Take That Madonna!

On a night that Madonna and the Phillies were competing with Biking for Baseball for the residents of Philadelphia’s evening time, we had to bring our ‘A’ game.

Adrienne and the BBBS of Philly had worked to find a field at FDR park, right across from the trifecta of arenas and stadiums. PERFECT location.

As we were setting up with Adrienne at 5 PM, one hour before the free youth baseball clinic was to begin at 6 PM, we were informed of the competition for the evening. Both in parking and attendance, we might expect fewer participants for the evening.

No worries. We’d have a great time regardless!

Well as 6 PM arrived, we had a healthy amount of Bigs and Littles in attendance and they were tossing around a baseball and warming their arms. Before too long, we realized we were looking at a number north of 15 matches for the evening! Sweet! Yeah Philly!

With a VERY athletic bunch and the majority of our kids playing as regulars to the game of baseball and even a semi-pro Big on the field, we went through very well-executed drills preparing for our game.

The Pickle Drill felt like we were a MLB team practicing before our game. Great job chasing the runner to the bag, soft toss high and glove side to your teammate and scurrying to back up your teammate after getting rid of the ball. It was obvious these kids were baseball players!

HR’s were hit deep and often. Working on staying level with our swings and our eyes on the ball was too first level for this group. Hard, looping, upper-cut swings were the focus and provided the success.

Here was a funny sequence of events between Vincent and his Big, Ben:

First, Vincent was whacking HR’s and talking a big game, so Ben thought he’d challenge him.

Ben offered, 

If you can hit 5 HR’s in a row, I’ll buy you lunch. If you don’t… I get to pick the next event we do together.

Well, Vince talked a big game, but came up one HR short! 

And begged for a re-negotiation on the wager – 

Fans of ESPN will be sure to pay extra close attention to the Top 10 of the week to see if Omar or Vincent’s smiling mugs are caught on camera as they made several highlight reel diving catches.

Great job everyone!

The Assassins vs the Philly Cheesesteaks
Just by the name you could have picked which team was going to be the victor. One was more concerned with the tasty delicacy in the region as the other team was out for blood. The Assassins put runner after runner across home plate and made solid plays in the infield to keep the Cheesesteaks in the dugout and eating their cheesesteaks. Delicious way to spend an evening! *Note – no cheesesteaks were eaten or harmed during the duration of the event.

As we actually had to combat the night for the first time in a LOOOOOOONG time, we ended right at 8 PM as it became too dark to see.

We had such a fun bunch of kids and volunteers! Thank you all for coming and keep doing what you are doing. You’re excellent Bigs and great influences on these kids. Keep it up.

Join up with the Bigs and Littles program in Philly today! Yes! Because it’s more fun to be a mentor than to see Madonna.

So take THAT Madonna!