Goodies for the Baseball Team

I will be the first to admit that I may have gone just a teensy, tiny bit overboard...

You see last week was our first baseball game.  And during the game there were a number of things that became obvious to me. 

1.  4 & 5 year olds do NOT keep up with hats gloves, batting helmets, or well... anything.  :)

So as you can imagine when it's time to return to the field it's pure chaos trying to find everyone's gloves, hats, etc.

To solve that problem I picked up some baskets from from the dollar store, spray painted them black to match our team colors.  Added personalized laminated labels, and d-rings to hook them on the fence.  The kids came right in, excitedly found their buckets and put their stuff right in!  Without being asked,  reminded, or nagged.  Worked like a charm!  :)

 2.  Since the vast majority of the team has never played before we all went to the store and bought the exact same baseball bag which makes it really hard to figure out which bag was yours (especially when it's a brand new bag you have never had to look for before and only remember it was Easton.  And black.  And there's 6 of them all lined up in a row right where you left yours...)

So inside each bucket when the kids first arrived was a little snack bag.  Inside was a personalized bag tag & some helmet stickers.

And I have to say I thought the bag tags turned out really nice.  :)

The tags are 2x3", printed on plain paper, then laminated with 5mil paper.  Punched a little hole in top, added a clip to clip them on with and topped them off with a ribbon.  :) 

3.  And Friday morning right before our Saturday game we all got an email from the coach that said if you don't already have a batting helmet, please make sure to pick one up before tomorrow morning's game!  So we all went to the store and bought the same metallic black helmets...

That was actually one thing I DID anticipate last week (not to mention we needed to keep up with 2 to start with...).  So before last week's game I made helmet stickers out of label paper for the boys, sized to a 2 - 2 1/2 inch circle punch I had.  Punched them out and stuck them on both the front and back of their helmets to help us keep up with them.

It made it super easy to spot the boy's helmets and with their names on them they were even able to find their own helmet without our help.  So in each of the kid's little snack baggies I added two personalized helmet stickers for everyone, too. 

4.  The batting order needs to be posted where EVERYONE can see it to know who's up and who's on deck.  Because when there's no one in the in dugout in charge of keeping up with who's up and who's on deck it's a madhouse.

So I printed a second set of the basket tags to clip up in the dugout to post the batting order.  Unfortunatley when I was looking for a copy of the lineup to sort out my tags the coach asked if I was going to help keep up with who was up and get the kids ready.  He seemed so relieved that I just couldn't bring myself to say no.  And of course with everything going on I totally forgot to take a pictures of the tags.  :)