The Boys of Summer (Try to Play Beep Ball)

Brian was recently approached with a sponsorship opportunity through the clinic to sponsor a Beep Ball exhibition at a St. Paul Saints (our minor league baseball team) game.

For those of you who aren't familiar with it (because I know I wasn't), Beep Ball is baseball for the visually impaired or blind.  That link will do a far better job of explaining it than I will, but the long and the short of it is that the ball beeps and the first and third bases beep.

I am pretty sure Brian hasn't played any form of baseball in about 25 years.  Let along play it blindfolded.  So, needless to say, the whole fam had to head out to laugh at him check it out.

The ball is pitched to you and you attempt to hit it.

If you look closely, you will see that Brian actually did connect with it in the above photo.

Then, either the first or third base starts to beep and you have to run to it. 

The goal is for you to get to the base and touch it before the outfielders find the beeping ball and pick it up.  If you get there first, your team gets a point.  If they pick up the ball first, they get a point.

Brian was on the (pseudo) celebrities team.  They played against the Minnesota team of Beep Ball players who are actually visually impaired.

I love how Caleb looks slightly horrified and embarrassed here and slightly impressed by his Dad's performance.

While the celebrities put on a good effort, it wasn't meant to be.

The real Beep Ball players won 4-2.

Afterward, Noah consoled Brian over hot dogs saying:

Dad, don't feel too badly that you lost.  It totally wasn't fair that the other team didn't even have blindfolds on!

Evidently he missed the part where the real team was actually blind.

Here's a little video recap (and if you think his running blindfolded is funny, it is, but try it yourself and have someone tape you.  I promise the results are that good.):