Self Criticism

So I’ve given a wrap-up for the players, for the league, and now it’s time to turn inward. I am going to mostly talk about me here and pretty much ignore Steve. This isn’t to demean his contributions, or to suggest he was perfect or awful, but mostly because I feel like I am in no position to evaluate my co-coach. So if I use I or me, I’m talking exclusively about me, and if I use we or our, I’m talking about the collective effort of me and Steve.

Looking back on the season, I’m not really sure what to think. I admit that I feel a certain amount of insecurity about my baseball coaching skills. And so the fact that we lost so much? That didn’t help.

There are certain aspects of my performance that I’m very pleased about. I’ve played on winning teams, but I’ve played on more losing teams then winning teams. And I’ve seen a team give up and stop caring. And I’ve seen teams that continued to fight all the way despite losing. So I’m proud of the way our team played this season. Considering that this was a bunch of 9-12 year olds they very clearly could have given up and packed it in. Now, I won’t lie. After that Red Sox playoff game I know several players did pack it in. And there were bits of defeatism at other points in the season. However, with the time off by the time Sunday came around they were ready to fight again. And I know Steve and I deserve credit for that.

Further, I know that we made a difference, at least for a time, in the lives of several of our players: Avi, Bobby, and Trey. Before this week I wouldn’t have put Trey on that list, but he happened to be riding his bike by my house as I was reading and so he stopped and talked. And in his own way, simply because this kid will never be a fountain of emotions, it was clear that Trey had a lot of respect for me. So that was cool. Avi and Bobby I’ve talked about before. You hear a common refrain in teaching how they hope to really just impact one kid and that’s good enough. Well that’s never been good enough for me. However, I do give us credit for the way we handled the social aspect of the team.

But then again, what we did is my minimum expectation. I don’t know how to write this without sounding like a braggart, but it’s important in understanding where I’m coming from here. I have been told by many people who have years of experience in the area that I have a “gift” for dealing with kids. I think I often get more credit then I deserve, but it does mean that I have a certain expectation for my performance in this area. So, I would say that I all I did was meet those expectations.

Also in the plus column is our devotion to fairness. We are scrupulous about following the rules and even go above and beyond them during the regular season, for the most part. This sort of dovetails with the point above, but I feel good about how we conducted ourselves. Even in games with unexpected no shows, I worked hard to follow the rules, and our unofficial rules, to the letter and always succeeded. This is very important to me and so again I have a very high minimum expectation and I feel like that was met, though not really exceeded.

On the field managing, I feel once again got stronger as the season went on. I haven’t grown as much here as I’d like, simply because I’ve had no one to push me here or to learn from, as this simply isn’t one of Steve’s strengths. I still have a bit to go to reach the level of where I want to be, but give me a passing grade for the area. I’m continuing to make progress, simply not at the rate at which I’d like.

But that brings me to the area of player development. And this is where I just don’t know what to say. I simply don’t have the experience or background to say how good of a job I did. And so looking at the results it would suggest that I did none too hot. Of course, the team was bad to start with, so maybe Steve and I just got bum luck this year. All I have to compare is our team last year and our team this year. And looking at the base talent of the two years we’re not even in the same ballpark. The team I had last year was more gifted then this year’s team. But that still doesn’t let me off the hook. And that’s because we didn’t have a player “breakout” this year. Last year there were a couple who made significant and noticeable strides in all parts of play. And we simply didn’t have that this year. And so I can’t help but think that perhaps the extra coach last year was the difference. I mean I know this guy was a great hitting coach and so perhaps holding myself to that standard isn’t fair. But it’s the only comparison I have to make.

The two areas where we really focused our energies this year were fielding and pitching. In fielding, there is no doubt that we got significantly better as the season went on. However, all teams get better. So, did we make more progress then the average team? I just don’t know. I do know that we didn’t do enough with hitting this year. I have some ideas of things we can do better next year. For instance, we should be doing soft toss before every game. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the game for which we did soft toss beforehand was also the game we played the best.

As for pitching? Well, I think I did an OK job here. Was I great? No. But I don’t think I gave “bad” coaching to any of our players though again I wonder how much help I really was. But, “first do no harm” is a pretty good philosophy for a coach in a house league environment and on that level I guess I was fine as a pitching coach.

What this all means is that I am going to continue to seek ways to improve myself. I did a lot of self study and work to be a better coach this year then last year and I will continue to try and find opportunities to improve myself. I just found a website which offers online courses in coaching youth baseball and I plan on completing that. I don’t know how worthwhile it’ll be, but they also certify coaches for high school coaching (though not online) so I figure it’ll be worth the time and money. If I find other ways to improve my skills I’ll do it as well and hopefully it’ll be enough.

All of this introspection does obscure something important. I do this to have fun. And while all the losing was VERY rough on me, I did have fun. The kids I was working with mostly had fun as well. And so on those levels? This season was an unqualified success. Except for all the qualifications listed above.

And with that I wrap-up my year of baseball.