Meet the Team

Background
Last year I was going through the mail and for some reason saw the Park District’s athletics brochure. I then got the idea to coach a team in the house baseball league. I wanted to do it with somebody as I was only 23 at the time and so there would be a sort of “safety” in numbers. I had previously coached a high school prep league basketball team (the sport I really am best qualified to coach in) and wanted to have a coaching experience in the spring. I contacted a former best friend from high school, who I had fallen out of touch with after our first year of college, to see if he’d be interested in doing it with me. He was and we agreed to do the 5th-6th grade league as that would have the kids be old enough that they would have some grasp of the basics, but not so old that we didn’t know a million times more about how to play baseball then they did.

We ended up coaching the Mets last year. It was a good experience as we were matched with an assistant coach, purely by luck, who was normally a head coach but was starting a new job and so he was unsure if he’d have the time to be a head coach. I was technically the head coach, but in reality it was more that we were all co-coaches with none of us ever raising a fuss about decisions that were made. My friend, whose name is Steve, and I did the lineups and such, but having that experienced coach in our corner was invaluable. I feel like we both learned a lot and we had the time of our lives doing it. Our team ended up finishing in 3rd place out of the 16 teams so we felt really good about it. I really can’t express what a blast we had. We decided, however, that we were ready to do it on our own this year.

The Team Comes Together

In previous years what they had done is all the coaches got together and evaluated the players. They then drafted a team. After the draft teams were distributed randomly so you most likely did not get the team you drafted. This year they did it differently. Rather then evaluating the kids through a 3 hour clinic they had the coaches fill out extensive evaluations at the end of the previous season. This, combined with any changes from this year’s clinic, which coaches could not attend was how they graded the players. They then simply put people onto teams. The catch was that they also didn’t tell anyone that they would be coaching until AFTER the teams were out. Steve and I at first felt we were being jerked around, but really it wasn’t true, they just did things in a sort of strange manner.

When the roster came out, we saw that we were indeed coaches and would be co-coaching the Marlins. Looking over the roster I knew about a quarter of the kids. Despite our wishing and hoping we didn’t get any of the same kids as last year. As I said at the time I felt that their combined weight was MAYBE as much as me. Further, despite this being baseball, and their being a separate softball league, one of the players I knew was a girl. I happen to know she was a complete tomboy and from what little I knew most likely an excellent athlete, but this combined with the complete lack of skill that I expected from the other players did not make me hopeful.

The First Practice

Today was our first practice. Last year we had 2 practices and then the rest of the days were games. This year we are going to have 3 practices before the first game and then at least 1 of the 3 days each week is a practice. This will be quite different and I think might actually be too much practice for a house league (there’s something nice about just letting them play) but it will allow Steve and I to do things we couldn’t do last year.

Whereas Steve would be happy to wing things, the teacher in me knows that planning must be done and so it seems like I will be doing most of the outlining of what we do during practice, which is fine. As we have 3 kids who cannot make Tuesday practices, nor games, we decided to save fielding, pitching/catching until tomorrow when the whole squad will be there as in Majors baseball good fielding wins more games (or rather doesn’t lose them) then anything else.

As such today was a hitting practice. After stretching and quick intro, half of the 9 (1 Hebrew School kid was there) kids went with Steve to do hitting off the Tee while the other half was with me doing whiffle golf ball hitting. After we did that for about 40 minutes we were able to use the baseball diamond (2 teams practice on the same field) and so we played a hitting/conditioning game. Turns out during one group at the Tee somebody made a derogatory remark against Mexicans, which wasn’t so good as one of our players is Latino.

After both teams had a chance to bat we called them in, at second base away from the parents (that was Steve’s excellent idea) and focused on the importance of us as a team. I think it was a pretty successful practice all things considered

Meet the Team

Steve got to the field before I did. A father and his son were already there. The first thing the father says to Steve is “You’ve got your work cut-out for you.” He goes onto explain that his son, a kid of average height for a 6th grader, was going to be one of the tallest people on the team. And this proved to be entirely true. One of the kids even admitted during practice today that there are a couple kindergartners bigger then he is, which as a 5th grader isn’t what you want. The team we got last year was no real shakes either, but they came together extremely well and developed as players well, so I still hold out hope for a successful season.

Let’s do a person by person breakdown. I am going to use pseudonyms to protect the kid’s identities.

Jodi – This is our girl. She’s a Hebrew Schooler so we’ll see her tomorrow.
Try – Could be the best player on the team. Though I haven’t really seen him pitch except loosely to his dad it’s likely he’ll be our starting pitcher. Above average, though not knockout, hitter.
Ethan – This kid carries himself like an athlete. During our game he ran so hard he made himself sick, so you’ve got to like the hustle. Thing is he couldn’t make contact with a moving ball. I keep wanting to think that he was just excited as it was the first practice, as his form is decent, but he is swinging too soon for the most part, but he’s a bit of a mystery for now.
Avi -- Hebrew schooler
Jesse - Our tallest player. He’s not a great hitter, and has your typical 6th grader’s focus, which is to say not much, BUT he’s the sort of kid who, without being asked, will go and get balls that were hit. He has a sense of humor so he isn’t a goody too shoes either. He needs to not be so stiff in his batting posture.
Fuller – Hebrew schooler. I know his twin older brothers well and both are below average athletes. One of them tells me he’s more athletic then them so perhaps he’ll be OK.
Jim – This is the kid who is shorter then kindergartners. Besides being short he also seems like a bit of a goof. Steve is much more down on him then I am.
Everett – Next to TG he is in contention for our best player. He can hit everything. And he’s a lefty. During whiffle ball practice he was able to hit things all over the strike zone. As we use a continuous batting order (so the kid who got the last out the previous game bats last the next game) he’ll be our #1 hitter. He’s one of the kids I knew and as the whole family is athletes, and nice, I am very excited to have him on my team.
Bobby – When I first looked over the roster I didn’t remember that I knew this kid. I know him from when I was student teaching and his mom really likes me, which is always a plus. He seems to have a good grasp of some technical areas, such as how to position ones self for a cut-off, but isn’t a great hitter or fielder as I remember him pretty clearly from last year.
Brendan – Our Latino kid who also happens to be white trash. Thinks more highly of himself then his skills merit, but I like it that way rather then the other way around. Is above average on our team, but not really above average.
Kelvin – An immigrant from somewhere in the former Soviet Union, his mother sounds like Checkov from Star Trek and he still has a noticeable Russin accent. Seems like a really good kid, but he couldn’t hit a moving ball to save his life. Good news? He’s perhaps the fastest kid on the team, and as I said we’re doing pretty well in the speed department. As a stop gap measure, until his hitting comes around, if it comes around (he needs a lot of work) I think we’ll make sure he understands the basics of bunting.
Percy – I know this kid plays travel baseball because I saw his name on the roster and his mother told me he did. He is also very fast, in our game where most kids got 6 bases, he got 7. That said I haven’t seen the sort of skills I otherwise expect from a travel player. We’ll see.

And that’s our team. Look for an update tomorrow after our second practice, first with the whole team. It’s going to be a fielding practice, and we’re going to start to see who our pitches and catchers are. Should be a good one.