Remember last year when I coached softball based on things I learned off of YouTube? It was awesome. Because the girls were young and I was not a horrible person. It’s easy to be a great coach to little people if you don’t hate children and you have access to the internets for instruction.
That’s also how I became an amateur electrician and learned how to redo the pipes under my sink.
Well, this year I’m not coaching softball but I’m there, cheering and providing snacks and other non-food-related support.
“RUN SO BAD!” “DO MORE OF THE BIG GOOD HITTINGS!!” Things like that.
I’ve discovered over the years that baseball and softball are a lot like quidditch. I’ll tell you how.
This team of 7 and 8 year olds plays hard. They swing the bat so hard. They run so hard. Sometimes they get out. Both teams get runs and everyone has a good time.
However, it doesn’t matter how many outs, hits, or runs you get. At the end of the game, it all comes down to the relay race. After the game is played, the girls line up. One team stands at home plate. Another team stands at second. And they race in a relay around the field, their arms pumping, their faces flushed.
And whichever team wins the relay goes away from the game victorious. It can be 27-1, but if we win the relay, we are champions.
It’s similar in quidditch. There’s all kinds of gameplay that happens during a quidditch match. People get beat in the head. Balls get thrown through hoops. There’s drama and scoring and crazy witches and wizards flying on broomsticks. Sometimes things get lit on fire. But none of that matters.
When someone catches the snitch, it’s game over. That team wins.
The relay at the end is the snitch of softball.
On certain windier, rainier games, a less loving parent might just think, “Let’s skip to the snitch.”
I would never.
But someone might.