she's always the smallest on her teams), but she has as much love and heart for the game as ever before. She's played travel ball for years now, and even had the excitement of playing on a World Series-winning team this past summer (you may all remember a little bit about that)...

But it's all led up to something she's anticipated and prepared for, which finally happened this year.

When she was maybe seven-years-old, I heard her voice her dream of playing for our town's school team someday. She'd look at the older middle and high school girls who played on the school teams and she'd say, "I want to be like them when I'm older."

Our town is Huge into both baseball and softball, and our softball program has a great reputation. Our high school team has won the state championship for the last two years, in fact, and we're sorta known as a powerhouse.

A lot of it starts way back at our community softball park when the girls are little like Delaney was in those first pictures above. And then, if they really like it and excel at it, they'll move onto travel teams. But then, it comes back full-circle and they'll start playing together again on the middle school team.

Well....last night, Delaney found out that she'd made the middle school softball team. And it would be a massive understatement to say that she was excited. The plans she'd hatched in her mind many years ago had come to fruition.

It's probably hard for many people to understand how exciting this is for her (and, really, for all of us in the family, because we are her #1 fans), but just take my word for it. It's Huge with a capital H.

I can't wait to watch her play this year in her school uniform...

but I'll also be a little bit sentimental (as I always am now at my age!!), and remember her as a little girl who was just discovering the game!

(If you want to get double the experience of Delaney making the team, read Gary's post about it today too. He's probably even prouder than I am!)