Annabelle The Softball Player

For the past month or so, Annabelle and Halle have been playing wiffle ball style softball on a team together. Although they have practices on Wednesday afternoons and games every Saturday morning, it's a very relaxed kind of thing to teach the kids the basics. For the games, the top of the inning consists of team 1 batting through the batting order (they only have 6 kids on the team and so far there has only been 1 week with all 6 kids there) while team 2 lines up across the infield to field the ball. Team 1's coach pitches the ball to them (which I like better than hitting off of the tee since it also teaches hand-eye coordination). When each kid hits the ball, the batter runs the bases while the other kids retrieve both the hit ball and a bunch of other balls that the coaches throw to the field to them so that no one gets too bored. Once team 1 finishes batting through their batting order, they take their turn in the field while team 2 bats through. It seemed a bit disorganized at first, but it really seems to work well!

Today I decided to try out my sports lens and captured Annabelle in action. I knew she was good, but seeing her in still frame made me realize just how good she really is! Sometimes it still takes a few swings to hit the ball (while other times, it only takes 1 pitch), but her batting form is awesome!

Check out the way that she keeps her eye on the ball...

Or the way that she leans in with her back leg while swinging while keeping her front arm straight to pull the bat around...

And the way that she swings all of the way through while still keeping her head toward the ball...

And can even hit the ball right back to the pitcher! (Yes, that's the coach jumping to avoid being hit by the ball!)

And fielding... she always races to the ball and has gotten really good at catching a fly and trapping it in the glove with her other hand ball (usually thrown since most of the kids don't hit fly balls) and at stopping a grounder as she's running to do here...

And look at this wind up! Not only does she lift her front leg and rear WAAY back to throw far, she points her front wrist in the direction that she's aiming!

And her throw ends with a flip of the wrist!
As far as running the bases goes, she's a pro at that too! She still has to be reminded sometimes, but she will generally stand on the base with one foot on the bag and the other in front ready to take off as soon as the ball is hit. She doesn't need much coaching on the bases either. She actually runs to touch all of the bases (which doesn't sound big, but many of the kids still don't do that), and I usually have her stop on either 1st or 2nd so that she gets that base running experience rather than just running all of the way around on her hit. And when she runs... she runs FAST! (This girl LOVES to run!)

While Annabelle loves the game and takes it seriously, she also has lots of fun with it as you can see here where she's joking around with her coach in the field.

And finally, she's a good sport who takes her turn, doesn't get mad when a ball isn't hit to her, and likes to "good game" the other team after the game is over!

I'm so proud of my little softball player! I can't believe how well she has listened to and executed all of these softball techniques at such a young age! I really expected her play at 4 years old to be quite a bit more chaotic, but she has impressed the heck out of me once again!

My beautiful little Softball Annabelle really makes her Mommy proud!