(This is footage from today’s game. Jonah smoking a base hit down the third base line, and then Jonny driving Jonah in to score from third)

“What’s the best day of the week?” Coach shouts enthusiastically to the crowd of youngsters around him.

“GAME DAY!” they all shout in unison.

Today was the boys last day of challenger baseball for the year. Two other challenger teams drove almost an hour-and-a-half to play our youngsters.

I can’t say enough good things about the challenger division of little league.

It is all completely volunteer-run and so accommodating to families like ours. All the closest parking spots in the complex are reserved specifically for challenger division families and every player gets to be involved in one way or another.

Jonny was the one who approached us about it in March and he had a blast this year, even though he had never played baseball a day in his life.

We signed Jonah up mostly because there was no way Jonah would sit in the stands and watch his brother. He would be out on that field whether we signed him up or not.

At 5 years old, Jonah is the youngest on the team. He doesn’t like playing in the field. I mean, honestly… everyone is just standing around waiting for a ball to be hit. Sounds pretty boring when you think about it.

But actually getting to bat and to HIT the ball? That’s another story. I’ve never seen Jonah smile more broadly than when the crowd erupts and cheers for him after he hits a baseball.

After every hit this year, he turned to acknowledge the crowd cheering…a huge grin splitting his face.

Pure joy.

And since Jonah didn’t want to play in the field, he split his time between his at-bats running from foul pole to foul pole or hitting wiffle balls in the outfield with me or papa.

There were “buddies” at every single game. Buddies were there just to interact with the kids and help them in any way they could.

And “buddies” could be anyone.

Some days, it was the local high school team. One day, it was the local fire and rescue workers, other days it was just other players from the little league. Jonny loved hanging out with his “buddies.”

One of Jonny’s “buddies” was one of the other players from another team in our league and would come find Jonny to say hello before each game.

One of Jonah’s buddies took his job very seriously.

Not only did this little guy help Jonah run the bases, he ran around the outfield with him the rest of the time even though Jonah was just “being Jonah” running his “lap” from foul pole to foul pole.

He followed Jonah to hit wiffle balls in the outfield and helped pick them up each time. He was so excited being around Jonah, that Jojo naturally gravitated to this boy’s enthusiasm. Jonah followed him wherever he went with a huge grin, literally his “buddy.”

He was by far the best buddy Jonah had all year.

Thank you all who make things like this possible for our special kiddos. Thanks to all you “buddies.” Thanks to all you volunteers who work tirelessly to organize it. It is a lot of hard work and we truly appreciate it all.

We will miss “game days” like today, but hopefully we will be back next year, bat in hand, baseball shoes on and ready to go.

Original Facebook Post.