rsc and I watched a couple of games; for a baseball fan it's fun watching these 12 year olds play. It's hard to imagine them working so hard - and they play pretty well for that age.Saugus, MA is a small town north of Boston best known for highways that pass through it and looked down with disdain by many people. The Saugus All Stars became the New England Champions with the right to play in the LLWS (2 pools of 4 US teams and 2 pools of 4 international teams. Last Thursday night was a playoff game between Saugus and Richmond TX for getting into Saturday's final to determine the US championship. Saugus was leading 10 - 2 early in the game but lost the lead so the game was tied at 10-10 at the end of 6 innings (usually the end of a little league game). We were at a RedSox game that night. On the out of town score board at the bottom of the national league section where there was a spare slot they kept the SAUG RICH score posted at the bottom which I thought was real cool and lots of fans were paying attention to it. In an eighth inning break of the Red Sox game they showed some key plays in the LL 7th inning. Richmond was up first and had scored 3 runs. Then in the bottom of the inning, Saugus scored 3 runs to tie it up and then with a lucky play they won. The entire Fenway Park crowd cheered lustily as they watched this happen.
Sadly for them, they lost to Boynton Beach Florida on Saturday and then on Sunday they lost the consolation game to Caribbean team. Japan beat Boynton Beach to win the whole thing.
Tonight before the game (we were there again) it was time to honor the Saugus team. On the section of the scoreboard where they normally post the inning by inning score they had the inning by inning score of the Saugus / Richmond game. The team was there and they all threw ceremonial first pitches to Red Sox players. They were wearing Red Sox jerseys with their own names and number on them. Then when it was time for the national anthems (it was a Toronto game) each went out to stand next to a Red Sox player while the anthems were sung (by a good singer this time as opposed to last Thursday when it was a four person group who sung off key badly and too slow).
It was very touching to see these kids out there being honored in our orthodox baseball temple. Tomorrw they probably have the first day of school and will be back to normalcy after a whirlwind summer of fun, work, and fame.