Rain Outs

We were rained out of our game yesterday and practice today. With no game on Saturday we're off until next Tuesday.

Practice Report and Update

Saturday Addendum
One thing I don’t think emphasized enough was how different I am as a coach this year compared to last year. I see how Steve is coaching this year, commenting nearly relentlessly and I know I did almost as much of that last year. When we started to unravel a bit, Steve was having a difficult time handling his frustration, and I know I felt similarly last year. I really think basketball changed this about me. I do less is more when it comes to comments, while still making sure the good outweighs the critical. And when the game that had been a blow-out started to get close, I felt it, but I worked hard to not let it show. I know that several of my parents, most notably Lucas’s dad, loved the fact that I always remained calm and I think this is a big reason we won nearly every close game we had. To be honest I even said something when Steve got audibly flustered that I shouldn’t have said (something like “Calm down” in a quiet and nice way). Anyhow, coaching baseball has made me see how much I’ve grown as a coach and I’m real pleased with the new me during games.

Tuesday Practice
Monday night Steve calls me. Long story short, in a month he’s going to unexpectedly lose his apartment and he and his roommate have to go hunting Tuesday during practice. This is going to leave me on my own for only our second practice.

Last week we’d developed a really awesome practice plan, for the Wednesday practice that was canceled due to rain. I basically decide to go with a modified version of this practice. The practice is going to be heavy on base running with a minor in hitting/bunting.

I get to the field and Jeremy Me is the first to arrive. We play catch for a bit. 5:45, the nominal start time of practice rolls around and he’s the only one there. Now I knew we’d have quite a few late players due to religious school, but I expected more than one kid at the start of practice. Our practice doesn’t start, therefore, in actuality until 6. Practice ends at 7 so it is a short practice. When we start there is only Jeremy Me, Sean, Jared, Cameron and Nick. Austin and Alec came to drop off Nick, but their mother basically couldn’t deal with logistical issues involving having Austin and Alec there so they missed. As we were throwing a little before practice started Nick and Jared were both concerned about their pitching performance. I reassured Jared he’d get to pitch again and Nick that he’d get to pitch two innings again.

We started off with some sprinting competitions with a sample 1st base and home plate. I would yell “Ball 4”, they’d drop their bat and run, going through the bag at first. After a little initial groaning they had some fun with it. We also practiced sprinting down to first and then making the turn towards second. As we were working on this Jeremy Ma, Jeremy F, Matt S, and Nof all showed up. We then worked on a drill where they practiced leading off as soon as the ball crossed home plate from the pitcher. All of these drills are designed to send the message that we will be aggressive on the base paths and to give them the practice that they need to do it. Aggressive base running can mean 1 or 2 runs every single game and I want to make sure we get them all.

By this time it was almost time for us to get the field. I did one last quick game where they were partnered up and I gave them 20 seconds. The goal was to throw back and forth as many times as possible in that time. They were about 2/3 of the distance between bases. The idea here is teach them on how to get the ball out of their gloves and make accurate throws under pressure.

Then it was time for us to take the field. The missing fifteen minutes of instruction would have been devoted to the basics of bunting and some individual hitting instruction (had Steve been there). I decided to go ahead with modified batting practice, where they can earn extra swings based on their bunting ability, anyway giving a very cursory bunting lesson. None of our batters were particularly successful with the bunting, understandably. I’m not sure that this hitting was the best use of time, actually, but they were clamoring to hit and this activity was on my practice so I did it. After the modified BP, we did the “how many bases can you get” game as this is both a throwing game (our one weakness so far) and a hitting game. We still had quite a few errant throws. By this time practice was almost over and so I ended us with a throwing relay race competition.

For this practice I feel like I gave excellent base running instruction. My hitting instruction was so-so, though I did make good progress with our novice bunters.

The big revelation of practice was that the ball Jeremy F rocketed during the game was no fluke. Both during BP and the game he KILLED the ball. He actually got 7 bases during the game, which is about the most you could get.

Nof is going to be our weakest hitter. His fundamentals just aren’t strong and he knows it. He’s an incredibly nice kid though and so hopefully we’ll be able to help him. Matt S is also weak, though he can wallop the ball if he gets a piece of it.

Nothing really stands out either way from any of the others.

Week Wrap-up
Heavens forbid that we actually get a full week of baseball in, our game yesterday was canceled due to rain (hardly unexpected). The forecast is favorable for Saturday though not so good for Tuesday and Wednesday for next week. There is a possibility we won’t play on Saturday as the fields could still be too wet, but hopefully that won’t happen.

I also received a sad email today from Kevin. Justin G has broken his arm and is going to be out for 3 weeks. We’re certainly going to miss his good cheer, his bat, and his pitching. Basically we’re going to miss him. I haven’t talked him yet, but am going to see if he’d be interested in coming to some of the games and perhaps doing some base coaching (not too much harm they can do at 1st base).

Hopefully you’ll see another update on Saturday.

The Season that never begins

Well yesterday should have been our first practice but it was canceled due to the cold. I expect Tuesday and Wednesday, based on the weather forecasts, to be canceled due to some combo of rain/cold/snow. It seems as though our season will just never begin.

Marlins vs Yankees and Marlins vs. Red Sox

Tuesday
The forecast for the day is gloomy, but Tuesday morning as I sit at my desk at a library things are looking gorgeous outside. Monday night I had sent Steve the email I posted here. Steve agreed with the revised lineup and pitchers. However, after some more thinking I had thought perhaps we should throw our unreliable pitcher, being Bobby or Jim, in the first in the hope we would then still have time to recover if they got shelled. This causes a flurry of emails back and forth between me and Steve. We end up actually doing four lineups, one with Bobby and Jim throwing in the first and one with them throwing in the fourth. It should be noted that with Brendan catching we can actually do a pretty terrific infield. We decide we’ll throw them both a little beforehand and see who looks sharper and that’s the way we’ll go. I keep pushing for Steve to try and get his younger brother to come as he’s the high school pitcher, but that’s a definite unknown.

As I leave school at just after 3 I listen to a voice mail from Steve. Bobby has called him and he was home sick during the day. So at least that solves our dilemma of who to pitch between Bobby and Jim. As I am driving to the youth center the clouds are quite ominous. In fact when I arrive around 3:30 it is thundering and lightening but only rains for a minute. I expect the game to be called. When I call at 3:45 the game is still on. Same thing at 4:00. And 4:30. And 5:30, when I leave it is sunny once again. So it looks like we’ll play some baseball. Unfortunately, it will be a game without Steve. He calls me at about 4 saying he has some stomach bug. It’s definitely going to be weird coaching a game without him. I also worry that there isn’t really a stomach bug and he simply doesn’t want to drive down for a game that could very easily be canceled. As I have said once or twice before Steve doesn’t seem as committed as last season.

And so I head out to the field, after a stop at home to change, extra early hoping to catch an early game. Which I do. Only problem is that I then realize I’m at the WRONG field. So I drive to the correct field. Jesse is already there and Ethan arrives at about the same time I do. As we walk over to the field, the field is clearly unplayable. Where there should be a batter’s box there is instead a HUGE puddle. A phone call has been made to get somebody to bring some dirt over. Just as I arrive, at 7:15 for our game, there is a flash of lightening. Which means we’ll have to wait 30 minutes to play our game, anyway. The players slowly trickle in. I have Jim and Jesse throw behind the dugout a little. Jesse comes over and tells me how great Jim looks. I swear that no pitcher has ever looked poor throwing to Jesse when there is no coach looking if you were to ask Jesse. I take a look at Jim and he looks OK. He looks like he’s going to get the ball TO the plate, though it won’t necessarily be a strike. But even that is an improvement. Our 7:45 game time rolls around and nothing. The Park District guy shows up right at 7:45. Eventually the ump and the other manager, at my suggestion, agree to start the game on the other field and to move back, as the field with the puddle has the lights. We end up starting at about 7:55, so only 10 minutes late. With no Bobby, Kelvin is our first batter. He draws a walk. Jesse strikes out, but Kelvin has stolen second and third. With Kelvin on third Trey is up at bat. And that’s when the Park District guy comes over and says there was lightening. The other coach asks if I really want to wait the 30 minutes, as we are now playing at a field without lights and the other field might, or might not, be ready to play on. I say that I absolutely want to play. So we start to wait. After about 5 minutes of waiting it is decided that conditions simply won’t let us play and so everyone is sent home.

I remind everyone at this time that we don’t have practice on Wednesday, but are going to do a light practice on Saturday before the game. Steve and I both feared that the Tuesday game would get canceled and we’d miss the game on Wednesday when we’d be at our brother’s graduation. Fortunately, by the time the other team’s coach suggests this the players from our team have mostly left and so it’s agreed we won’t make up the game. Unfortunately, after I reminded people about our game on Saturday Trey goes up to his dad and says “Did you realize we had a game on Saturday?” Trey’s dad asks me several times if that game was on the schedule or was a makeup and I tell him it was on the schedule. Trey’s dad tells me that Trey won’t be there. I do apply a bit of a guilt trip as Steve and I had planned on really going all out against the Red Sox, considering they were our first round opponent. As I leave the field I call Steve to tell him that we will be without Trey for our game on Saturday.

Friday I work am at work at the Youth Center and Joey, who has hit several home runs and is on the Red Sox, is in again. And he keeps trash talking our team, continuing off of something he already started on Tuesday. He keeps trying to get me to admit my team is bad. Keeps bragging about how good his team is. Frankly the whole thing gets annoying, but I never waver in saying that I think we have a good team and that it’ll be a good game.

Saturday Before the Game
Steve and I make plans to get together, have breakfast and then to head over to the field. We put together a lineup without Trey. He is the only one we remember won’t be there, however I later remember that Kelvin had told me he wouldn’t be at the game. While doing the lineup we bemoan the lack of Trey.

We then go out and have a nice breakfast, in my case, or lunch, in Steve’s case, at a deli. As we are finishing up our meal and getting ready to head over to the field Steve gets a phone call. He goes “Uh-oh”. He quickly establishes that it’s Trey on the phone. I think to myself “How can anything with Trey be MORE of an uh-oh”. And then Steve says “Well that’s great. How about the practice beforehand?” And that’s when I practically leap out of the booth. A moment later Steve hangs up. We are going to have Trey for both the practice, which we didn’t really care about, and the game. The whole thing with him missing was so mysterious I am dying to know what it was. A court date? A urologist’s exam? What? Steve and I decide that this warrants redoing the lineup.

In the car ride back from the deli we debate how much we want to use Trey. 2 innings? 1? With the playoffs coming up we don’t want to wear out his arm before the “real” games even start. In the end we decide that we will pitch, Everett, Percy, and Trey with the “split” innings approach to try and limit their pitches. We are now expecting all 12 players to be there.

We get to the field nice and early and basically lay in the grass watching one of the games and sunning before our players get there. When our players do arrive we go through a very light practice that consists of Steve hitting them ground balls while I hit them flyballs, using a tennis racket and tennis balls, and then switching. We then pitch them some soft toss, and they all look good. We end with “footbaseball”. During practice Brendan’s family calls and says he won’t be there. Also absent from the practice are Ethan and Kelvin.

Game time approaches and we are at exactly 9 players. Which means I will be figuring out positions as the game begins. I bring the team over beforehand and give them a speech which goes like this. “We are playing the team we play in the first round of the playoffs. And they aren’t giving you any respect. They really think we’re a bad team and that they can just roll right over us. And I know they’re wrong. We had a nice light practice before hand, but it’s game time now and we have to go out and play 100%. So we’re going to go out there and play hard and prove that that we’re the better team by winning today.” The team checks to make sure I was being serious about them trash talking us, and not just making it up, and I assure them that I am being serious. Both of the kids I know on the team, Joey and Garett, have both said something or made faces so while it was a slight exaggeration to say the team was doing it, it was certainly not an outright lie. The team is pretty motivated as we get ready for our first at bats.

The Game
So the game gets underway. With Trey being there after all he is our leadoff batter. And our star player starts things off by flying out to center-right. The play was a routine play and it was fielded routinely which will be something typical throughout the game. Fuller then hits a rocket, unfortunately it is right at their nearly 6 foot tall second basemen, Joey, who makes a leaping catch. It was a very well hit ball, but perhaps an even better defensive play. Jim walks, but Avi grounds out to the pitcher to end the inning. 0-0

Everett takes the mound against a favorite player of ours from last year, Garrett. We tell Jesse, who is behind the plate, to give a high strike zone and sure enough on the second pitch, after a first pitch strike, Garrett bites and grounds it back to the mound. Next batter rockets it on the ground to shortstop, but Bobby fields it like a pro and we get the next out. Everett then hits the next batter. The following batter gets a single. Up comes Joey, their star slugger. We tell Jesse to setup inside and on the first pitch Joey hits a pitch that would have been a ball right at Jodi in left. She gets her glove on it, but the ball is hit so hard that it pops right out, which wasn’t really her fault. She gets the ball back in quickly, but unfortunately they score a run. Everett then gets the next batter to ground back out to him and so we end the first down 1-0.

Percy leads off our next inning with a walk. Everett follows this up with a single which gets Percy to third. First pitch Everett steals second base so now we have runners at second and third. Jodi draws a walk. Bobby singles into right field only because they had their right fielder playing ridiculously shallow. If he had been playing at a normal depth it’s likely an easy out as the ball went over his head and died. Anyhow Bobby drives in Percy. Jesse strikes out. Trey then hits a single driving in Everett. Fuller steps up and hits a ball to the first baseman who throws it home to get Jodi out at the plate. What is of note is that they are already contesting the run by bringing the infield in, something I think is a strategic mistake in this league, though we never do take advantage of the fact during the game. With two outs Jim is up. He hits a ball to the second baseman which he loses track of. Bobby scores easily. By the time Trey gets to me, and he is sprinting I will add, the second baseman still doesn’t have the ball. With 2 outs and Avi about to be up I decide to send Trey. I figure three things can go right for us: 1. He beats the throw 2. He wouldn’t have beaten the throw but it will go wild or 3. He doesn’t beat the throw but they can’t get the tag on him. Well just after I send Trey the second basemen finally locates the ball and gets it and throws it home, on a perfect throw. The catcher has plenty of time to get setup. TG slides in, pretty clearly under the throw, but is called out anyway. He thought he was safe. I thought he was safe. The parents sitting in the stands thought he was safe. Oh well. Good guys go up 3-1.

Everett is on the mound for another inning. The first two batters pop out, first to Jodi at second and then to Trey at short. Next batter lines a double. He steals third, but we get Garrett to ground out, again, to our pitcher to end the inning. This is the first time where Everett’s good pitching was rewarded in that he allowed only 1 run in two very solid innings of pitching, with only 25 total pitches thrown. Anyhow still 3-1 Marlins. Avi starts of the inning by hitting it hard at the first basemen who makes an error. Unfortunately, Avi did not hurry out of the box and so the right fielder throws him out by a step. If he hadn’t thought he was out when he hit the ball he’d have been safe. This is reinforced when Percy hits almost the exact same ball and is safe by a couple of steps. Percy steals second and third. However, he’s stranded there when Everett hits one back to the pitcher and they look him back. Jodi comes up with two outs and draws a walk. I send her on the second pitch. But it’s all for naught as Bovvy strikes out.
Percy is our new pitcher and does not start off so well, walking the first player. Everett is now catching for us and they decide to run on him with that player stealing second on the first batter, who strikes out. The next batter also strikes out however the runner steals third after Everett makes a bad throw. Normally our left fielder would have been right there to backup, but as the batter was a lefty he was shifted way over. So anyhow they score a run without having hit the ball. The second batter strikes out. Which is just as well that the bases are empty because up steps JR, their slugger. We are playing at the only field with a fence and we have our outfield practically playing on the fence, which proves to be the correct play when he hits a ball that nearly goes over but instead is a very long single. Now this guy is not a fast guy but they STILL managed to have him steal second and third before Percy strikes out the next batter. 3-2 Marlins after 3.

Now it should be said that this game is moving. We are about half way through the game and we are half way through the time limit. This means our plan to only play for 5 innings isn’t going to fly. Our pitching schedule has Trey throwing next inning and Avi closing out the game with the last two. Alternatively, we could have Percy throw 2 and have Avi and Trey each throw one. We decide to see how long this next half inning takes before making a decision. Jesse leads off with a walk. Trey hits a ball to second base which gets Jesse out on a fielders choice. Trey manages to steal second and third. Fuller pops up to second base. I give Trey the green light to try and steal home, as I have more faith in Jim leading off an inning then driving in a run. And sure enough Jim hits the ball to second base. Something has happened to Jesse which diverts Steve’s attention and so I have to make a split second decision on what to do and decide to put Avi up there as we’re still doing well on time. Unfortunately, I don’t have positions for this which proves to be a problem as I have Everett catch again, not really thinking about how Trey should have caught this inning as Trey clearly cannot catch for himself and we didn’t really want to catch Everett for three innings. I realize my mistake too late to change it.

Anyhow Avi takes the mound. Avi starts off with 4 balls, though the batter swings at one in the dirt so it’s 3 and 1. We tell him to take a moment and concentrate, which makes a big difference for him. He takes his time and induces a grounder back to the pitcher for the first out. He then asks if it was a good pitch, which Steve and I assure him it was. Next play is a ball to Trey who is at third base. Trey who when I told him he was playing third rolled his eyes. Anyway TG comes up with it and fires it over to first to Jesse who completely misplays it. So now we have a runner on. Who then proceeds to steal second. He advances to third when the next batter hits a single. We give up the steal and now have runners at second and third. I tell Trey to hold the runner at third on and sure enough we catch him walking back to the bag. Everett makes the throw and we have a run down. A rundown which we execute perfectly, though the runner from second does advance to third. Two outs. Garrett comes up and knocks in a single to score the run. He then proceeds to steal second and third, on consecutive pitches though the call at third could have gone either way. Next batter hits a single to score Garrett. Avi then strikes out the batter to end the inning. 4-3 BoSox.

Avi starts us off with a single. He steals second. Percy then walks. Everett then hits a ground rule double, under the fence, which is a shame as Percy would have scored easily. Jodi strikes out. Bobby then pops it up and the first basemen makes the play though Percy is able to score on a tag up and Everett advances to third. Jesse then knocks Everett home. Jesse is able to steal second before Trey strikes out. We do get three runs though putting us up 6-4.

Trey comes up to pitch. As he’s doing so, JM is very upset about something which Steve is handling. I later learn that Joey made a threatening comment to him. This appears to be in retaliation for a play made where Jesse missed a throw by Everett and so Joey ended up getting hit in the head. We are not sure, as the inning starts, if it is Joey or a different tall kid who made the comment. Trey does not start off well walking the first batter on four pitches. They are able to once again take advantage of Everett getting the runner to third. Joey steps up to bat. On the second or third pitch, Trey makes a bad pitch which bounces in the ground in front of Joey. Joey then takes a step out towards the mound and makes a threatening comment to Trey. The umpire warns him at that moment. Frankly, I think Joey believed all his trash talk and thought we were a bad team that they could roll over and has been surprised that we have held him to singles, not homers, and that in fact his team is losing. The next pitch is a play back to the pitcher. Trey looks at the runner, and the runner is clearly going home. So what does Trey do? Throws to first for the easy out, conceding the run. Given the situation I am OK with it, but I hope Trey realized that the point of looking at the runner is to make sure he doesn’t score, either by throwing it home or keeping him on third. Anyway we record the first out. ON the next play Trey does indeed hit the batter, who promptly steals second. After going down 3-0 on the next batter TG fights his way back and records the strikeout. The inning ends on a grounder to short. They score 1 and it’s now 6-5.

I point out to the team that if we score 7 runs, the max, then we don’t have to play the field as we win. Unfortunately, Fuller starts it off by striking out. This means 3 of our 4 kids with lowest strike out percentages, Jesse, Trey, & Fuller (with the absent Kelvin being the fourth) have struck out. Jim then gets on first after hustling out a play where it once again bloops over the right fielders head. On the second pitch he takes off and steals second. Avi then hits it back to the pitcher advancing Jim. Unfortunately, Percy strikes out to end the inning and our insurance run stranded at third.

The bottom of the inning starts with a single. Bobby almost makes an incredible play, catching the ball on a hard hit line drive, but instead it just gets knocked down and unfortunately the other kid wins the foot race to the bag. Before there can be any steals Garrett hits a ball right at Everett, who is at short. Everett should have plenty of time to pick up the ball and so I yell for him to get the out at second, as I would like to get the lead runner out. Unfortunately, Everett just can’t pick up the ball and both batters are safe. They steal third base, with Jesse throwing in plenty of time to get the runner, unfortunately the throw is just enough off the bag that we can’t get the tag in time. At this point Steve and I pull the infield in. And here’s where Trey proves why he’s a great pitcher. On 7 pitches he strikes out the next two batters. This then brings Joey up to bat. With two outs we now just need to get the out and so we set the infield and outfield deep. Trey seems to have Joey’s number as he hits a not particularly hard grounder to Everett, who muffs the ball again. This scores the tying run. At the time I was just furious with him. However, in retrospect I am not nearly as upset. The kid had pitched for two innings and caught for three. He’s going to be dead tired. If I hadn’t been creating lineups on the fly we almost for sure do not put him at short there. Of course, if I hadn’t been creating lineups on the fly he’d have only caught for two innings. Anyway, Everett has not made one clutch play for us, either at bat or in the field, especially in the field, which is frustrating. We try and do a trick play to get the runner on third to go with a throw to the shortstop when Joey attempts to steal second, but it’s no dice. But we needn’t have worried as Trey takes three pitches to end the game with another strikeout. And we end up with a very hard fought tie.

Looking Forward

Steve and I are VERY upbeat after the game. The team is clearly exhausted but we tell them that we played excellent baseball. Were it not for either of Everett’s errors, or for the bum call in the second on the play at the plate, we win this game.

Looking at the scorebook I worry, however, that the game on Wednesday is not going to go nearly as well. If I had to pick three kids to miss the combination of Brendan, Ethan, and Kelvin would be pretty high up there as Brendan and Ethan aren’t great hitters and Kelvin is not a very good fielder. Furthermore, not having to sit any kids was a major plus for us. I also think they were missing none of their bad kids and a couple of their good kids based on where good hitters were in their lineup in relation to others. So we’ll see. This tie, all things considered, was as good as a win for us psychologically. Once again the other team was mopey and we were upbeat at the end of the game, so that part is good.

I think the parents would be hard pressed at this point to criticize us, as we have the team peaking at the right point in the season, just like we said we would. The game was a very well played game of baseball. The good news is that they made about 1 stupid play and we made 3. So even that augers well in our favor as I am not convinced that they are fundamentally a better team then we are. We also have the advantage of knowing they are going to run hard against us, so it’ll be something we focus on Tuesday.

Speaking of Tuesday, we want to save Trey, Everett, and to a lesser extent, Percy’s arm. Jim and Bobby have both been told they’re pitching. Basically we’re going to talk about having fun with our last game. The less pitching we have our pitchers do here the more we can save them for the playoffs. Hopefully the other team will have the same philosophy.

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. Cubs

Pregame

We expect 12 players. Neither of us have gotten a call. The weather forecast is once again ominous but the storm time keeps moving back so Steve and I are optimistic about getting our game in. We go to his house and make the lineup. It’s a really nice lineup considering we have to sit every kid by the 4th inning. Normally Steve and I go above and beyond the rules and have every kid scheduled to play at least one outfield inning. No such doing today. We’re going for the win, just as we would in the playoffs. We do the following for pitchers/catchers:

Trey/Jesse
Trey/Jesse
Everett/Trey
Evertt(.5)&Percy(.5)/?
Percy/Everett
Avi/Everett

The idea is that the moment Everett starts not to look sharp we yank him, with the possibility of doing the same if Percy starts not to look sharp in the 5th, as the 6th inning is a pipe dream.

We go to dinner. We head to Sportmart, to pickup some tennis balls, for flyball practice, and a handheld counter (you know a little circular medal thing that clicks). Only they have no pitch counters. Not only that but they’re very unhelpful about it. Anyhow we decide to check out Target next, but during the drive over there I come up with the idea of using my stopwatch with it’s 99 “laps” as pitch counter if need be. And need be it will, as Target does not carry the item.

We get to the filed. Percy’s sister has a soccer game at the adjacent field to our baseball game so he’s there really early. After throwing some toss and fielding some grounders, I have him pitch to me. After he throws two bad pitches, I tell him to shake it off, he does, and throws in several nice ones. I then have him try and throw me a change. And it’s a nice enough off speed pitch. He looks like he could have another good outing.

As discussed in the post yesterday, we decide to play “footbaseball” before the game. Several of the parents were clearly skeptical about this, but the kids came out with energy. I was busy talking to the ump and opposing coach when Steve did the pregame talk. We go out to the field with energy.

The Game
The game begins and we have no Ethan, Kelvin, or Brendan. And honestly? That’s not the worse thing in the world as none of them are great fielders. But it means I have to scramble to redo our lineup, going from 3 subs to no subs. Luckily we’re batting first. Right as we finish batting I finally finish the first inning and Kelvin nearly simultaneously shows up. Batting wise Jodi, Trey, and Everett all strike out while Jim draws a walk. This is clearly their ace. He has good control and great velocity. I hope we won’t see him in the bottom of the inning.

As I continue to scramble to do the lineup, as subbing 3 players and 1 player require completely different schemes rendering our pregame plan pretty much useless, TG lets up a well hit double. He then strikes out the next batter, but the leadoff batter advances to third on a steal during the at bat. The next batter, Andy, a kid I know well from my days of student teaching and because he lives in the neighborhood, lofts a HIGH flyball into deep in the infield on the second base side. Percy and Everett converge on it and Everett calls for it and catches it like a routine flyball. He then proceeds to talk to Percy while the runner goes home. Steve and I scream at him, but by the time Everett realizes what’s going on the run has scored. It is utterly ridiculous. I mean if it had been Kelvin, or Ethan, catching the ball I understand how a sac fly which scores a runner goes down, but I am amazed at Everett’s lack of awareness of the runner and the situation.

Trey then gets the next batter to ground back to him. Now I happen to know from my talking around the league that Andy is their best player. I make a mental note of the fact that he’s hitting 3rd and that the 4th batter is their ace pitcher. So it’s now 1-0 Cubbies but it’s still anyone’s game. They bring in a new pitcher and I breath a sigh of relief. Percy starts us off with a walk, and he then steals second. Jesse rips a ball into center and it goes to the fence easily scoring Percy and landing him at second. Bobby grounds out to first and Jesse has to hold at second. Fuller then grounds out to second and Jesse is able to advance. Avi walks. Their coach calls time and brings the shortstop and catcher in to talk at the mound. Steve and I think he’s going to use our play of throwing to short. On the first pitch Steve sends Avi and instead they throw to 2nd and nail Avi dead to left. It wasn’t even close. That’s out 3. But we’re tied 1-1

The first two batters are interesting. The first batter hits a ground back up the middle, just under Trey’s mit. Jodi, at short, is getting in a good position to make the play, until it hits the rubber, and flies into center. Base hit. Next batter hits a ball to the first base side. Everett has the best play, and fields the ball, but there’s nobody at first. I have repeatedly told Trey that if the first basemen is going field the ball he needs to be over there. After this happens I remind of this and he says he thought the second basemen was going to cover. Technically, he’s correct that the second basemen should have covered in this instance, but I don’t expect Avi to know to do this, especially as he’s played far more 3rd base then 2nd this year, where as I do expect Trey to know to move to the bag as a pitcher. Anyhow due to freakish sort of plays we now have runners at first and second. It is, by this point, drizzling and so the ball is hard to handle. The next pitch, Jesse loses his grasp on the ball and the runner, who is pretty fast, takes off to third. Jesse has him dead to right. He throws, Fuller catches and makes the tag, out 1. What’s great is that even if Fuller hadn’t made the tag the guy didn’t slide so we’d have gotten the out anyway, which I confirmed afterwards with the ump, as we hadn’t discussed mandatory sliding in the pregame meeting. Trey strikes out the batter with ease. He then looks like he’s struggling against the next batter, ending up walking him after 8 pitches. Which is sort of remarkable as up until that point he’d only thrown 24 pitches in the two innings. Anyhow on 1-0 pitch the next batter grounds right to Avi on a ball, who fields it like a pro, recording out 3. We escape what could have been a disastrous inning, unscathed. 1-1 after 2

Jodi is at bat and she strikes out again. Jim, per my instructions, shows bunt on the first pitch. He pulls back, as it was a ball, but this draws the infield in. I tell him after he’s done this that he can either bunt or hit, his choice. He chooses to hit and once again gets a single thanks to having the infield in. Score one for the coach. Trey then grounds into a FC. I give him the greenlight. He steals second and advances to third on Everett’s single. Once again there is time as the coach pulls in the relevant fielders. I tell Everett that they’re going to try and throw him out so he needs to go as soon as there is a slightly mishandled ball and go hard as he can beat out the throw. He does go, the catcher’s throw is way off and Trey scores easily. Their coach was yelling at his catcher not to throw, despite the fact that a good throw could have made it a close play (though Everett should’ve still been safe) so I’m not quite sure what the talk was about there. Anyway Percy walks. On the second pitch, it gets by the catcher. Percy immediately starts running hard for second. Everett delays and only starts running when he realizes Percy is barreling down towards second. Steve later tells me that he was telling Everett to run. It ends up a close play at third but Everett is clearly safe. Jesse is unable to take advantage of the opportunity, however, and we strand the runners after he strikes out. Marlins are up 2-1. I had told Steve I wanted a 4 run lead with Everett coming into pitch, but overall we’re playing sharp, and with energy, so hopefully things will be ok.

On the first batter it’s a hard hit groundball to the first base side. At first it appears to be a redux of the last inning, with their first base coach even telling the hitter “No one is covering” . But he’s so wrong. Jim, at second, had been pulled towards first by the ground ball, and just as the coach finishes his sentence he appears at first and easily catches the lob from Jesse and it’s out 1 in what looks like a routine play though is anything but routine. Everett walks their next batter, and it is clear that “coincidentally” they have their best player first and their worse player last. Anyhow, runner is at first. Their next batter hits a long flyball to left center. With outstretched glove the left fielder makes the catch. The runner is practically at second base when this happens. We yell for him to make the throw. It’s a pretty dead on throw, but comes in a little low. Jesse misjudges it and it gets by him, but the runner is forced to stay at first. Steve and I both yell out a good job to Bobby, who has made several great catches for us, only to realize that it was Fuller, who was standing right next to Bobby, who made the catch. Whoops. If you remember I talked about how Fuller was terrible at catching flyballs. But man did he get that one. Two outs. At this point Everett has thrown 8 balls and only 1 strike (with one foul ball on a pitch that would have been a ball). But he manages to strike out the next batter, looking very sharp. As we get ready to hit, I talk to Andy’s mother and she expresses some surprise to see Andy batting third this game. Which confirms my suspicion, along with the fact that the opposing coach does not keep a scorebook, that this guy is fiddling with things. Which, considering his team is one of the worse two in the league, I can understand on a certain level. Anyhow, I’m glad to have caught this jerk cheating.

Fourth inning, sees a truly horrendous pitcher come in. I pull Bobby aside and say I don’t want him to swing until after the pitcher throws a strike. When he lets an easy strike go past him, the coach asks me “did you tell him to take?” I confirm that I did. He’s not to pleased with this. I tell him it’s the only time all game I’ve told a player to take. He tells me that he thought I had earlier. I say that I haven’t, and he again says that he thought I had. I tell him point blank I’m not going to lie to him. The only reason that this is a point is that this league promotes kids swinging. And we do tell kids to swing. Now I’m sure if I didn’t already know this guy’s a cheater this goes down a little differently. Anyway, that is the only strike this pitcher throws and after 17 pitches, including having walked in a run, the pitcher is pulled. Jodi has struck out the first two times looking, so I had told her, even before our discussion with the Cub’s coach, that she needs to swing. She does swing, and strikes out, swinging this time. Jim then has a play recorded in the book as a sac, which I just can’t recall to be honest but which scores Fuller. Trey then grounds out to the pitcher to end the inning. 4-1 good guys.

Before the game we’ve told Everett and Percy about how this is going to work. Everett walks the first batter, on a full count, with a very close ball four. On the next player the player hits it back to Everett who listens to what I’m yelling this team and gets the lead runner out at second. Their next player, on a 1-2 pitch of course, gets a single. Everett is throwing better though. And he proves it striking out the next batter on three pitches, even making the guy fall down on strike 3, though the runners do manage to advance on a ball that gets by Trey. I tell Evertt that he should throw it hard as this will be his last batter. On the second pitch, Everett throws a bad pitch, which gets by Trey. Despite Steve having reminded him that he needs to cover, Everett mopes and by the time he recovers the runner is close to scoring. It’s a close play at the plate, but the runner scores, more because Everett has had his 3rd mental lapse of the game then anything else. After falling down 2-0 Everett battles back and ends up striking out the guy. So much for Percy needing to pitch. 4-2 Marlins heading into the 5th.

Everett grounds out to the second basemen, who manages to make the play despite mishandling what is now a very slippery ball, as there has been a near constant drizzle for the past 50 minutes or so. Everett ran out the ball really well though, so that was good. Percy then strikes out. Jesse comes and rips a single past the shortstop. I have him steal second. Bobby then walks. Fuller gets up and rips a double into right center, scoring Jesse. On the first pitch it gets by the catcher and Bobby, noticing the pitcher isn’t covering, takes off running and slides into home scoring. I call him over after the play and congratulate him on what I think is heads up base running. He says thanks though he somewhat mysteriously apologizes at the same time. I later hear from Steve the whole story. Turns out Steve had said to listen to him and Bobby made some smart alec comment and then moments later scores. This is one of those times where if he gets called out it is a major issue, but since he scored it becomes harder to make an issue out of it. Anyway, Avi walks, and Kelvin again gets a check swing “single” which scores Fuller. Jodi then comes up and strikes out for the fourth time, looking at strike 3 for the third time, though she did get several good swings in. When she makes contact she can really rip it, so I feel it’s less a case of mechanics then timing, though with her not being able to come to practice due to Hebrew/Travel Softball it’s hard to know as we can’t ever get time to work with her really.

So we start the bottom of 5 up 7-2. On 8 pitches Percy walks the first batter. He often doesn’t look good on the first batter so I’m not too concerned, though he only has a little leeway before we get to the hart of the order, and due to time constraints this is the last inning. However, as the second batter comes up, one of the Park District people comes running in, having spotted lightening and the game ends.

And, we won.

With that note I’m going to end this entry. Look for a special extra post tomorrow as I do a midseason status report and talk about Saturday’s game a little.

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.