the sweetest days photography: We are the CHAMPIONS!

My wife Laureen's softball team played for the league championship last week. It had been an amazing season, they played great ball, won a lot of close games, and played real hard to get to the finals.

So the night of the big game, the wheels came off the bus. They were down as many 7 or 8 runs at one point. It was painful to watch after the season they had and how hard they worked. They deserved to win, but they just couldn't seem to get it together. There were a ton of people there too, cheering them on since it was the last game. One thing I have to say about Portland is it is very tight knit. The game was against a Middletown team in Middletown and man did we yell our heads off all night! I lost my voice and at one point and my 8 year old son Roland turned to me and said "Dad, will you PUH-LEEZE stop yelling in my ear!"

So bottom of the last inning, they're down by 4 or 5 (they had been down the entire game), last chance, and they get a little rally going. By the time they had one out they had tied the game. They have a runner on third and the other team intentionally walks 2 of our batters. I guess they figured they would load up the bases and hopefully get a double play to go into extra innings. Not sure what they were thinking to be honest...

The batter they walked 2 batters to get to was my wife Laureen. That's like walking Julio Lugo and Dustin Pedroia to get to Big Papi. She drills one right back at the pitcher, who had no chance getting a handle on it and drives in the winning run! Holy cow, it was bedlam! What a way to win the game!! So now we're calling her Big Mami! (Sorry for all the Sox references, but hey, get yer own blog!! GO SOX!!)

Ladies I just wanted to officially say congratulations!! You made us all so proud that night. You had an awesome season and deserved to win but I think the baseball gods just wanted to make you earn it. They knew you'd pull it together like you did all year and get the job done! And speaking as a parent of two young boys who eat, sleep, and breathe baseball (your biggest fans and practice helpers Roland and Brett) I can honestly say there couldn't be a better team for them to watch and learn from. You guys carried yourselves so well all year, played the game the way it should be played and were role models. Right up to the end when you taught them how never to give up. Thank you for a very memorable night! Can't wait for next year!

-Bruce

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Bailey and Kate. (You might remember Kate from some pics I did last year.)