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.
Showing posts with label Avi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Avi. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Monday, July 3, 2006
Playoffs vs Braves
Unlike the last update I am writing this with the benefit of the scorebook in front of me, so I have more firm and detailed information, besides my own memory.
Steve and I arrived to the field early. We thought the coaches of the Braves were good guys and so we were happy to be playing them. Our team was all reasonably prompt in arriving, except for Brendan. With the rescheduling, we had received confirmation that everyone was going to be there except for Kelvin, so Steve and I made a lineup that had no Kelvin. With Brendan not arriving, it meant some changes, as Brendan could play Centerfield, something Kelvin isn’t as well suited for considering his lack of throwing power. So that is my curveball. Overall, the team is relaxed, which is good.
We win the coin toss and get ready to go out in the field. We send Trey to the mound first, deciding that we don’t want to mess around. The pitching lineup caused a lot of consternation for Steve and I. This was furthered by the fact that Percy has truly come into his own as a catcher. However, we’ve learned that most fifth graders have problems pitching after they’ve caught so we want to avoid that situation. This sort of means that we want Percy to pitch the third. Then the last choice becomes about how to use Everett and Avi. In the end, we decide to use Avi in the sixth, despite his being a complete nutcase, and Everett in the 4th and 5th.
Trey, after throwing a couple of pitches, reports a problem: he’s throwing uphill. With all of the rain from the previous day and a little overnight, the pitching rubber is so far back that it is a problem. The coaches from the other team, who again are very friendly, the ump, and Steve and I, have a discussion about whether to leave it, as it penalizes both teams equally, or move it forward. Steve and I advocate moving it forward so we decide to dig out the rubber and move it forward two feet, as there is no park district employee anywhere in sight to help us. Trey reports this is a lot better.
Things don’t get off to a good start though, when there is an error on the first play by whoever is playing short (I don’t have the fielding chart due to the Brendan situation) leading to a runner on second. Trey is not overpowering this inning. The next batter goes deep in the count before he hits one pack to Trey who, in a move that made me laugh, looks at the runner at second, who has started running immediately, and then throws it to first anyway. It’s good to see that he’s learned the mechanic of looking at the runner, even if he doesn’t then follow through on it. On the next play it is a legitimate sacrifice fly to someone in right, scoring the first run. The next batter walks, a rarity for Trey and showing how off he is, before the next batter strikes out to end the inning.
We have Jim bunt and while he lays down a fairly good bunt, it’s not good enough and he gets thrown out. Bobby walks to give us a base runner. Jesse continues his recent difficulties as he strikes out. These difficulties have coincided with his having private batting instruction. Everett then singles Bobby over to third, but Trey grounds back to the pitcher to end the inning. 1-0 Braves. And right as the first inning is about to end who shows up but Brendan? This completely throws off my whole chart and it takes nearly 2 full innings for me to replan things. How aggravating.
Trey comes out looking a little better, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s facing the bottom of the lineup, and gets the first guy to ground out to him, followed by a strike out. TG allows yet another walk, truly remarkable considering that including the two in this game he only allowed 7 all season. He does strike out their last batter to retire the side allowing only 1 run on a day where he doesn’t have his best stuff.
Their ace, back for another inning, strikes out the first two batters, Percy and Ethan. Fuller then gets hit by a pitch and steals second during Kelvin’s at bat. Kelvin does one of his weakly hit balls for a hit, advancing Fuller to third. Alas, Avi hits one back to the pitcher to end the inning. Still 1-0 Braves
Up comes Percy to face the top of the lineup. And it looks like things might be rough again when after 8 pitches and a full count the first batter gets a single. The next batter gets out, which is good. However, it’s then walk, walk, to load the bases. However, our newly found outfield ace, Ethan, make the catch on a well hit ball to the outfield. With two outs, perhaps things won’t be so bad after all, I allowed myself to think. But no. Next batter doubles, driving in 2. Percy hunkers down, however, and looks good striking out the next batter.
I don’t have much hope, despite the new pitcher, when Brendan comes up. But he hits a single. Jodi then gets hit by a pitch (atta girl!) and things are looking good. Jim hits a ground ball to the first basemen, which advances the runners. Bobby then walks to load the bases. Perfect! With the heart of the order up, Jesse hits a single and drives in one run. Everett then hits a grounder to first, driving in another, and Trey continues his slump grounding out to the pitcher, yet again. However, we score two making it a 3-2 game.
Everett comes to the mound and first pitch allows a single. The next two batters fly out, however, the runner has stolen third. The second fly out presented some consternation as Ethan was in center and Avi in right. It’s hit to right-center and is clearly Avi’s ball, but Ethan is on the ground “backing him up” but nearly causing a collision. Fortunately, Avi comes up with it and collision is averted. The run does score, however. On the next play it is again hit to Avi, but he can’t come up with it this time and the runner gets to second. Everett manages to strike out the next batter, however, before any more damage is done. Once again our hitting can’t get anything going as Ethan represents our only base runner, with yet another hit by pitch. 4-2 Braves
Things don’t start well in the top of the inning when Everett allows a leadoff double to their #3 hitter. On a 1-2 count, just like the rest of the season, the next batter bloops a ball into short left center. The centerfielder makes a great throw into the plate to get the runner from second for the out. Steve and I both didn’t see who made the play and thought that it was Bobby, playing SS, but no it turned out to actually be Jodi, coming through with a good fielding play just like I knew she could. Everett strikes out the next batter for the second out. The inning ends when Ethan makes yet ANOTHER good catch in the outfield for out number 3.
The next inning features the team’s second best pitcher, who pitched the last inning as well, and he shows why he’s good (even though it was Avi, Brendan, and Jodi) when he strikes out the side.
So we’re heading into the sixth down by two with our mental case coming to the mound. Fortunately, it’s towards the bottom of the order. And he pitches what is by far his best inning of the year, allowing just one hit, but having seemingly ever ball be in the strike zone, with pretty good velocity for him. After the game, he was truly proud of how he pitched, and he should be. So, in the clutch, Avi came through for us.
And now we are down by 2. The favor that their pitcher did by striking out the side, means we have the top of our order up. And there is excitement in the air when Jim hits a well hit ball into right for a single. He then steals second. This is followed by Bobby laying down a great bunt down the first base line. It caught everyone by surprise and ended up being a single. I truly hope he was bunting for a single there, as I was coaching third and had most definitely NOT given him the bunt sign of any sort, as we needed two runs. Anyhow, he easily takes second when they do not contest the base, with Jim at third. This brings Jesse up to the plate. And Jesse strikes out, again. But that’s ok. Everett is up. He hits a routine ball to second base, which scores Jim and advances Bobby, but now means there are two outs with Trey up at bat.
With our season on the line, we have our best batter (theoretically) at the plate. In fact things have been like a movie all game: the kid making some incredible plays in the outfield, the kid having his best pitching performance of the season, and now this. As Trey comes out to the plate, knowing the situation, I call him over. I tell him the following: “No matter what happens now, I am so glad that you were on our team and will be proud of you. So go up there and smile.” He gave a simple nod and steps into the batters box. On the second pitch, he connects with a weakly hit ball towards the first base side, Bobby is running for all his worth, and I watch as he slides into home. I then shift my focus over to the play at first. It’s going to be close as the first basemen has mishandled the ball. He finally gains control of it and runs towards first. The play is very close, but Trey clearly beats the first basement to the bag, but did the first basemen tag him? And the ump makes the call “OUT” and just like that the game is over. Several on our side thought that the game is over because we had won, but I know the truth. The other team celebrates for a moment and then we shake hands. I am near tears at this point myself, considering how much I wanted it for the team, and how well they played. Seeing Trey bawling, actually helps me keep it together, and I put my arm around his shoulder and try and comfort him. And like that, our season is over.
Coming tomorrow: team awards, end of year reflection, and the post season drama.
Steve and I arrived to the field early. We thought the coaches of the Braves were good guys and so we were happy to be playing them. Our team was all reasonably prompt in arriving, except for Brendan. With the rescheduling, we had received confirmation that everyone was going to be there except for Kelvin, so Steve and I made a lineup that had no Kelvin. With Brendan not arriving, it meant some changes, as Brendan could play Centerfield, something Kelvin isn’t as well suited for considering his lack of throwing power. So that is my curveball. Overall, the team is relaxed, which is good.
We win the coin toss and get ready to go out in the field. We send Trey to the mound first, deciding that we don’t want to mess around. The pitching lineup caused a lot of consternation for Steve and I. This was furthered by the fact that Percy has truly come into his own as a catcher. However, we’ve learned that most fifth graders have problems pitching after they’ve caught so we want to avoid that situation. This sort of means that we want Percy to pitch the third. Then the last choice becomes about how to use Everett and Avi. In the end, we decide to use Avi in the sixth, despite his being a complete nutcase, and Everett in the 4th and 5th.
Trey, after throwing a couple of pitches, reports a problem: he’s throwing uphill. With all of the rain from the previous day and a little overnight, the pitching rubber is so far back that it is a problem. The coaches from the other team, who again are very friendly, the ump, and Steve and I, have a discussion about whether to leave it, as it penalizes both teams equally, or move it forward. Steve and I advocate moving it forward so we decide to dig out the rubber and move it forward two feet, as there is no park district employee anywhere in sight to help us. Trey reports this is a lot better.
Things don’t get off to a good start though, when there is an error on the first play by whoever is playing short (I don’t have the fielding chart due to the Brendan situation) leading to a runner on second. Trey is not overpowering this inning. The next batter goes deep in the count before he hits one pack to Trey who, in a move that made me laugh, looks at the runner at second, who has started running immediately, and then throws it to first anyway. It’s good to see that he’s learned the mechanic of looking at the runner, even if he doesn’t then follow through on it. On the next play it is a legitimate sacrifice fly to someone in right, scoring the first run. The next batter walks, a rarity for Trey and showing how off he is, before the next batter strikes out to end the inning.
We have Jim bunt and while he lays down a fairly good bunt, it’s not good enough and he gets thrown out. Bobby walks to give us a base runner. Jesse continues his recent difficulties as he strikes out. These difficulties have coincided with his having private batting instruction. Everett then singles Bobby over to third, but Trey grounds back to the pitcher to end the inning. 1-0 Braves. And right as the first inning is about to end who shows up but Brendan? This completely throws off my whole chart and it takes nearly 2 full innings for me to replan things. How aggravating.
Trey comes out looking a little better, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s facing the bottom of the lineup, and gets the first guy to ground out to him, followed by a strike out. TG allows yet another walk, truly remarkable considering that including the two in this game he only allowed 7 all season. He does strike out their last batter to retire the side allowing only 1 run on a day where he doesn’t have his best stuff.
Their ace, back for another inning, strikes out the first two batters, Percy and Ethan. Fuller then gets hit by a pitch and steals second during Kelvin’s at bat. Kelvin does one of his weakly hit balls for a hit, advancing Fuller to third. Alas, Avi hits one back to the pitcher to end the inning. Still 1-0 Braves
Up comes Percy to face the top of the lineup. And it looks like things might be rough again when after 8 pitches and a full count the first batter gets a single. The next batter gets out, which is good. However, it’s then walk, walk, to load the bases. However, our newly found outfield ace, Ethan, make the catch on a well hit ball to the outfield. With two outs, perhaps things won’t be so bad after all, I allowed myself to think. But no. Next batter doubles, driving in 2. Percy hunkers down, however, and looks good striking out the next batter.
I don’t have much hope, despite the new pitcher, when Brendan comes up. But he hits a single. Jodi then gets hit by a pitch (atta girl!) and things are looking good. Jim hits a ground ball to the first basemen, which advances the runners. Bobby then walks to load the bases. Perfect! With the heart of the order up, Jesse hits a single and drives in one run. Everett then hits a grounder to first, driving in another, and Trey continues his slump grounding out to the pitcher, yet again. However, we score two making it a 3-2 game.
Everett comes to the mound and first pitch allows a single. The next two batters fly out, however, the runner has stolen third. The second fly out presented some consternation as Ethan was in center and Avi in right. It’s hit to right-center and is clearly Avi’s ball, but Ethan is on the ground “backing him up” but nearly causing a collision. Fortunately, Avi comes up with it and collision is averted. The run does score, however. On the next play it is again hit to Avi, but he can’t come up with it this time and the runner gets to second. Everett manages to strike out the next batter, however, before any more damage is done. Once again our hitting can’t get anything going as Ethan represents our only base runner, with yet another hit by pitch. 4-2 Braves
Things don’t start well in the top of the inning when Everett allows a leadoff double to their #3 hitter. On a 1-2 count, just like the rest of the season, the next batter bloops a ball into short left center. The centerfielder makes a great throw into the plate to get the runner from second for the out. Steve and I both didn’t see who made the play and thought that it was Bobby, playing SS, but no it turned out to actually be Jodi, coming through with a good fielding play just like I knew she could. Everett strikes out the next batter for the second out. The inning ends when Ethan makes yet ANOTHER good catch in the outfield for out number 3.
The next inning features the team’s second best pitcher, who pitched the last inning as well, and he shows why he’s good (even though it was Avi, Brendan, and Jodi) when he strikes out the side.
So we’re heading into the sixth down by two with our mental case coming to the mound. Fortunately, it’s towards the bottom of the order. And he pitches what is by far his best inning of the year, allowing just one hit, but having seemingly ever ball be in the strike zone, with pretty good velocity for him. After the game, he was truly proud of how he pitched, and he should be. So, in the clutch, Avi came through for us.
And now we are down by 2. The favor that their pitcher did by striking out the side, means we have the top of our order up. And there is excitement in the air when Jim hits a well hit ball into right for a single. He then steals second. This is followed by Bobby laying down a great bunt down the first base line. It caught everyone by surprise and ended up being a single. I truly hope he was bunting for a single there, as I was coaching third and had most definitely NOT given him the bunt sign of any sort, as we needed two runs. Anyhow, he easily takes second when they do not contest the base, with Jim at third. This brings Jesse up to the plate. And Jesse strikes out, again. But that’s ok. Everett is up. He hits a routine ball to second base, which scores Jim and advances Bobby, but now means there are two outs with Trey up at bat.
With our season on the line, we have our best batter (theoretically) at the plate. In fact things have been like a movie all game: the kid making some incredible plays in the outfield, the kid having his best pitching performance of the season, and now this. As Trey comes out to the plate, knowing the situation, I call him over. I tell him the following: “No matter what happens now, I am so glad that you were on our team and will be proud of you. So go up there and smile.” He gave a simple nod and steps into the batters box. On the second pitch, he connects with a weakly hit ball towards the first base side, Bobby is running for all his worth, and I watch as he slides into home. I then shift my focus over to the play at first. It’s going to be close as the first basemen has mishandled the ball. He finally gains control of it and runs towards first. The play is very close, but Trey clearly beats the first basement to the bag, but did the first basemen tag him? And the ump makes the call “OUT” and just like that the game is over. Several on our side thought that the game is over because we had won, but I know the truth. The other team celebrates for a moment and then we shake hands. I am near tears at this point myself, considering how much I wanted it for the team, and how well they played. Seeing Trey bawling, actually helps me keep it together, and I put my arm around his shoulder and try and comfort him. And like that, our season is over.
Coming tomorrow: team awards, end of year reflection, and the post season drama.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Game Report
Yesterday was our last regular season game. Despite the fact that entering the bottom of the 4th, and last, inning we were down by only 3 it was never really a close game. Of course the bottom of the 4th made the score slightly more lopsided. Which is fine, since we wanted it to be more relaxed and for some players to get a chance to do things they hadn’t gotten a chance to do before. Anyhow, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
Percy’s Catching: Evidently he had asked to catch a couple of times. Did Steve or I ever really hear that? Not so much. Quite honestly he is a better catcher then Brendan. I feel upset with myself for not having found this out earlier. It is also things like this which make me want to be able to keep all my 5th graders next year. Percy is now very likely to see some real duty behind the plate in the playoffs.
Ethan’s Flyball Catching: Ethan caught not just one or two but THREE flyballs in the outfield. He did drop the first one hit to him, but after that he was flawless. It was good stuff. I just wished Dad hadn’t been such a complete ass in helping him there.
Bobby’s Pitching: I worked with him before the game and had him throw about 20 pitches. We worked out a couple of kinks in his mechanics and he also toned down his velocity. These things together worked well as in the game he was able to get through an inning. Granted he threw a lot of pitches, in doing it, but as an emergency option in the playoffs he would be just fine.
Avi’s pitching: Pitching 1 and a third innings he did quite well. He was able to settle himself down after a few bad pitches. He saw a lot of batters but the end results were fine.
Extra base hits: Jim, Jesse, and Everett all hit legitimate extra base hits. I thought Everett had a legitimate shot at our first team homer, but he had to settle for a standup triple. Extra base hits have been something which have mostly eluded us and is a big reason we haven’t ever scored more then 3 runs in an inning.
The Bad
Brendan’s catching: He caught Percy and clearly struggled catching a pitcher with more velocity. With Percy emerging as a viable catching candidate I think Brandan will see limited duty behind the plate in the playoffs and be strictly limited to catching Avi and possibly Bobby if we ever use him for a full scheduled inning.
Trey’s hitting: Trey is 2 for his last 11 over the last 4 games.
Avi’s fielding: He looked absolutely lost at 3rd base. He was out of position. He wasn’t concentrating on the game. I talked to him after the game, and as always it is a balancing act with him. He was ready to despair as I talked about things he needed to do better, until I explained that I was telling him since he was going to play 3rd base again and so that tonight was a learning experience. He clearly felt much better then.
The Ugly
Percy’s pitching: Now in fairness the ump wasn’t being so consistent with his strike zone. We also had used him as a catcher before pitching him, a no-no. I wonder at this point how we did catching last year since I know our two primary catchers last year were also two of our primary pitchers and so clearly they had to have done some catching before pitching. Dunno. Anyway we had to pull Percy when he started off by walking three, settled down, and then walked a fourth player 3 or 4 batters later. With the league agreeing to remove pitching limits for the playoffs we called Trey in to finish it up. I told him, with a smile, he had 4 pitches to get the 3rd out. He took 6.
Jim’s pitching: We threw him in the first. He was terrible. He got his chances and so I don’t feel bad.
The 3rd inning: We load the bases with no outs for the top of our order and get exactly 1 run. Very frustrating.
Today
We announced, as a sign of confidence, that Percy would be our starting pitcher. I think we’re ready for the playoffs and am excited to win tonight.
The Good
Percy’s Catching: Evidently he had asked to catch a couple of times. Did Steve or I ever really hear that? Not so much. Quite honestly he is a better catcher then Brendan. I feel upset with myself for not having found this out earlier. It is also things like this which make me want to be able to keep all my 5th graders next year. Percy is now very likely to see some real duty behind the plate in the playoffs.
Ethan’s Flyball Catching: Ethan caught not just one or two but THREE flyballs in the outfield. He did drop the first one hit to him, but after that he was flawless. It was good stuff. I just wished Dad hadn’t been such a complete ass in helping him there.
Bobby’s Pitching: I worked with him before the game and had him throw about 20 pitches. We worked out a couple of kinks in his mechanics and he also toned down his velocity. These things together worked well as in the game he was able to get through an inning. Granted he threw a lot of pitches, in doing it, but as an emergency option in the playoffs he would be just fine.
Avi’s pitching: Pitching 1 and a third innings he did quite well. He was able to settle himself down after a few bad pitches. He saw a lot of batters but the end results were fine.
Extra base hits: Jim, Jesse, and Everett all hit legitimate extra base hits. I thought Everett had a legitimate shot at our first team homer, but he had to settle for a standup triple. Extra base hits have been something which have mostly eluded us and is a big reason we haven’t ever scored more then 3 runs in an inning.
The Bad
Brendan’s catching: He caught Percy and clearly struggled catching a pitcher with more velocity. With Percy emerging as a viable catching candidate I think Brandan will see limited duty behind the plate in the playoffs and be strictly limited to catching Avi and possibly Bobby if we ever use him for a full scheduled inning.
Trey’s hitting: Trey is 2 for his last 11 over the last 4 games.
Avi’s fielding: He looked absolutely lost at 3rd base. He was out of position. He wasn’t concentrating on the game. I talked to him after the game, and as always it is a balancing act with him. He was ready to despair as I talked about things he needed to do better, until I explained that I was telling him since he was going to play 3rd base again and so that tonight was a learning experience. He clearly felt much better then.
The Ugly
Percy’s pitching: Now in fairness the ump wasn’t being so consistent with his strike zone. We also had used him as a catcher before pitching him, a no-no. I wonder at this point how we did catching last year since I know our two primary catchers last year were also two of our primary pitchers and so clearly they had to have done some catching before pitching. Dunno. Anyway we had to pull Percy when he started off by walking three, settled down, and then walked a fourth player 3 or 4 batters later. With the league agreeing to remove pitching limits for the playoffs we called Trey in to finish it up. I told him, with a smile, he had 4 pitches to get the 3rd out. He took 6.
Jim’s pitching: We threw him in the first. He was terrible. He got his chances and so I don’t feel bad.
The 3rd inning: We load the bases with no outs for the top of our order and get exactly 1 run. Very frustrating.
Today
We announced, as a sign of confidence, that Percy would be our starting pitcher. I think we’re ready for the playoffs and am excited to win tonight.
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Game: Marlins vs. A's
Well. What a day. Steve and I start off the day emailing each other our confidence against the A's. At around 9:45 I get a call saying that Jodi will not be there due to 103 degree fever. This adds to the fact that the previous night I learned that Brendan had a doctor's appointment for a battery of exams that was set months in advance and thus would be missing the game. Both understandable.
Then at about 4, I get a call from Kelvin telling me he TOO has a 103 degree fever. Just as I am about to finish my conversation with Kelvin, I Avi on call waiting. I hang up with Kelvin to talk to Avi. He then tells me he won't be at the game. When I ask him why it is because he got in trouble again. I ask to speak to his mom. I then explain if Avi isn't there we'd have 8 players due to illness. She tells me she's going to call me back. 35 minutes later she calls me back and tells me that she will punish him some other way and he'll be at the game. But he's going to be a half hour late. Ok. Fine. We can play with 8 players for a half hour.
I get to the field about 5:25, as I had been working at the youth center right next door to the fields and that was the earliest I could get away. When I get there all that is there is Jesse. Everett and Trey arrive shortly thereafter. In the end 5:40 rolls around and we have all our expected players except Fuller. Only the thing it is 5 minutes before the game is to start we also don't have any equipment, the box is locked, nor do we have an ump.
We call the team over anyway for our pregame talk. Steve later tells me that he could tell from the way they came over that he knew it was going to be a bad day. We simply didn't have energy. I think the best possible explanation is that we were missing so many people that they felt defeated. Anyhow, we still have no equipment, though we now have an ump.
I then start to make phone calls. I make so many phone calls Bobby, later asks me if I work for the Park District too (I work for the Youth Center and Library) but no I don't. I literally call 4 different people, none of whom answer, and leave messages for all. During this time the other coaches came over and, after discovering that I was not the field supervisor, but instead a coach, (you'd have thought the bright Marlins uniform was a give away there) tells me that they also are also locked out at their field. One of the dads on the other team has the idea of going to the THIRD field to see if by some chance that equipment box is open. It is. As he's going off I get hold of one of the park district people and he tells me he's sending someone over as soon as he can. I thank him. The dad comes back with a bag, having dropped the other bag off at the other field. So we'll have to share, but it's better then not having anything. Now at this point it's 6:00 and we still have no Fuller or Avi. While all the hubub was going on about equipment, Jesse's little brother, Jonah, and Jesse's father had offered to have Jonah play. Jonah plays 4th grade travel. I thank him and tell him I want to sort out the equipment first, still thinking Fuller was going to show. Anyhow when it looks like Fuller isn't going to show I ask the other team if we can "call up" this player as we only have 7 and are expecting 1 late. He agrees, as is reasonable. He also agrees to let us have an outfielder if we need one. I thank him and tell him I hope we won't need to do that. Jonah goes home to change.
So we go to bat in the first inning and score 2 runs. I'm thinking that perhaps things will be OK. We send Everett up to the mound as our starter. And they hit him. The good news is that they hit one to the borrowed outfielder and he catches the ball. He lobs it back in, letting a run score, but Steve and I agree
A. We're thankful he caught the ball, as many of our kids would've dropped it
B. It's better then having no one there.
A batter later Avi arrives and he gets sent out to the outfield.
Everett and I had talked about pitching rather then throwing before the game, but I think he tried to do too much and didn't look as sharp. I am doing this writeup without the scorebook next to me, so I don't have all the details, but he ends up letting up 3 runs.
And basically the game goes downhill from there. They keep scoring and we don't. We don't get any energy until the 4th inning when Trey makes a good play at short. We are down 5 going into the 5th and approaching the time limit. We try and rally, but can't get a run and the game is over. Quick comments on each of our players:
Percy -- Did not pitch well in the 4th. I went out to talk to him after his 3rd walk. There were runners on 1st and 3rd. I basically told him to forget the runners and just focus on the batter. And he did. His pitching improved then and he got 2 outs in only 3 batters which was fine. More work will be needed here, but he COULD be our 2nd or 3rd best pitcher if he can put it all together.
Jesse - Got the game ball for going 2 for 3. Though the out was on a ball that was way too high and he hit, which is becoming a pattern. He got very frustrated with himself after that one. This is not the first time he's gotten frustrated, though Steve and I are getting better at being able to get him to calm down when he does.
Brendan - Caught the only fly ball on the team. The big news is that he tried to coach Avi when Avi was pitching. That didn't work too well. Steve and I will be talking to him today about not coaching the pitchers. Or other players for that matter as there has been some of that.
Avi -- We pitched him two innings. First inning went well. He struggled during the start of the second inning. After he walked his second batter I went out to talk to him as I thought we could still win it at that point. He explained that he was getting mixed messages from his players. I told him to ignore his players and listen to me: throw strikes. He did and got the last 2 outs with only about 5 pitches. Now the thing is I think he can pitch 2 innings. Which we need. However, if he's going to regularly get grounded during games, which it also seems like, then we can't really schedule him to pitch. When we do the lineups we always do Pitchers first and then Catchers and everything else falls into place around that. If he's going to bow out on us at the last minute it really messes us up. So I think Avi will be seeing more chances a relief pitcher until we see that we can count on him showing up.
Ethan - Unremarkable this game. Struck out each time at bat. Focused better then usual in the infield I feel.
Jim - He's very excited about bunting. We had runners on 1st and 2nd and asked if he could lay down a sacrifice. I said sure. So he laid down a perfect bunt... for a hit. The runner then got out at 3rd. It's funny that when he tried to bunt for a hit he did a sacrifice and then did the opposite yesterday. What was great though was that his bunt then setup a play in the 5th where they came way in on him and he then hit a line drive, which if they had been playing normal depth would have been an out, but turned into an easy hit. However, he then got called out stealing when he was really safe and he exploded. This is not the first time he's gone of the hook but it was the worse. He even refused to shake the other team's hands. Steve and I did a mixture of the calm down/you made a bad choice speech after the game and he seemed to get it and Dad thanked us. We will NOT have a kid displaying bad sportsmanship.
Trey - His hitting slump continues. He fielded well today. He also caught pretty well. I'm sure he'll snap out of slump soon.
Everett - He did a pretty nice job of catching. I already discussed his pitching. He really made a bonehead decision on the base paths getting caught way off the bag after a pitch killing a rally we had in the 3rd.
Jonah - We was a ball magnet. The rule is when you call a kid up from the lower league they can only play the outfield and have to bat last. Which in our case was unfortunate since he ended up in the heart of our order. Anyhow the first time a ball was hit to him he was completely unprepared and the ball got by him. The next two were fly balls which he dropped but then managed to throw in and get somebody out. I talked to him later and he told me he had a good time and would want to play for us again. Which is good because normally you have to go through the league supervisor 2 days in advance, so she can find somebody, but with him we can call him up on very short notice with no problem.
Then at about 4, I get a call from Kelvin telling me he TOO has a 103 degree fever. Just as I am about to finish my conversation with Kelvin, I Avi on call waiting. I hang up with Kelvin to talk to Avi. He then tells me he won't be at the game. When I ask him why it is because he got in trouble again. I ask to speak to his mom. I then explain if Avi isn't there we'd have 8 players due to illness. She tells me she's going to call me back. 35 minutes later she calls me back and tells me that she will punish him some other way and he'll be at the game. But he's going to be a half hour late. Ok. Fine. We can play with 8 players for a half hour.
I get to the field about 5:25, as I had been working at the youth center right next door to the fields and that was the earliest I could get away. When I get there all that is there is Jesse. Everett and Trey arrive shortly thereafter. In the end 5:40 rolls around and we have all our expected players except Fuller. Only the thing it is 5 minutes before the game is to start we also don't have any equipment, the box is locked, nor do we have an ump.
We call the team over anyway for our pregame talk. Steve later tells me that he could tell from the way they came over that he knew it was going to be a bad day. We simply didn't have energy. I think the best possible explanation is that we were missing so many people that they felt defeated. Anyhow, we still have no equipment, though we now have an ump.
I then start to make phone calls. I make so many phone calls Bobby, later asks me if I work for the Park District too (I work for the Youth Center and Library) but no I don't. I literally call 4 different people, none of whom answer, and leave messages for all. During this time the other coaches came over and, after discovering that I was not the field supervisor, but instead a coach, (you'd have thought the bright Marlins uniform was a give away there) tells me that they also are also locked out at their field. One of the dads on the other team has the idea of going to the THIRD field to see if by some chance that equipment box is open. It is. As he's going off I get hold of one of the park district people and he tells me he's sending someone over as soon as he can. I thank him. The dad comes back with a bag, having dropped the other bag off at the other field. So we'll have to share, but it's better then not having anything. Now at this point it's 6:00 and we still have no Fuller or Avi. While all the hubub was going on about equipment, Jesse's little brother, Jonah, and Jesse's father had offered to have Jonah play. Jonah plays 4th grade travel. I thank him and tell him I want to sort out the equipment first, still thinking Fuller was going to show. Anyhow when it looks like Fuller isn't going to show I ask the other team if we can "call up" this player as we only have 7 and are expecting 1 late. He agrees, as is reasonable. He also agrees to let us have an outfielder if we need one. I thank him and tell him I hope we won't need to do that. Jonah goes home to change.
So we go to bat in the first inning and score 2 runs. I'm thinking that perhaps things will be OK. We send Everett up to the mound as our starter. And they hit him. The good news is that they hit one to the borrowed outfielder and he catches the ball. He lobs it back in, letting a run score, but Steve and I agree
A. We're thankful he caught the ball, as many of our kids would've dropped it
B. It's better then having no one there.
A batter later Avi arrives and he gets sent out to the outfield.
Everett and I had talked about pitching rather then throwing before the game, but I think he tried to do too much and didn't look as sharp. I am doing this writeup without the scorebook next to me, so I don't have all the details, but he ends up letting up 3 runs.
And basically the game goes downhill from there. They keep scoring and we don't. We don't get any energy until the 4th inning when Trey makes a good play at short. We are down 5 going into the 5th and approaching the time limit. We try and rally, but can't get a run and the game is over. Quick comments on each of our players:
Percy -- Did not pitch well in the 4th. I went out to talk to him after his 3rd walk. There were runners on 1st and 3rd. I basically told him to forget the runners and just focus on the batter. And he did. His pitching improved then and he got 2 outs in only 3 batters which was fine. More work will be needed here, but he COULD be our 2nd or 3rd best pitcher if he can put it all together.
Jesse - Got the game ball for going 2 for 3. Though the out was on a ball that was way too high and he hit, which is becoming a pattern. He got very frustrated with himself after that one. This is not the first time he's gotten frustrated, though Steve and I are getting better at being able to get him to calm down when he does.
Brendan - Caught the only fly ball on the team. The big news is that he tried to coach Avi when Avi was pitching. That didn't work too well. Steve and I will be talking to him today about not coaching the pitchers. Or other players for that matter as there has been some of that.
Avi -- We pitched him two innings. First inning went well. He struggled during the start of the second inning. After he walked his second batter I went out to talk to him as I thought we could still win it at that point. He explained that he was getting mixed messages from his players. I told him to ignore his players and listen to me: throw strikes. He did and got the last 2 outs with only about 5 pitches. Now the thing is I think he can pitch 2 innings. Which we need. However, if he's going to regularly get grounded during games, which it also seems like, then we can't really schedule him to pitch. When we do the lineups we always do Pitchers first and then Catchers and everything else falls into place around that. If he's going to bow out on us at the last minute it really messes us up. So I think Avi will be seeing more chances a relief pitcher until we see that we can count on him showing up.
Ethan - Unremarkable this game. Struck out each time at bat. Focused better then usual in the infield I feel.
Jim - He's very excited about bunting. We had runners on 1st and 2nd and asked if he could lay down a sacrifice. I said sure. So he laid down a perfect bunt... for a hit. The runner then got out at 3rd. It's funny that when he tried to bunt for a hit he did a sacrifice and then did the opposite yesterday. What was great though was that his bunt then setup a play in the 5th where they came way in on him and he then hit a line drive, which if they had been playing normal depth would have been an out, but turned into an easy hit. However, he then got called out stealing when he was really safe and he exploded. This is not the first time he's gone of the hook but it was the worse. He even refused to shake the other team's hands. Steve and I did a mixture of the calm down/you made a bad choice speech after the game and he seemed to get it and Dad thanked us. We will NOT have a kid displaying bad sportsmanship.
Trey - His hitting slump continues. He fielded well today. He also caught pretty well. I'm sure he'll snap out of slump soon.
Everett - He did a pretty nice job of catching. I already discussed his pitching. He really made a bonehead decision on the base paths getting caught way off the bag after a pitch killing a rally we had in the 3rd.
Jonah - We was a ball magnet. The rule is when you call a kid up from the lower league they can only play the outfield and have to bat last. Which in our case was unfortunate since he ended up in the heart of our order. Anyhow the first time a ball was hit to him he was completely unprepared and the ball got by him. The next two were fly balls which he dropped but then managed to throw in and get somebody out. I talked to him later and he told me he had a good time and would want to play for us again. Which is good because normally you have to go through the league supervisor 2 days in advance, so she can find somebody, but with him we can call him up on very short notice with no problem.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Practice Report
Before Practice
Everett is the first one to arrive. As he’s playing catch with Steve, I tell him “Congratulations.” He looks at me puzzled. It’s at this point that I tell him he’s now our #2 catcher. You can see he’s surprised. Steve asks him if he likes to catch and he says that he does in house league. Which is a good thing cause if he was unhappy about it and still had to do it, that wouldn’t be a great situation.
As they trickle in, instead of having them play catch we have them roll grounders to each other. It was a nice change of pace and a good way to reinforce a very important skill.
Bobby arrives fairly early on and I pull him aside to work on his pitching mechanics. I did a little internet research and came up with a couple of drills for him to try so as to improve his mechanics. What we did today was when he lifts the leg up, I had him hold it for 3 seconds, and then to follow through. The idea being twofold: 1. Help him practice his balance as it is off while he pitches and 2. Give him a second (well actually 3) to think about what he’s going to do with that front foot when he plants it, as he does all sorts of weird things with it. We did this about 20 times before practice. What I love about Bobby is how eager he is to receive coaching. Sadly, despite his eagerness his mechanics are still very poor. As long as he’s still an eager student he’ll get 1 on 1 time to work on his pitching, but he will not be seeing the mound, except in an emergency, anytime soon.
When Trey comes I pull him aside. I had been studying the score book and my recollection. I tell him that he has a deadly strike out pitch. He says “I do?” And I tell him he has a rising fastball, that I have seen him throw both in practice and in games, to great effect. Furthermore, he’s almost always ahead on the count, often with it being 0 and 2. However, if the batter doesn’t bite on the rising fastball he tends to end up with a full count. So I told him he needs a new pitch to go to if the rising fastball doesn’t work. I give him a couple of suggestions, but admit I simply don’t know him well enough as a pitcher to know what that next pitch should try and be. He says he struck out a friend of his with a pitch low and away and thinks he can do either that or do low and inside. He’s going to do a little pitching into a net during the next couple of days to try and figure out what he’d like to do. He is certainly at the point where he can be going for control and aiming the pitch, the exact opposite message we want to send to our weaker pitchers, which is great. I told Trey that he, myself and Steve, and Jesse, who is his catcher, will conference before the game so we all know what to expect.
The Practice
We start the practice missing Kelvin, which we expected as he has tennis on Wednesdays, Jodi, Avi, and Brendan. We gather the team around as Steve and I want to talk about the first couple of games for a moment. As we do so Jodi and Avi come in. I take this opportunity to do that education 101 staple “the compliment sandwich”. I start off saying how happy I was with the hustle on the base paths, talk about how embarrassed I was at our fielding execution, and then end with congratulating them on getting up there and swinging at the ball. Steve then sends a bit of a mixed message as he talks about how he hates to lose. I frankly am not a fan of this tact, as discussed earlier, but I wasn’t surprised to hear it.
This seems like as good of a time as any to reflect on the general perceptions of us as coaches. Last year I was listed as the “head coach” because that’s how they made us fill out the forms and so I got 95% of the phone calls and emails about scheduling and general questions/complaints, which was to be expected. I was curious to see how it would play out this year. And so far it seems like I am still going to get the calls and questions. I had, for instance, 1 parent and 1 kid call me today. I have to admit the fact that a player called me surprises me some as Steve is bar far the “cooler” of the two of us. Last year we clearly had different sort of relationships with the kids, and it is shaping up to be so again this year. These relationships, while different, are also complementing so I view it as a good thing that I’m more of the “dad” and he’s more of the “older brother”. Both of us get respect, it’s just in different ways. I really like that we are co-coaches as I don’t feel secure enough about everything we do to be a Head Coach, not to mention I think if I had an Assistant Coach who was a parent without Steve, he would attempt to run all over me. But when things like figuring out what we need to do at practice or creating a lineup, I find that I pretty much say what I want and that’s what ends up happening. On the one hand I like that, on the other I don’t want Steve to feel like I’m bossing him around. So far there has been zero tension about this that I have perceived so I think we’re doing a pretty good job of maintaining the balance.
Anyhow, back to practice. We had the field first, which wasn’t what Steve and I planned, but I think worked out well in the end. We started with a game of Baseball Knockout. Two lines form, one behind SS, one behind 2B. Steve hit a grounder. The player has to cleanly field the grounder and throw it to me at first. They do that they switch to the other line. Last kind standing wins. To little surprise, Everett and Jesse were our winners with Jodi finishing a close 3rd. It’s a shame that Jesse is catching so much as I would love to have his glove in the field more.
Following that we repeated the game we did on the first day where they hit the ball and then have to try and reach as many bases as possible. We had exactly 5 people on each team so there was enough for each of the infield positions plus a catcher, which for this game worked perfectly. I threw some nice lobs in, both so the kids could hit and so they couldn’t hit it too far considering our lack of outfielders. The fielding and throwing was pretty crisp all things considered. Jodi once again got the best hit and was the only person to get 8 bases, or two full circuits around. I got Bobby some time at first base as I think he would do well there but has told me how he doesn’t want the pressure. Steve and I had planned for him to work with Brendan at this point, but Brendan was not there, and he did not call, which is disappointing.
Our time on the field was over and so we went into the deep outfield. At that point we went over the basics of how to bunt. I was all over this as when I played I sucked at hitting, but I was an unbelievable bunter. In case you are wondering, I decided to keep it simple and teach them simply how to move their hand up on the batting grip, as opposed to actually trying to grasp the bat itself with your hand. A few kids knew how to do this already and I told them that it was fine if they did it, but if a kid did not feel 100% confident doing so they were to do the method I was showing, simply because doing the other way wrong is a recipe for broken hands, something Avi was all too happy to ask about. After about 5 minutes of my demonstrating and having them practice the bunting move in a line together, we split into two groups with one group staying with me to bunt and the other going with Steve to hit off the tee. I didn’t really get a report from Steve about how the Tee went. As for what I saw, sadly, our best bunters seem to be Everett and Trey, the two kids who I am LEAST likely to tell to bunt. Everett is a lefty and laid down a couple of great drag bunts, without my even having given instruction, so perhaps if he’s leading off an inning we’ll give him the green light to try a bunt if he wants. Additionally, if Trey can hit a deep one early in a game we can have him show bunt next time at bat so as to force the infield not to play him back. Bobby did an excellent job of getting out of the box quickly so perhaps we’ll give him a go. I had thought Jodi with her softball experience would be an old hat at bunting, but this proved not to be so. She is raw, but should make a good bunter. A big focus of mine during bunting was Kelvin. His batting is not so great, but he’s one of the fastest kids on the team so if we can get him to be an OK bunter he’ll be on base far more then he would otherwise. I made sure he had extra throws during this time and also told him we were going to practice again before the game. He has a lot of work to do, but the payoff would be great especially considering his place in the batting order.
At the conclusion of practice, we brought everyone together and had them name something good they had witnessed in practice or the first two games about another player on the team. Several of the players clearly think it’s corny, BUT I know it does its job of building us together as a team especially as almost every kid had someone point out a positive about him or her and Steve and I were able to fill in a couple of the blanks. A few kids had to pass on the first time through but were able to think of something. Everyone that is except Avi. Avi simply could not think of anything. Even after I gave him an extra minute by telling them that they needed to be at the games 20 minutes before, no excuses, instead of the 15 we’d previously said, he still couldn’t think of anything. I told him that he would need to have something before our game on Saturday and sent everyone on their way.
After Practice
As Trey and I were talking a bit about his practicing low pitches this week, Jesse asked if he could talk to Steve. After I’m done talking to Trey I go over and catch only the end where Jesse says “I just thought I should tell you” and Steve assuring him that he was doing the right thing. Steve also took the time to comment on Jesse’s leadership, something I have also done, so hopefully he hears how good it’s been and will keep it up. As Steve and I walk back from the outfield towards our cars he tells me what the conversation was about. It seems several of the players on the team have commented on Avi being “rude”. A couple of examples were given. As Steve and I have both experienced this, it comes as no great shock, but was good to know that we needed to take things into hand.
As we get to the parking lot who should be there, but Avi. It was destiny. After insisting Avi call his parents to find out where they were, despite his clearly not wanting to, we sit him down. As I call him over to sit on a bench with us he goes “am I in trouble”. Of course the answer is “Yes”, but I do the good thing and just say “We just want to talk”. I start off by trying to find out if he is an optimist or pessimist, without being able to use those words considering he’s in 5th grade. In the end I resort to the glass half-full or half empty example and ask him which he thinks it is. Now I know, without a doubt, that the kid is a pessimist and his inability to find a positive about a player on the team just confirms it. In other words, what he says makes it clear. However, he choose to say that the glass was “half-full”. So Steve and I used that as a building block to explain that it’s important to talk that way with the team and to think that way about yourself. He asked for an example of a time when he had been negative and we tell him. As we are talking we give him the chance to say if he’s been having problems with anyone and he sort of names Jesse. So clearly we are going to have to watch it carefully as Steve and I don’t want Jesse to stop what he’s doing from what we hear, but also want to make sure Jesse isn’t getting frustrated with Avi and causing him to be outcast. Avi has mentioned numerous times about his desire to pitch and during the conversation asked why Trey was getting so many opportunities. I was quite blunt and told him flat out that Trey has good arm strength, good velocity and nice control, and that makes him our best pitcher. I did take the chance to complement him on his previous pitching, tell him he was going to pitch in the first 3 innings on Saturday and if he does well at pitching he’ll get plenty of chances. Avi is very hard to read but I think he heard our message in a good way. What he’s going to chose to do with it, and how he presents it to his parents, I don’t know, but there you have it.
One final note from practice. As I am pulling out Everett and another kid who I know are standing in the parking lot. As I pull by, after pretending like I was going to hit them in slow motion, Everett’s friend informs me that ES said that our team stinks. I try and get a confirmation about this from Everett and he doesn’t really say anything, but is saved by his friend’s mother, who I also casually know, who assures me that the kid was just trying to stir up trouble. Likely true, but at the same time I think it’s likely true Everett had said it, which is also good to know. I hope we win a game soon.
Previewing Saturday’s game
We play the White Sox, who from what I’ve heard from the grapevine are not a very good team and are 0-2 like us. Hopefully this is true and we’ll have a shot. Before the game Steve and I set our pitchers and catchers, though not in any order. This was useful as during warm-ups Ethan asked if he could catch on Saturday. I said “No” and explained that we already had our catchers setup for the game. Ethan then asked if he would ever be able to catch. Steve and I gave each other a look that said “no bloody hell” before I delivered our standard line that every kid would have a chance to play every position they wanted to at least once this season. What was more interesting was that Percy also expressed some interest in catching. Frankly I don’t know if he has the skills, as we haven’t really seen him do that, so I think if we get a chance before the game I would like to see him try and catch.
So anyway our tentative catchers are: Jesse and Everett for 2 innings and Fuller and Trey for 1 each. It’s possible that Fuller’s inning will get swallowed by Jesse depending on how we end up deciding to pitch our pitchers. While Fller hasn’t had a chance to catch in a game, everything I’ve seen at practice tells me he’d not going to work out. I think giving Steve time to work with kids at catching will likely be a focal point of next Tuesday’s practice.
On the pitching side of the equation will be Trey for 2 innings, Avi for 1, Jodi for 1, Jim for 1 and Everett for 1. I threw out two possibilities on how to use Trey. I said we could either pitch him the 1st and 2nd OR have him be scheduled to pitch the 5th and 6th with us understanding that he would likely pitch before then and giving us the chance to use him if we have to yank a kid and it looks, as we expect, that the game will not go the full 6 innings. We didn’t really get a chance to reach a decision before the kids started arriving. Besides Trey, I don’t think any of our kids have the arm strength to pitch 2 and I said to Steve that if we need another pitcher besides those 5 we would have to pitch either Bobby or Percy. In reality it would likely be Percy as I really want to hold Bobby until we’ve had more chances to work together. But the thought of having to use Percy after his performance yesterday is not confidence inspiring.
I’m sort of surprised our practice here has produced the longest post yet, but there you have it. Thanks again for reading along and I really appreciate all of the comments that have been made.
Everett is the first one to arrive. As he’s playing catch with Steve, I tell him “Congratulations.” He looks at me puzzled. It’s at this point that I tell him he’s now our #2 catcher. You can see he’s surprised. Steve asks him if he likes to catch and he says that he does in house league. Which is a good thing cause if he was unhappy about it and still had to do it, that wouldn’t be a great situation.
As they trickle in, instead of having them play catch we have them roll grounders to each other. It was a nice change of pace and a good way to reinforce a very important skill.
Bobby arrives fairly early on and I pull him aside to work on his pitching mechanics. I did a little internet research and came up with a couple of drills for him to try so as to improve his mechanics. What we did today was when he lifts the leg up, I had him hold it for 3 seconds, and then to follow through. The idea being twofold: 1. Help him practice his balance as it is off while he pitches and 2. Give him a second (well actually 3) to think about what he’s going to do with that front foot when he plants it, as he does all sorts of weird things with it. We did this about 20 times before practice. What I love about Bobby is how eager he is to receive coaching. Sadly, despite his eagerness his mechanics are still very poor. As long as he’s still an eager student he’ll get 1 on 1 time to work on his pitching, but he will not be seeing the mound, except in an emergency, anytime soon.
When Trey comes I pull him aside. I had been studying the score book and my recollection. I tell him that he has a deadly strike out pitch. He says “I do?” And I tell him he has a rising fastball, that I have seen him throw both in practice and in games, to great effect. Furthermore, he’s almost always ahead on the count, often with it being 0 and 2. However, if the batter doesn’t bite on the rising fastball he tends to end up with a full count. So I told him he needs a new pitch to go to if the rising fastball doesn’t work. I give him a couple of suggestions, but admit I simply don’t know him well enough as a pitcher to know what that next pitch should try and be. He says he struck out a friend of his with a pitch low and away and thinks he can do either that or do low and inside. He’s going to do a little pitching into a net during the next couple of days to try and figure out what he’d like to do. He is certainly at the point where he can be going for control and aiming the pitch, the exact opposite message we want to send to our weaker pitchers, which is great. I told Trey that he, myself and Steve, and Jesse, who is his catcher, will conference before the game so we all know what to expect.
The Practice
We start the practice missing Kelvin, which we expected as he has tennis on Wednesdays, Jodi, Avi, and Brendan. We gather the team around as Steve and I want to talk about the first couple of games for a moment. As we do so Jodi and Avi come in. I take this opportunity to do that education 101 staple “the compliment sandwich”. I start off saying how happy I was with the hustle on the base paths, talk about how embarrassed I was at our fielding execution, and then end with congratulating them on getting up there and swinging at the ball. Steve then sends a bit of a mixed message as he talks about how he hates to lose. I frankly am not a fan of this tact, as discussed earlier, but I wasn’t surprised to hear it.
This seems like as good of a time as any to reflect on the general perceptions of us as coaches. Last year I was listed as the “head coach” because that’s how they made us fill out the forms and so I got 95% of the phone calls and emails about scheduling and general questions/complaints, which was to be expected. I was curious to see how it would play out this year. And so far it seems like I am still going to get the calls and questions. I had, for instance, 1 parent and 1 kid call me today. I have to admit the fact that a player called me surprises me some as Steve is bar far the “cooler” of the two of us. Last year we clearly had different sort of relationships with the kids, and it is shaping up to be so again this year. These relationships, while different, are also complementing so I view it as a good thing that I’m more of the “dad” and he’s more of the “older brother”. Both of us get respect, it’s just in different ways. I really like that we are co-coaches as I don’t feel secure enough about everything we do to be a Head Coach, not to mention I think if I had an Assistant Coach who was a parent without Steve, he would attempt to run all over me. But when things like figuring out what we need to do at practice or creating a lineup, I find that I pretty much say what I want and that’s what ends up happening. On the one hand I like that, on the other I don’t want Steve to feel like I’m bossing him around. So far there has been zero tension about this that I have perceived so I think we’re doing a pretty good job of maintaining the balance.
Anyhow, back to practice. We had the field first, which wasn’t what Steve and I planned, but I think worked out well in the end. We started with a game of Baseball Knockout. Two lines form, one behind SS, one behind 2B. Steve hit a grounder. The player has to cleanly field the grounder and throw it to me at first. They do that they switch to the other line. Last kind standing wins. To little surprise, Everett and Jesse were our winners with Jodi finishing a close 3rd. It’s a shame that Jesse is catching so much as I would love to have his glove in the field more.
Following that we repeated the game we did on the first day where they hit the ball and then have to try and reach as many bases as possible. We had exactly 5 people on each team so there was enough for each of the infield positions plus a catcher, which for this game worked perfectly. I threw some nice lobs in, both so the kids could hit and so they couldn’t hit it too far considering our lack of outfielders. The fielding and throwing was pretty crisp all things considered. Jodi once again got the best hit and was the only person to get 8 bases, or two full circuits around. I got Bobby some time at first base as I think he would do well there but has told me how he doesn’t want the pressure. Steve and I had planned for him to work with Brendan at this point, but Brendan was not there, and he did not call, which is disappointing.
Our time on the field was over and so we went into the deep outfield. At that point we went over the basics of how to bunt. I was all over this as when I played I sucked at hitting, but I was an unbelievable bunter. In case you are wondering, I decided to keep it simple and teach them simply how to move their hand up on the batting grip, as opposed to actually trying to grasp the bat itself with your hand. A few kids knew how to do this already and I told them that it was fine if they did it, but if a kid did not feel 100% confident doing so they were to do the method I was showing, simply because doing the other way wrong is a recipe for broken hands, something Avi was all too happy to ask about. After about 5 minutes of my demonstrating and having them practice the bunting move in a line together, we split into two groups with one group staying with me to bunt and the other going with Steve to hit off the tee. I didn’t really get a report from Steve about how the Tee went. As for what I saw, sadly, our best bunters seem to be Everett and Trey, the two kids who I am LEAST likely to tell to bunt. Everett is a lefty and laid down a couple of great drag bunts, without my even having given instruction, so perhaps if he’s leading off an inning we’ll give him the green light to try a bunt if he wants. Additionally, if Trey can hit a deep one early in a game we can have him show bunt next time at bat so as to force the infield not to play him back. Bobby did an excellent job of getting out of the box quickly so perhaps we’ll give him a go. I had thought Jodi with her softball experience would be an old hat at bunting, but this proved not to be so. She is raw, but should make a good bunter. A big focus of mine during bunting was Kelvin. His batting is not so great, but he’s one of the fastest kids on the team so if we can get him to be an OK bunter he’ll be on base far more then he would otherwise. I made sure he had extra throws during this time and also told him we were going to practice again before the game. He has a lot of work to do, but the payoff would be great especially considering his place in the batting order.
At the conclusion of practice, we brought everyone together and had them name something good they had witnessed in practice or the first two games about another player on the team. Several of the players clearly think it’s corny, BUT I know it does its job of building us together as a team especially as almost every kid had someone point out a positive about him or her and Steve and I were able to fill in a couple of the blanks. A few kids had to pass on the first time through but were able to think of something. Everyone that is except Avi. Avi simply could not think of anything. Even after I gave him an extra minute by telling them that they needed to be at the games 20 minutes before, no excuses, instead of the 15 we’d previously said, he still couldn’t think of anything. I told him that he would need to have something before our game on Saturday and sent everyone on their way.
After Practice
As Trey and I were talking a bit about his practicing low pitches this week, Jesse asked if he could talk to Steve. After I’m done talking to Trey I go over and catch only the end where Jesse says “I just thought I should tell you” and Steve assuring him that he was doing the right thing. Steve also took the time to comment on Jesse’s leadership, something I have also done, so hopefully he hears how good it’s been and will keep it up. As Steve and I walk back from the outfield towards our cars he tells me what the conversation was about. It seems several of the players on the team have commented on Avi being “rude”. A couple of examples were given. As Steve and I have both experienced this, it comes as no great shock, but was good to know that we needed to take things into hand.
As we get to the parking lot who should be there, but Avi. It was destiny. After insisting Avi call his parents to find out where they were, despite his clearly not wanting to, we sit him down. As I call him over to sit on a bench with us he goes “am I in trouble”. Of course the answer is “Yes”, but I do the good thing and just say “We just want to talk”. I start off by trying to find out if he is an optimist or pessimist, without being able to use those words considering he’s in 5th grade. In the end I resort to the glass half-full or half empty example and ask him which he thinks it is. Now I know, without a doubt, that the kid is a pessimist and his inability to find a positive about a player on the team just confirms it. In other words, what he says makes it clear. However, he choose to say that the glass was “half-full”. So Steve and I used that as a building block to explain that it’s important to talk that way with the team and to think that way about yourself. He asked for an example of a time when he had been negative and we tell him. As we are talking we give him the chance to say if he’s been having problems with anyone and he sort of names Jesse. So clearly we are going to have to watch it carefully as Steve and I don’t want Jesse to stop what he’s doing from what we hear, but also want to make sure Jesse isn’t getting frustrated with Avi and causing him to be outcast. Avi has mentioned numerous times about his desire to pitch and during the conversation asked why Trey was getting so many opportunities. I was quite blunt and told him flat out that Trey has good arm strength, good velocity and nice control, and that makes him our best pitcher. I did take the chance to complement him on his previous pitching, tell him he was going to pitch in the first 3 innings on Saturday and if he does well at pitching he’ll get plenty of chances. Avi is very hard to read but I think he heard our message in a good way. What he’s going to chose to do with it, and how he presents it to his parents, I don’t know, but there you have it.
One final note from practice. As I am pulling out Everett and another kid who I know are standing in the parking lot. As I pull by, after pretending like I was going to hit them in slow motion, Everett’s friend informs me that ES said that our team stinks. I try and get a confirmation about this from Everett and he doesn’t really say anything, but is saved by his friend’s mother, who I also casually know, who assures me that the kid was just trying to stir up trouble. Likely true, but at the same time I think it’s likely true Everett had said it, which is also good to know. I hope we win a game soon.
Previewing Saturday’s game
We play the White Sox, who from what I’ve heard from the grapevine are not a very good team and are 0-2 like us. Hopefully this is true and we’ll have a shot. Before the game Steve and I set our pitchers and catchers, though not in any order. This was useful as during warm-ups Ethan asked if he could catch on Saturday. I said “No” and explained that we already had our catchers setup for the game. Ethan then asked if he would ever be able to catch. Steve and I gave each other a look that said “no bloody hell” before I delivered our standard line that every kid would have a chance to play every position they wanted to at least once this season. What was more interesting was that Percy also expressed some interest in catching. Frankly I don’t know if he has the skills, as we haven’t really seen him do that, so I think if we get a chance before the game I would like to see him try and catch.
So anyway our tentative catchers are: Jesse and Everett for 2 innings and Fuller and Trey for 1 each. It’s possible that Fuller’s inning will get swallowed by Jesse depending on how we end up deciding to pitch our pitchers. While Fller hasn’t had a chance to catch in a game, everything I’ve seen at practice tells me he’d not going to work out. I think giving Steve time to work with kids at catching will likely be a focal point of next Tuesday’s practice.
On the pitching side of the equation will be Trey for 2 innings, Avi for 1, Jodi for 1, Jim for 1 and Everett for 1. I threw out two possibilities on how to use Trey. I said we could either pitch him the 1st and 2nd OR have him be scheduled to pitch the 5th and 6th with us understanding that he would likely pitch before then and giving us the chance to use him if we have to yank a kid and it looks, as we expect, that the game will not go the full 6 innings. We didn’t really get a chance to reach a decision before the kids started arriving. Besides Trey, I don’t think any of our kids have the arm strength to pitch 2 and I said to Steve that if we need another pitcher besides those 5 we would have to pitch either Bobby or Percy. In reality it would likely be Percy as I really want to hold Bobby until we’ve had more chances to work together. But the thought of having to use Percy after his performance yesterday is not confidence inspiring.
I’m sort of surprised our practice here has produced the longest post yet, but there you have it. Thanks again for reading along and I really appreciate all of the comments that have been made.
Sunday, April 9, 2006
Etc
The Mother
So who should walk in just yesterday as I am working at the library? But Avi's mother. And we have a great conversation about his reading and I help her find the book she's looking for. And then as she's just about left the department and is agood 60 feet away from me she turns around and says "Make sure to give him a chance to pitch he's really good."
I love the fact that mom is promoting the party line to me. It gives me an inkling of hope that perhaps it's not just a party line, but we'll see.
The No Show
I still have no clue where Jodi has been. We knew she was going to miss Tuesday but when I called last night wondering about Wednesday I left a message. I hope I hear from her family soon.
Uniform Pick-up
As I had an unfortunate case of a stomach bug, Steve went to the uniform pick-up by himself and discovered that there were only Mediums and Larges which is comical for our team. I sit here picturing Jim running in a large t-shirt and tripping every two feet. They promised to order some smaller sizes for us, which is a good thing.
So who should walk in just yesterday as I am working at the library? But Avi's mother. And we have a great conversation about his reading and I help her find the book she's looking for. And then as she's just about left the department and is agood 60 feet away from me she turns around and says "Make sure to give him a chance to pitch he's really good."
I love the fact that mom is promoting the party line to me. It gives me an inkling of hope that perhaps it's not just a party line, but we'll see.
The No Show
I still have no clue where Jodi has been. We knew she was going to miss Tuesday but when I called last night wondering about Wednesday I left a message. I hope I hear from her family soon.
Uniform Pick-up
As I had an unfortunate case of a stomach bug, Steve went to the uniform pick-up by himself and discovered that there were only Mediums and Larges which is comical for our team. I sit here picturing Jim running in a large t-shirt and tripping every two feet. They promised to order some smaller sizes for us, which is a good thing.
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