co-co-nuts!

This was the season of baseball.  One long season. Actually, it was two seasons that overlapped that made it feel like the longest season ever.  Six days a week.  That is a lot of days to not be able to go the beach.  

It wouldn't have been so long if Samuel was all crazy about it and held any bit of enthusiasm for it.  I needed his enthusiasm to carry me over.  But the problem was, the whole family was sharing Karl's enthusiasm.  

This is how Samuel felt about it most of the time:

 Sometimes we could get him to pretend like he cared:

 But if he had his way he would mostly be this way all the time:

 He had some of the best fans out there:

With supporter t-shirts and everything.

 And pep talks.  He got lots and lots of pep talks from Karl.  Lots of them.

 I guess we were somehow the youngest team.  I don't know how teams work but I think some people are a lot more competitive than we ware.  Read: they actually care about the game.  

So, sometimes we would go to the games and the other teams would hit the ball really hard and run super duper fast and I swear they would always be wearing black.  Oh, and they always seemed to have these super fancy chants.  Something about hitting home runs and playing just they learned in practice or something like that.

 But as he got more into the season, Karl pointed out that he has come a long ways.  And it was true.  He improved a ton.

Samuel has this way of getting you to do things.  He goes through phases.  He can make us end every word in the conversation with -ito.  Somehow he can do it.  He just has a way.  It's amazing.  Uh, amazing-ito.

So, one day, Samuel's team starts chanting, too.  And it went like this:

Let's go Samuel, Let's go... CO-CO-NUTS!

Co-co-nuts?  Samuel had a coconuts phase, too.  But he says it with an accent.  It comes out co-co-nuts.  

He got his whole team to chant co-co-nuts.  Coaches and all.

It was charming.  Us parents laughing in the bleachers about how they ought to bury snacks at second base and then maybe the team would care more, the other teams with their fancy chants hitting the ball super far, and our team, the Bad News Bears, with our special chant...

Let's go Samuel, Let's go... CO-CO-NUTS!

  

This was his last game.  His best hit of the season.  And you should have heard his team cheering.  They knew how far he had come, too.

And even though he has improved leaps and bounds, he will still keep being Samuel.  It's just the way it is.  What is he doing in this photo?

This will be a season that I will always remember...

 if for nothing else, because of the co-co-nuts!