45under45: Day 4: Palmerton to Little League Hall of Fame

The drive from Palmerton to the Little League Hall of Fame was pretty easy, only around two hours. Once we arrived in South Williamsport, we drove around a bit and looked at all of the fields and facilities. It appeared that there were several baseball camps in session. We marveled at what an experience these kids were having. (The campers and our kids...and Shawn...and my dad.)

Lamade Stadium is where the Little League World Series is played. The games are scheduled for the end of August. Although Shawn has watched the series for years, this visit will add a whole new level of excitement with Nicholas now watching AND being able to make this tourist stop come to life it is sure to be featured on our tv at home.

We watched the summer camp kids scrimmage on the real Lamade field.

After about two hours of shopping in the store and watching the kids play, we made our way up to the actual museum.

Signing the baseball:

The museum was geared for all ages with lots of small plaques and factoids to read. Mixed in with the artifacts were interactive exhibits that the kids really enjoyed.

There was a home plate to first base path that the kids could run and time themselves, a wall of light up buttons to simulate the quick thinking needed for someone playing short stop, and a outfield wall to climb to see how high you could go to reach the ball.

Summer basically just walked up, did a little hop and touched the 8 foot ball. Nicholas was determined to master that thing! Summer is about 5'8" and Nicholas is about 4'8" (on a good day). I have about twenty videos of Nicholas missing. Eventually I gave up and walked on to the next section of the museum. Unaware that Nicholas had stayed behind (which is totally not surprising as he is a champion at dilly dallying), I heard him call out, "I did it!" Of course I knew he was fibbing. But, no. There was another couple who vouched for him. I stared them up and down...they appeared to be honest. If Nicholas COULD indeed do it once, he could certainly do it again. So, back to video. (One of the many irritations of blogging on a phone is that it is too complicated to add video to this page.). However, luck intervened and I accidentally pressed the photo button by mistake at THEE EXACT RIGHT MOMENT!

Drop the mic.

Then on to another section where we watched a video while sitting in a dugout.

After the video ended, Summer said that it reminded her of the feeling she had when her team won the "Tapi" tournament with a walk off home run against a team they lost to dozens of times. Ahh... The connections have been cemented and will (hopefully) not be forgotten.