Unexpected update

An unexpected update from my work last night at the library. Every year one of the schools holds a writers workshop where they invite local bigwigs, local writers, etc into the school to discuss a piece of writing of the student's choice for each 4th and 5th grader. The school invites one of our librarians in to conduct a group and she often has me read the pieces she's assigned, between 5 and 8 depending on the year. Well anyhow, this year one of the people she was assigned was Jim, who, not incidentially, was described as "the most egocentric kid I have ever taught" by his classroom teacher in a note attached to his writing.

Anyway he wrote a pretty nice piece of survival/baseball fiction which was clearly wish fulfillment. Already in the story we meet Michael, a tall 10 year old, who has had to rescue his parents after they are hurt in a tornado. Upon taking him to the hospital he learns they must have $100,000 in surgery, but never fear, the reason they were in the car was to drive to a baseball tournament with a $100,000 prize. Below is the writeup of the baseball scenes

The day of the games begins. Michael is very nervous; he has to win for his parents. In the first inning when he came up to bat, he let the first pitch go by to see how fast the pitcher was throwing. Michael hit a double off of the second pitch. There were two outs and Michael was on third. Ben came up to bat and hit a single to right field, which drove in Michael to home. The next half inning, Michael pitched a 1,2,3 inning. In the fourth inning, Michael came up to bat and hit a homerun. The game was now 3-1 in favor of the Helena Turtles. The Turtles went on to win the game, 5-4. Michael hit a triple, a double and a homerun. In the second game of that day, they played the New York Jets. The Turtles won, 6-2. Two games, two to win. Micahel really wanted to win the tournament to save his parents. The TUrtles won 11-5 in the Saturday game. SUnday came and it was the championship game. The Turles were playing the Seattle Blue jays.

In the first inning, Micahel hit let off and hit a single. He evntually scored that run. He pitched two innings of 1,2,3. In the bottom of the 6th, Michael was up to bat with two outs. They were losing by three runs. The first pitch was a ball. The second pitch Micahel fouled off. The third and fourth pitches were balls. The fifth pitch was a strike. Then it was the sixth pitch. The pitcher went into the windup, and threw the ball. Michael swung. In that moment, all Michael was think about was saving his parents. The ball made contact with the bat and Michael closed his eyes. Smack!!!! Michael had just hit the championship winning grand slam!! The crowd was going wild as Michael ran home. The turtles had just won $100,000 and the coach and the team decided to give all of the money to Michael so he could pay for the operations his parents needed

A little after I read this piece, Ethan comes on in. He tells me that he and his dad were out practicing squaring up to the ball and long throws. We joke for a minute or two and then he goes off to use the internet. Maybe 10-15 minutes later dad comes strolling in. He calls Ethan over and I mention how I heard they were practicing.

At this point Dad just goes OFF on Ethan. "I told him after Tuesday night that if I ever saw him play like that again I would just quietly pull him from the game. He was so unfocused. Throwing dirt around and not paying attention." Later on in the rant "His fielding was just terrible. I'll tell you one thing Coaches don't do in this league. I'll tell you that Coaches don't teach the kids to square up to the ball." Talked about how Ethan was just "lazy". How "coaches don't teach the kids that baseball is a running game" and they need to run. Later on he said again that if Ethan was not going to "contribute" to the team he would just quietly pull him from the game. When he took a breath, after ranting for a good couple of minutes (and it always seems longer when you're listening) I finally was able to get a word in edgewise. Considering my two choices of who to defend, myself or Ethan, I decided to go with Ethan and said "Steve and I both feel Ethan is a contributor to the team". This seemed to take some of the wind out of his sails, but he did go on for maybe 30 seconds more. The whole time his father is doing this rant, Ethan is just standing there uncomfortable with this painful smiling grimace on his face.

After Ethan and his father leave, with Ethan saying, in a very upbeat manner "I'll see you Tuesday" the librarian I was working with just went off on his dad. She talked about how he's missing the whole point of playing. How the kid is 12 years old so of course his mind is going to wonder. How it's supposed to be about fun and the kid is never going to be a major league player so he should just lighten up.

As for me? Well it made me mad. After the incident with Jim's dad I was upset, but not really at him, but at Libby. This made me mad. The way he went off on his son, right in front of him and another adult is completely unacceptable. Threatening to pull him from the game is completely unacceptable. Implying that Steve and I are not teaching these kids who to square around to a ball? Completely unacceptable. But the worse part of it was is that Steve and I PREACH the need to run to the ball. To get there quickly so you have time to setup. And if this asshole would attend more then an inning or two of our games he'd hear that. Even typing this now my blood is rising, I am still upset about the whole thing. I haven't talked to Steve about this yet, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to convey how completely unacceptable what his father was saying was with Ethan standing right there.

The funny thing about all of this? Ethan was throwing dirt, but he was more aware of the game then he normally was. Steve and I both commented on it. I think that perhaps we'll put together a "curriculum" of what we've done with these kids. I've written cirriculums before so I can make them fancy and impressive and so perhaps that's the way to go. I'm not sure really what I think the next step is here, beyond saying something, though what I don't know, to Ethan on Tuesday.

Practice Report and Update

Before Tuesday’s Practice
On Monday morning and Sunday night I sent Steve a couple of emails about what we should do at practice. He doesn’t respond to either. This is out of the norm and tells me he’s going into one of his depressed phases. This has never happened with baseball before, but since baseball is an outlet for both of us, hopefully it won’t effect him there too much.

Anyway, I pick him up Tuesday at the train station. The email I sent him had some pretty big holes in it that we needed to fill time wise. We also had no “focus” for the practice. In each of our last two practices we had a focus and I think that’s what helped make them such terrific practices. In the car I try to see if he has any thoughts about a focus, and he does not. I know that this practice, therefore, is going to be heavy on the improvising, which I’m pretty sure means it’ll be a serviceable, though not great, practice.

In our little “Guess who get’s there first” competition I’m up by four points. I go further up when I take Ethan, who arrives in the first carload of people, but we count as 3rd as he was the last of the three to get out of the car, and Steve takes Percy, who gets there fifth. The coach of the team we’re practicing with, and will then play, asks us if we want to scrimmage. We decline considering they’re only the best team in the league and it would be nice not to get our butts kicked two days in a row by them.

Before practice begins I work with Bobby on his pitching some. Unlike before, there isn’t anything hugely wrong with his mechanics right now, he’s just not throwing strikes. One problem that I do see is that he is often trying to overthrow the pitches, but even after I remind him to take something off, he doesn’t always through strikes.

Practice
This is the first time we’ve had a chance to talk since our victory. Steve and I cover all the positives. He also says how a couple of mistakes could be forgiven since we won “and that’s the most important thing” undercutting our line we’ve been giving them through all the loses that it’s about progress.

We then divide our 8 players, with Trey surprisingly missing, Fuller, Avi, and Jodi missing as expected, into two groups to practice run downs. They look much sharper today with it, which is a good thing.

Following this we pull them away from everybody and teach them the sign system that we’ve come up with. The system relies on using letters to remind them so “hat – hit” “belt – bunt” and so forth. This takes about 15 minutes and we’re then able to get the field.

We do our modified batting practice. Avi shows up part of the way through it. We have Brendan catch during this and he looks pretty good. He’s at least getting the ball back to the mound consistently. There are still quite a few balls which get by him, but he’s blocking more of the balls, so I think it’s time we give him another inning of catching to see how it goes.

We end the practice with our 2-1 scenario, with Jim pitching. He does not do well with it, though his pitching does look better then it did last time he pitched in a game so that’s a positive.

We end the practice and send them on their way. As I expected the practice was fine, though hardly great.

After Practice
Before practice Steve tells me that Jim might not be at the game on Wednesday as he is going to the Cubs game. Seeing his father after practice I go up and ask when we’ll know for sure about his going to game and his father informs me that it’s almost definite that he won’t be at the game. He then starts off by saying “I know Libby (remembering that Libby is the name of the Park District supervisor) talked to you, about this, but it seems like some of the other teams are going all out for the win and you guys are going for skill development.” I immediately correct him that Libby has NOT talked to us about this. We then get into about a five minute conversation about this. Seems like he feels we should be playing our 3-4 best players more. He talks about how they’re 10 and 11 and know what they’re record is. Understands what the league philosophy is, but if other teams are trying so hard to win, then perhaps we should be as well. Talks about how really we’re not an untalented team. That pretty much sums up the points he makes.

The untalented team part is interesting. I would agree we’re not untalented, and we are stronger with our weakest players, but our best players aren’t as good, which makes things more difficult. My favorite part of the conversation is the part about how we should be doing more with our 3-4 best players. To which I think “Oh so you don’t want your son to pitch any more? Or play SS as much?” Perhaps he wasn’t including his son in that group, I don’t know. But it was interesting. During the conversation I stood firm. I said our philosophy when we get to the playoffs is different, but that we’re going to follow the way the league is meant to be until then. And that frankly in order to have a winning playoff team you have to develop the players and that’s done by playing them in a game giving them chances to improve.

The whole thing was very cordial, which was good. But Steve and I were upset by two things. First that he talked to Libby without talking to us first. Second that Libby never talked to us and appears not to have backed us up during their conversation. To address Jim’s dad we’re going to print out the email Libby sent to the coaches about cheating, as further reason why we do what we do. I mean I guess technically she did talk to us about winning, but it sort of had the opposite message that Jim’s dad wanted it to have. I mean when you’re team is 1-7 you can’t be too surprised that there would be grumbles, so I’m not upset at all about having had the conversation.

After much debate we decided that Libby’s lack of communication was part of a larger problem. Here’s the text of what we sent her:

Libby,

We had a conversation today with one of our parent's, Mr. , about the team and our methods of building player skills versus going all out for the win. It's a conversation we're not surprised to have had when our team is 1-7.

Anyway, what did surprise us was that he had mentioned he had talked to you about these concerns. We were surprised not to have gotten an email or phone call after the conversation, especially as he hadn't talked to us first, as an FYI, without even necessarily naming the parent. We were hoping you could meet with us for a couple minutes, either before or after tomorrow or next Tuesday's game, just so we can make sure we're all on the same page. You know how seriously we take our commitment to this league and we appreciate all that you do to make it run well.

We look forward to hearing from you,
Steve and Lane

Wednesday/Thursday
The day starts off with my calling Jesse’s house. Besides Jim being at the Cubs game, Brendan has a doctor’s appointment, and Avi has to go to his siblings “sing”. Steve and I figure that it’s likely we’ll get another unexpected no show and so it would be good to have Jonah, Jesse’s brother, there again if he was available and willing.

The day starts off beautiful but then at about 1:30 it starts to rain. It lightly rains, at least where I am about 8 miles to the south, for about 35 minutes. Then the sun comes out again. I expect to have the baseball game, though I’m unsure. So I go home from school and get there around 4:15. The website is supposed to be updated at 4 o’clock if there is going to be a rainout. I check the website and it’s not been updated so I think we’re good to go. I have a message from Brendan’s dad explaining that Brendan pleaded for them to change his appointment so they did and he would be at the game, if there was a game. I call and let them know it appears that there will be a game. About 20 minutes later I get a call from Brendan’s dad saying that they got one of the automated messages telling them that the game had been canceled. I recheck the website and sure enough it has been canceled. He’s upset about having had to change the appointment, which I understand. Shortly there after it starts thundering and lightening. It rains for about 40 minutes and then the sun comes out again. So it was a good decision, just later then it should have been.

As of this morning, we still have not heard from Libby despite the fact that she’s supposed to respond with-in 24 hours (according to her auto-email). I am actually quite pleased that our games on Saturday and Wednesday were canceled as I think they were against two teams we’d have struggled to beat. Now our next game is on Tuesday, no game Saturday due to parking problems with the Park District’s ice show, and it’s against the team whose coach bitched the other week about how bad his team was. So I feel good about our chances of getting 2 wins in a row, which would be terrific for us and give us that momentum as we start to head into the playoff stretch.

Game: Marlins vs Braves

Before the Game
So I go over to Steve’s house and we agree that Avi should be our first pitcher. We had no sooner agreed to this then Steve’s phone rings and he looks at the caller ID and goes “uh-oh”. Long story short, Avi is going to be about a half hour late to the game. We can deal with this and so he gets the nod for the sixth. We end up deciding to start Trey, but also decide we want to see a lot of different pitchers and so we only pitch each of our pitchers for an inning. The pitchers we want to see are:
Trey, Everett, Avi, and Percy

Percy, if you recall, had a disastrous outing. However, he’s been throwing very well in “bullpen” sessions so I want to see how he does in a game. We put in Jim in for the 5th figuring he had a bad outing the last time and would still be able to come in for relief if Percy can’t get the ball over.

We don’t expect to get past the 5th, with the exception of our first game we haven’t gotten past the 5th and it’s cold, with a chance to rain, further decreasing the chance we’d get past the 4th, let alone 5th. Not to mention we expect the other team to be scoring runs. With all that in mind, we decide to go ahead and schedule Bobby to pitch, since he’s looked pretty good, and have Brendan catch him. We need to start developing Brendan and so we figure this would be a good way to say that he’s going to get some chances without actually having to worry about him catching. It also gives Steve an excuse to work with him before the game.

Steve and I decide to start keeping track of who is showing up the requested 20 minutes before the game. We’ll then have them do something not too onerous, but enough to get our message across such as run laps. Today, Brendan is the surprise first arrival, with Everett & Fuller there shortly after. With Jesse and Avi excused it still leaves an awful lot of late people, though all are there 10 minutes before the game, except Avi, as expected.

I work with Bobby and Percy before the game and they both look ok but not great. We’ll see how it goes. Steve does his work with Brendan and he looks not so great.

The Game
We’re the home team. Trey comes up and takes care of business on 9 pitches with 1 strikeout. Meanwhile, the bottom of our lineup doesn’t get anything going, except for Kellen getting a single and a couple of steals.

Everett, as usual has a rough time of it. Jesse, who was sitting out, even comments that he throws good pitches so it’s kind of surprising that they hit him as much as they do. I think we need to work on his pitching rather then throwing. He’s pretty good about getting ahead in the count, which makes it all the more frustrating. He allows 2 runs and we get out of the inning without more damage after we double up a player on a popup. Now it happens to be against the heart of their order, so it’s not the worse thing, but still isn’t great.

In the bottom half of the inning, things don’t look so good when Trey and Everett both fly out on well hit balls. But then Brendan gets on base and steals 2nd. Jesse rips a ball, which was over his head, into left for a run scoring single. After stealing second, he then scores when Percy hits a triple. Bobby follows it up with a double to score Percy and we end up with 3 runs, all produced after we had 2 outs, after Fuller grounds out to end the inning. It was pretty nice. And the great thing is that pretty much everything was legitimate. It wasn’t like Percy got lucky with the triple, he really deserved it. Score is 3-2 good guys and we are definitely in a game we didn’t think we would be.

Avi then pitches the top of the 3rd. He walks the first batter and gets the next one to line out. The 3rd batter rips a ball into center that gets by the outstretched hand of Jodi. Trey runs over from right and relays it to Jodi who then tries, against what Steve and I were saying, to throw the runner out at 3rd. She naturally overthrows and the run scores. However, the batter never gets a chance to score as we retire the side while holding him at 3rd.

In the bottom of the 3rd, Ethan, of all people, gets a nice one out single and then scores, when Kellen, of all people, hits a double. Kellen steals 3rd and then scores when Jodi hits one back to the mound. Jim walks, steals second and then tries to steal third but comes up short of the bag on his slide and gets tagged out. Ending the inning.

At this point we’re moving fairly quickly in his game and it’s starting to drizzle. It’s a little early for the predicted rain, which considering the fact that we’re ahead is a shame. Anyhow Percy, the first of our real tests, is up on the mound. After I threw with him I had him throw to Jesse and both insist that Percy has a nasty slider. However, when he tries to show me it keeps rising instead, so I tell him to stick with fastballs. Worse yet he starts off facing the heart of their order. Sure enough their slugger hits a solid single. On the next play we get him out on a fielders choice. Overall Percy looks good and while that runner on the fielder’s choice ends up scoring after a single and a putout at first, he only lets up the 1 run. I was pretty sure that the first appearance was a fluke and this seems to bear that out. Going into the bottom of the 4th it’s 5-5

As we start off the inning, Trey confides in me that he hates leading off. I think this fits in my overall picture of Trey as someone who puts a lot of pressure on himself (as does dad) and one of the times he feels this pressure is leading off. Obviously there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, but it’s an important thing to realize for the playoffs when we do have flexibility over the batting order. Anyhow, Trey gets an infield single. He then steals second on the first pitch. Before the inning, I had told Everett that if Trey got out that I wanted to see him bunt. He told me that he doesn’t really feel comfortable bunting as he doesn’t practice. I told him I understood that, but to consider it in-game practice and also assured him we’d be working on it as a team. When the count becomes 1-0 after the passed ball with Trey advancing, I tell him to do what we had talked about. He squares around a couple times but can’t get contact. The second time was a ball. After the inning I tell him one of the reasons I want him to practice bunting is he knows where the strike zone is and so he shouldn’t be bunting at balls. Anyhow he gets behind 1-2 and ends up striking out. Trey does manage to steal third during Brendan’s at bat when he walks. This gives us runners at first and third. I tell Brendan on the first pitch he should steal. For whatever reason their catcher throws down to the base. The ball goes into center and Trey scores without a problem. On the very next pitch Brendan steals third. Jesse then hits ANOTHER ball that was way to high and bloops it for a single, though Brendan had to hold up as it was on the third base side. I tell Jesse to steal on the first pitch, as we have the 1st and 3rd situation again, but on the first pitch Percy hits a single advancing Jesse to third. I tell Percy he should then steal. And he does and gets a good jump. Yet AGAIN the catcher throws, though his throw is on time this time and in a close play Percy is called out. However, Brendan does score giving us a run for an out. Later in the game their coach confides in me that he can’t believe his catcher threw down the second time and let us have another run. Bobby grounds out to second to end the inning, but putting us up 8-5.

Now we’re in the 5th. There is still 25 minutes left before the mandatory stop time of an hour and a half. I hope for a LONG inning as I do not want to have to throw Bobby. Jim is once again having clear control problems. He walks the first batter. The second one grounds out to short, he then walks the third batter. Both score on a double, where we once AGAIN overthrow 3rd. Their slugger gets another great hit and drives in the guy who was on second scores on a close play at the plate. The guy however overruns 3rd and Everett makes a dead on throw to Avi who applies the tag and we get the out. Now was the guy really out? I don’t think so, neither does Steve, or the other coach. But as the other coach said even if he wasn’t out it was the right call to make as kids shouldn’t be overrunning third. Despite the 3 runs that scored when we get that out it was a clear momentum shift and Jim strikes out the next batter. Overall, Jim did not have great stuff, but neither did he fall apart on the mound. He kept his cool and got us through the inning. It’s now tied. Out bottom of the order acts like the bottom of the order as they bring in their ace pitcher, and we strike out 1-2-3.

As we were are coming in from the field I say to Steve that Brendan shouldn’t catch in the inning and we should use Jesse instead. He agrees. Steve goes over and explains to Brendan that since we’re in a close game and Jesse has “more experience” (which I thought was an excellent way of phrasing it) that we were going to have him catch. Brendan takes this well. All of this is karma for our pitching a pitcher who we didn’t want to pitch. Anyhow Bobby gets up and walks the first batter. On four pitches. Steve turns to me and says “I want to keep him on a short leash.” I ask him “Who can we sub for him?” The answer is nobody. Our choices at his point would be Kellen or Jodi, neither of which is appealing and Bobby almost for sure has better stuff then both of them. He starts to pitch better but does allow a run to score. We end out getting a man out at third on a caught steal and Bobby had a nice inning. Overall, Bobby got better the more he threw which was great and just what we needed.

As we head out into the field I hope that their ace will not be on the mound again. He is. However, we have the top of our order up. Jim gets permission to bunt. He then lays down a great bunt… if he was trying to sacrifice. Unfortunately, bunting right back at a travel team pitcher with no one on base does us no good. Still, I’m glad we tried it. Trey, with no doubt a good deal of self imposed pressure, strikes out. This gives us 2 outs. Everett gets a nice single. I give him the green light to take off and he goes on the second pitch. Alas, Brendan reverts to form and strikes out ending the game with a 9-8 loss.

Post Game Analysis and Looking Forward
Well the good news is that we didn’t allow any big innings. The most they scored in an inning was 3, which is good. Our fielding was terrific. We were hitting the ball hard and having multiple people score. Percy and Bobby both had good outings, Jim, not as much.

During the post game speech Steve said if they think about where they were at during the first game and where we’re at now it’s a huge improvement. Bobby, little wise guy that he is, says “So you’re saying we used to be crap?” which draws a large chuckle from the parents. I mean that is what Steve is saying, but still. If you all could see the progress they’d made you would agree that we’re improving far more then most teams. It’s a shame we don’t get the victory here, but unlike last game where I think there were some decisions which could have given us the runs we lost by, in this game we were right in it, and got shut down by their ace pitcher when we threw 6 pitchers.

The good thing is that it has given us enough confidence that we’re going to try and not pitch Trey next game, or to save him for a relief situation. If we can keep getting good outings from six kids we’ll be in great shape come the playoffs. It’s frustrating that we haven’t had practice in so long, especially as they are forecasting rain again for Wednesday, but we’re looking good, especially as we play a team that I was not impressed with when we scouted. So once again the future is looking great even if the individual result was not as much.

We had the kids, after our short speech, do the “name something good you saw” and they all have no problems naming 11 different things. We awarded Percy the ball for a great day at bat, a nice inning on the mound, and a heads-up play as a RF when he backed up Trey on a play that Trey blew at 1st.

So I pretty hopeful that when I write the next game recap on Tuesday or Wednesday I am talking about a win.

Rained Out

So starting last night and then continuing until about 11 o'clock this morning we had pretty crummy weather here with a fair amount of rain. They cancel practice. At which point the sun comes out and since I work about 50 feet from the field, I went and checked it, and sure enough it was dry enough for a practice. Oh well a missed opportunity. On a negative note we learned that Jim will not be at tomorrow's game which hurts us again in the pitching department.

Game 3 - Marlins vs. White Sox

Setting the Line-Up
Steve and I met around 2 hours before the game. Originally we were going to go right to breakfast but I suggested we do the lineups on the computer, as we normally do, and then grab breakfast. Steve agreed we had ample time to do it this way and so we sat down and hammered things out. The important parts:

*We decide to have Trey scheduled to pitch the 5th and 6th leaving him in reserve for when we feel it would be best to use him
*Steve had made a push to still use Brendan as a catcher, arguing that we didn’t really have choices. Whether or not to use Brendan, despite his poor form and missing of practice, was decided when Steve was reminded I had talked to Trey about catching an inning and had been OK with it. So we decided not to use Brendan as a catcher. Furthermore, when doing the schedule one person would have to sit twice. This person was to be Brendan. Steve and I agreed as a general practice if somebody misses a game or practice without telling us, that this will be the consequence.
*The pitching/catching batteries are tentatively set to be: Everett/Jesse, Avi/Trey, Jim/Everett, Percy/Everett, Trey/Jesse, & Trey/Jesse. When using Everett as a catcher we agreed that using him as a pitcher before having him catch was important and so it is likely that Everett will start many games for us. Avi was given the second inning as we’d promised he’d pitch and so we wanted to do it early to send the right message. Deciding between Percy and Bobby was a coin flip. I made the call to use Percy as I have been working with Bobby and would like to have him be in good form before he throws again, with him knowing that’s the goal.

Pre-Game

After a great breakfast and a quick stop at Walgreens we get to the field about an hour before the game. There is a Triple A (the league below us) game going on when we get there. Steve and I throw to each other a bit. Now remembering that we had stressed 20 minutes at practice, our first show was Trey. I inform him that he’ll be catching an inning and throwing 2. Trey is still clearly uncomfortable with this. But he nods.

The players slowly trickle in with only Trey, Bobby, Percy, and Jesse being on time, however almost all of the players were there by a quarter to, so it’s a definite improvement. I think if Steve and I keep stressing the importance this rate will go up.

When Bobby arrives I immediately pull him aside and start working with him on the 3 second delay rotation. And there’s been a huge difference. I ask him if he’s been practicing, and he claims not, so I’m not sure why it’s suddenly clicking, but it did. After doing this about 6 times in a row successfully I setup as catcher and have him throw to me. Out of the 10 pitches I had him throw he had the proper footwork for 8 of them. It was just a huge improvement. If he’s able to do this again on Tuesday at practice we can start to work on his actual throwing mechanics. Very exciting. Bobby was sitting out during the second inning and he asked if we could do some more practice. I told him I had to focus on the game, but loved his work ethic.

After this I pull aside Percy and have him throw me some pitches. After a couple of off pitches he settled down nicely and threw well. I told him that if he can do this without a batter, he can do it with a batter. He made some excuses about it just being a bad day on Tuesday. I don’t really buy it, and keep on the upbeat message of just thinking about it like there’s no one there. I hold out hope that the 4th inning won’t be completely disastrous.

As we gather around the bench and put up the lineup, Trey finally coughs up what has been bothering him, when I tell him he’s catching Avi. It turns out last year, in the lower league, the coach was having him catch for the best pitcher on the team and he just couldn’t do it. He felt good about the fact that it was Avi because he knew that Avi didn’t pitch all that quickly. This explains his reaction as he was clearly reluctant to do it, but since I was the coach he was going to do it, and without complaint. It was a good reminder of the power as a coach you can have. I am glad though we got the anxiety out there in the open and it gave me a chance to reinforce the idea that my goal for him was not to be catching every ball, simply to keep it in front of him. I had been saying this from the time I first told he was going to catch, and when I said it at this point it was likely the 5th time I had said it. It seems like it was at this point that it sunk in though as he clearly was realizing that he could do what I was asking of him.

The First Couple of Inning
As we take the field, it becomes apparent that Kelvin is not present. This obviously annoys me, especially as he was scheduled to play 1st in the first. I quickly plug in Trey, who had been scheduled to sit. Everett strikes out the first two in short order. The heart of their order comes up and scores 3 runs, including a stupid play by Jesse. Everett threw a ball in the dirt and it got by Jesse. Everett comes jogging in, as the runner isn’t going, and Jesse sees some reason to flip it to Everett. You can predict what happens next: Everett misses, and Ethan, at second base, is not backing up Everett, despite having been reminded and sure enough then the run DOES score. Anyhow they get 3 which includes Everett striking out a batter with runners on second and third. After Everett struck out the first two batters I had hoped we were in for a good day, but 3 runs was fine, all things considered.

With Kelvin not being there, Jim is the first up. He walks. Trey is then hit by a pitch, which brings Everett up. Everett promptly rockets the ball into the gap in right center scoring Jim and Trey for a nice double. Brendan strikes out, Jesse gets a solid infield hit, but Percy and Bobby both ground out to the pitcher to end the inning. Still 3-2 is just fine.

Avi is now pitching to Trey. The whole thing went great. Trey didn’t really have any problems catching the ball. Most importantly Avi got a weaker part of their lineup to strike out, and then hit two back to him at the mound. He fielded both of them perfectly. The first one was hit pretty quickly, so he took his time, ran over towards first and then underhanded it to Jesse for the out. The next play was a slow roller and he did a great job picking it up and getting an accurate throw for an easy out.

In the bottom of the inning despite Avi and Ethan getting on with a walk and hit batter, we can’t get anything going as Jim and Trey were both absolutely smoked by the pitcher. Still at the end of 2 we’re looking at a 3-2 ballgame.

The Last 3 innings
Which is, of course, when the wheels come off. Jim’s mechanics were just terrible. He was repeatedly dropping his glove arm and his balls were coming up short, or being thrown wildly to the side. Things weren’t helped when Percy made a silly mental error costing us an early out by not knowing which base to throw the ball to. Jim only ended up walking 1 batter despite only throwing 4 strikes to 8 batters. Jim was clearly frustrated on the mound and while it was going on it seemed much worse then the 5 runs it turned out to be. The first of the two controversial calls also occurred this inning. After Jim let up his walk, Jesse caught the batter cheating too far down the line at 3rd and threw the ball down to Avi who caught the ball and made a nice tag getting the batter by more then a step. But he was called safe. Avi immediately started to complain and I very loudly and forcefully had to cut it off. This out turned into a run as well which makes the whole thing even more unfortunate. We’re now looking at an 8-2 game where your are maxed out at 7 runs in an inning.

Things do look a little better when Everett and Brenden are hit by pitches. We manage to get both of them home, but it’s basically by trading a run for an out, which when considering how far we’re down is not the goal. During this inning I look at my watch and we’re rapidly approaching the 1 hour mark. Steve and I discuss, and basically he leaves it up to me to decide whether or not it’s time to bring Trey in. I decide it is. Just as the inning ends I find out that Ethan has to leave. Did Ethan tell either of us he was leaving early? Of course not. This now means that we have no one sitting on the bench. I scramble a little to get people in reasonable positions and basically use the 5th inning lineup positions in the 4th inning.

My thinking is if Trey can keep it 8-4 we stand a good chance. So of course my dreams are crushed as the weaker part of their order just wails on Trey. There were a couple of bad fielding plays, including one by Trey himself, which did not help the situation. In the end Trey faces 10 of 12 batters but manages to hunker down against the good part of the order and gets away with only allowing 3 runs.

I feel some hope as we have the top of order come up and their pitcher is clearly not a very good pitcher. His arm mechanics are just terrible and it’s clear he’s trying to “aim” every pitch. Avi leads off with a walk. As Jim bats I let Trey know that this pitcher is aiming his pitches and so he should wait because he’ll either get no pitches or a great pitch to hit. Jim walks. Trey comes up and on his first pitch hits a screamer into center. I thought for sure it was going to drop and send Jim. The centerfield makes a great shoestring catch, however, and Jim is forced to hustle back to the bag and there’s no real chance of a double up as he ran the play well. This now brings Everett up to the plate. Everett hits a screamer through the gap in right center and we’re off to the races. ES is running his heart out and by the time Jim has reached 3rd Everett is less then half a base path behind him. Steve waves in Jim, a move I absolutely support. Jim is clearly flagging as he makes the turn and he looks back at the ball two or three times. In the end the relay from the second baseman is a perfect throw to the catcher. Jim slides in, as they go to tag him and he’s called out.

At this point Jim just loses it. He throws off his batting gloves and immediately starts to break down. I go over and calm him down. Jim insists that he slid under the tag, but it was a close play made so because Jim kept looking back which slowed him down just enough to make it a close play. When I talked to him he insisted that he didn’t understand what Steve was telling him to do, which I just can’t believe to be true. Anyway the play completely deflates our inning, and while we get two runs, it could have been a much bigger inning if we had that run and out back.

Tre comes and pitches his second inning, allowing a leadoff single and a double that turns into a triple because of poor fielding. He then gets it under control and we only lose 1 more run and we’re standing at 12-6 going into the last inning. Trey was clearly not as sharp as he had been before. I was talking during the game to his father and he says that basically Trey is out of baseball shape but should be getting back into shape soon based on all the baseball that he’s doing. I wonder if it was just an off day or if the inning he did at catcher weakened him enough to make a difference. Having him in reserve should have made a big difference as if he had clamped down, liked we hoped he would, and allowed say 2 runs instead of 4 during his 2 innings, it’s a different ball game.

They have yet another new pitcher up there and it’s yet another guy we can hit. And we come out and do our thing. Percy and Jesse get on base on walks. Bobby grounds one to the pitcher. Fuller then comes up and has what is, without an exaggeration, a 10 pitch at bat. In the end he gets a single. The right fielder, a travel player, tries to get the out at first but instead throws the ball out away, not to mention Fuller would have been safe anyway. The ump then makes a bad call in our favor. Jesse had advanced to third on the hit, and Percy to second. Once the ball was overthrown, Jesse should have gotten home and Percy 3rd, but instead as we had them running anyway, the ump gives Percy home on the overthrow. Avi walks to give us runners on first and second. The momentum is clearly on our side. The pitcher is tiring. We’re about to hit the best part of our lineup. Jim works a couple of pitches and then hits a ball to the first basemen. And Avi, instead of running to second, goes back to first. Bam before you know it, there’s a double play and the game’s over. Evidently Jim said something not too nice to Avi at this point that I did not hear. I did hear Bobby start to say something and immediately put the kibosh on that. It was an incredibly dumb play, but we don’t need the already least popular kid on the team being further ostracized because of it.

Post Game and Looking Forward

We give a pretty good post game speech. I talk about how we are all feeling so rotten because we played so well and we left so much on the field and other things along these general lines. Bobby gets the game ball for an amazing catch he made at short during the 5th. It was going to go to Avi but we had to make a last minute change based on the last play of the game.

As people filter away I grab Trey to talk with him. I stress to him the importance of not moping, as he did some of that on the mound, even when things aren’t going as well as they normally do. Simultaneously Steve is talking to Jim. We finish our talks at about the same time and then see Avi crying as he leaves. We both grab him and reassure him. It’s at this point that I learn that Jim said something not too nice. As we are talking, Jim even comes over and apologizes for what he said to Avi. We remind Avi about all the good things that happened during the game and to try and not let 1 play or comment ruin a good day. He definitely calms down by the end though he is clearly still not very happy.

All-in-all, it was our best game. We are still having lots of trouble having a big inning and preventing the other team from taking what should be a 1 or 2 run inning and making it into a 4 or 5 run inning. At practice on Tuesday we will once again be focusing on groundballs, do a drill to promote situational awareness, and some sort of nebulous team building exercise that Steve and I need to find to make sure we continue to bond as a team in response to the dynamic that manifested itself at the end of the game. JMessetold me that he felt Avi was better this game, and I agree, so it’s too bad we had that one moment at the end which unraveled things a bit. While we still lost I was heartened at the progress we made. We play the Orioles on Wednesday a team I have heard nothing about so I have no idea as to what kind of opposition they’ll be. If we can play another good game though I will be very happy, especially if we can show more improvement after the practice.

Game 2

Score
So we got shellacked. Final score was 16-3 including 6 runs in the last inning. Glad they got those insurance runs cause we were a real threat considering you can’t score more then 7 in an inning. It’s frankly not worth doing an inning by inning breakdown so you’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good
Jodi is the real deal. She hit the only ball into the outfield, though it was just barely in the outfield, which not so coincidentally was also our only hit. She was also consistently where she needed to be no matter which position she was at, has pretty good speed, and handled, flawlessly, a nasty one hop ground ball while at second base.

Despite getting pounded from the first inning on, we basically played the same level all game long; it was a level we’d never win a ballgame with, but it was the same level. At no point were fielders moping or not paying attention.

Jesse did an excellent job of countering the ridiculous efforts when catching. Basically every time they got a runner to 3rd base, which was often thanks to all of the wild pitches, he held them on.

Bobby is very coachable. When Steve or I explained something to him about fielding, he would remember to do it the next time. I also worked with him on pitching for about 10 minutes before the game and he later threw during a time when he was not scheduled to be in the field to supposedly good results.

Kelvin might be able to play 1st base. This was unexpected really, since he can’t really field ground balls, and is only so-so with flyballs, but looked very solid at his inning there.

The Bad

Steve is an inconsistent base coach. I had forgotten this from last season, but he doesn’t remind his runners to consistently do what they’re supposed to do. So we had a situation where a ball was hit with 2 outs and Ethan just stood by Steve at 1st base rather then running on contact.

Brendan cannot play 1st base. On the nicely fielded play that Jodi made he botched an easy throw and then stood around rather then getting the ball, allowing runners to advance. I wouldn’t judge him on one play too harshly, if it weren’t for the fact that he can’t catch either. His catching really belongs in The Ugly. While he is very good at many important catcher skills, like getting the mask off quickly, or throwing it to a base, he’s not so good at the most important of catching skills: catching and blocking the ball. And by not so good I mean terrible. If your catcher isn’t catching the ball you’re not going to get strikes you would get otherwise. Not to mention the havoc it caused on the base paths. Steve and I agree that he needs lots of work at catcher before he gets more chances. And we’re going to work with him, but our seeming surplus of catchers have turned out not to be so.

This means we are left with-out a #2 catcher. What this means for us is that Trey and Everett are going to have to step up, or rather behind, the plate. Everett has already expressed interest, and caught a pretty good inning in our first game, but Trey might need a little coaxing. In fact, I am thinking we might not so much ask him about it, as assign it to him at the next game. Steve and I will have to talk this over.

Everett just doesn’t have the arm strength right now to pitch 2 innings. Hopefully he’ll build this up, but when we essentially had to call on him to do this in the game he really struggled during that second inning, even against easier batters.

Our hitting. I mentioned earlier that we didn’t hit it out of the infield except for Jofi. The good news is that we are hitting the ball, as opposed to striking out. The bad news is that we’re going to need a lot of work on our hitting, and I am not sure I have the chops to be a good hitting coach. I will be doing my best, however, as we work on hitting it past the pitcher.

The Ugly

Our pitching. Percy was a huge disappointment walking 4 of his first 5 batters, meaning he had to be yanked. Trey came in and did a good job that inning and a terrific job the next giving us a 1, 2, 3 inning, our first I believe of the season. Ethan was our next pitcher as it was going to be the “bottom” of their lineup (I put it in quotes as it was actually the top of the lineup except because of our continuous batting order it was the worse players). He then proceeds to walk the first four batters he faced and so we had to yank him. It was as bad as I was expecting. At this point I call Everett in for relief and he gets us out of the inning. However, the wheels fall off in the 4th and he has a couple of bad luck fielding and gets hammered at bat with the other team batting around all 11 players before we can retire the side. I had to really juggle the pitching order here especially with Percy being unable to make it out of his inning. The only person who consistently was throwing strikes was Trey, with Everett doing it during the 3rd, but not 4th inning. I just don’t know where we’re going to get six innings each game. Avi will get another chance to pitch on Saturday I would expect, but I don’t think he can throw 2 innings. So we will use Trey for 2, Everett for 1, Avi for 1 and then what? Likely Jim for 1 and then we’re looking at either Percy or Bobby. Thank goodness we don’t have that extra game each week is all I can say at this point.

Little Mistakes. The other team just ran us ragged. Every little thing they were taking an extra base. The catcher would catch the ball and they would take off stealing. People weren’t where they needed to be. Now the good thing is that we got better as the game went on. We had more people running the ball in rather then throwing at the end which is good. Granted they were getting on base but it seemed like every walk was turning into a run because of how they were running. Our fundamentals just plain sucked and I frankly think that was on me and Steve. We will be working on it at practice, that’s for sure.

The other team’s sportsmanship. They needless ran up the score. They taunted us from the basepaths and from the bench. When it became clear that we were in the 4th and last inning the coach continued to run up the score. I talked to him about it and he gave me some lame excuse about how is team was destroyed on Saturday and went home with their heads down, yadda yadda yadda. I made my point to him which is all that could really be done in the situation.

Where we go from here

Our plan for practice is two fold.

1. We want to teach bunting. This has been a priority with us for a while and it’s time we hunker down and do it.

2. Work on fielding. Boy do we need the work.

I will go into greater depth about what we do after tonight’s practice. Clearly we also need to work on hitting, which Steve is going to do while I’m doing small group bunting instruction, but I would like not to be embarrassed at our game and so fielding will be the priority at the practice.