J-Dude Rocks His Speech

The title tells the story.  He was the first one in his class to give his presentation.  I stood off to the side while he stood in front of his class (outside on the playground) and told them that if they wanted to learn how to pitch a baseball then it was their lucky day!  He demonstrated the 2-seam fastball first, showing them the grip and walking up and down the row of students to give them a better look.  Then he fired off his first pitch to me, the mom, the proud mama, the catcher.  I threw the ball back and it bounced and hit him in the nose.  But not very hard.  And he took it like a pro.  The process was repeated over with the 4-seam fastball and a curveball.  Except that I managed to get the ball into his glove on the return tosses after the first misfire.

Then he got to the change-up and had a moment of forgetting.  I could see it in his face.  But he did what good pitchers do.  They look to their catcher for a sign.  I made a subtle demonstration of the grip for the changeup that he had taught me the day before.  He finished his talk.  There were lots of questions.  He answered them very comfortably if not exactly directly.  I could see him in front of the press in about 15 years.  "Yes, I had a little trouble with my change-up today, but my location was good and the wind was blowing in from left, so all-in-all the game went well."

After his talk was done there was applause (the teacher had instructed them in the art of polite applause before they began) and we all filed into the classroom again.  I went up to J-dude and tried to interact briefly with him, forgetting that he was with his peers and did not want to hear how proud his mom was in front of them.  That will have to wait until I pick him up from school tonight.