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.