Before the Game
As we had the 7:30 game Steve and I figured we would go to his early, whip out the lineups and then go to dinner before getting to the field nice and early.
We had decided we were going to do two schedules, one with Jim and one without. Jim’s family had experienced the death of a family friend recently and so it was unknown whether or not he’d be there. We sit down and fairly easily work out the lineups. We’re just finishing up when my phone rings. The caller ID tells me that it is Avi’s house. Avi, who we of course have pitching. I pick-up the phone and Avi’s mom tells me Avi will not be at the game. When I ask why she starts to babble a little before it is discovered that Avi had baseball taken away as a punishment for misbehavior. Steve and I were not happy with this. Steve grew especially livid when he learned that she could have called us earlier in the day. We both agree that penalizing the whole team, as this does, when there are a myriad of options open to a parent for discipline is unfortunate.
Well at this point the entire lineup needs to be redone and it leaves us a pitcher short. For simplicities sake we decide to just assume Jim will not be there, which is what was indicated as most likely when we found out Monday about the death. We put together a lineup. And it’s painful. I won’t lie. We end up feeling forced to give Brendan an inning at catching. As of now Steve and I agree that we do not want Trey or Everett to catch until after they have pitched which means early inning pitches for them. In order to solve the inning of pitching we were hoping Avi to do we end up giving Jodi two innings. I’m still not sure what made us think this was a good move.
We end up with the following pitchers:
Trey, Trey, Everett, Jodi, Jodi, Percy
Steve and I go to dinner and have some great pizza. We then drive to the field getting us there about 40 minutes before our game, and about halfway through the preceding game on the field. Just as we are pulling up to the parking lot Steve’s phone rings. It’s a local phone number we don’t recognize. Trouble. It’s Bobby on the line. Now I only heard 1 side of the conversation but it must have gone something like this.
Bobby: I am not coming to today’s game
Steve: Why not buddy?
Bobby: Well I can’t find any of my uniform and my parents are out of town so I can’t ask them where it is.
Steve: (exhaling) Well do you have a way to get to the game?
Bobby: Yes
Steve: Well then you should come and we’ll sort out the uniform issue at the game
Bobby: You’re sure?
Steve: Yes. Just come. We’ll see you at the game.
He hangs up and explains. Now Bobby is by no shakes an all-star player. But on our team? He’s one of our more consistent fielders and serviceable at the plate. We could really use him. Not to mention if he is does not show that means we have exactly 9 players and so if there is the expected unexpected no show we’re playing with 8 players. Anyhow crisis averted.
While Steve and I throw to each other we scout out the two teams playing. And it becomes clear that we could be competitive with both of them.
Our first player arrives about 30 minutes early and all of the players are actually there, except 1, 20 minutes before the game. It was great. Just as the first player arrives we get a call. It’s from Jim and he WILL be at the game. As Steve takes the players to warm up, I immediately start to redo our lineups. Best of all it means that JF will not have to pitch two innings.
In the end we end up with the following Pitcher/Catch combos:
Trey/Jesse, Trey/Jesse, Everett/Trey, Jodi/Jesse, Jim/Everett, Percy/Evertt
I manage to get some time with Percy before the game and work on correcting a problem with his motion that is giving him poor control. Hopefully he’ll be ok if he has to pitch.
The Game
We’re the visiting team. Trey is leading off so we hope to get right on the board. Trey starts off with a walk and steals second. Everett grounds out, advancing Trey to 3rd. Now we have Brendan. Steve and I had talked to him about getting up there and swinging at the first couple of pitches, as he’s been pretty much watching these and finding himself behind in the count, and sure enough he does this. On a 2-2 count he makes contact, only the second or third time all season, and hits it hard to short. Steve sends Trey home. Now this was a questionable decision. Trey, however, did not help the matter by hesitating and then not appearing to run full out. Anyhow the SS makes a nice play, and the catcher, who we find out later catches for the travel team, makes a perfect catch and tag and Trey is out. Brendan ends up stealing second on the first pitch which lets me talk to Trey in the dugout (I’m coaching 1st this inning). He tells me he disagreed with the decision to send him. I said did that disagreement mean he didn’t go as quickly and as hard as he should have. He says he doesn’t know, and I believe him, but it gives me a chance to reinforce the importance of listening to us, and if we make the wrong decision it’s not his fault and no one will be mad. It’s all done in a very neutral/upbeat way, so it SHOULD have had a bearing on what will happen later. Anyhow Jesse strikes out to end the first.
Trey allows a couple of hits to the heart of their order but escapes without allowing a run and we have a 0-0 game after 1.
We can’t get anything going in the second, despite getting Bobby to 3rd with 1 out. Trey has little problem in the bottom half and it remains 0-0 in a pretty well played ball game.
In the third Jim leads off with a walk. And then we start to pound the ball. Trey hits a double, Everett hits a 2 run single, Jesse absolutely KILLS a ball into LF for a double. Bobby gets a single and we end up with 5 legitimately earned runs.
As the bottom half starts, with a couple of singles to the better part of the order, I comment to Steve that Everett seems like he’s never going to have an easy inning. Anyhow the bases get loaded on a Everett walk. Now before we now it, the bases are loaded. When the first base runner got on, Steve and I both told TG: DO NOT THROW UNLESS WE TELL YOU TO. Anyhow the bases are loaded. The kid on first is a slower player. After the second pitch he goes a little too far and Trey looks him back and when he kind of walks back to the bag Trey makes a throw. Percy is playing first and while he was on the bag he was not expecting a throw, which might have been OK, if it were not the fact that Trey makes a terrible throw that ends up sailing well over his head. TWO runs score and it’s only a nice throw by Jodi to Jesse that holds the last, slow, runner at 3rd. The run ends up scoring on a single to 3rd, but overall Everett does a nice job of pitching out of trouble, striking out two. Brendan also makes a great diving catch on a popup at 3rd.
The next inning when Trey is on the bench I talk to him as he’s putting his bat away. I ask him, in a sincere voice, “Did you know that you play on travel?” He gives me this look that says “Are you crazy” but says yes. I then explain that Steve and I know it as well. And that he doesn’t need to go out there and try and make all star plays simply because he’s an excellent player. Further that he needs to listen to us. Period. Trey couldn’t really look at me by the end of this discussion and was close to tears. And I say good. I don’t mind letting a player know that he’s screwed up, done in a nice way of course, because it gives me more credibility if I say they did a good job.
It’s important to remember despite the 3 runs that scored we are still dominating this game. We have completely deflated the other team and our team is playing pumped up. Jodi leads off the 4th with a walk and ends up at 2nd. I then make a poor call on a passed ball and send her to 3rd. Normally this would not be a poor decision, but with Trey and Everett scheduled to hit now that she’s gotten on I should have had faith that she would have scored when they hit it. Furthermore, I know that the guy they have catching, somebody who I’ve coached fairly extensively in basketball, has a great and accurate arm. So yeah that was a bad call and Jodi gets out as a result. Jim strikes out and Trey pops up to end the inning.
This is Jodi’s inning to pitch. However, as Bobby is sitting out, I had told him we were going to work on his on his pitching. So we go out of the dugout. He tells me he has been practicing and it’s true. He’s looking really good. Not only is he maintaining his arm balance but his arm mechanics are looking better then before. Now I am only half paying attention to the game at this point so I don’t really know what’s happening. I do hear a couple balls hit and from what Steve’s saying I know it’s not going well. After what sounds like a particularly disastrous play, I explain to Bobby that I need to go see what’s happening. Steve later tells me that Everett booted a ball at second base and then stood there instead of trying to either get the ball, or cover 1st, for Kellen who evidently was attempting to recover the ball. The first play I see is a ball hit to short. Jim, our SS, positions himself well, but then like a bat out of hell, Everett comes and grabs the ball, WAY on the SS side of second base, muffs it and the runner ends up safe. Later on Kellen misses a throw that pops out of his glove. A kid hits a hard hit ball to third and Brendan ends up throwing the ball so far into right field that it ends up being a “grand slam”. It was ugly. Jodi neglects to record an out. We are saved only by the seven run cap on an inning. Her mechanics are in need of work, because she kept aiming the ball rather then throwing it, but she is a pretty gifted player so I hope that it will be an easy fix. Regardless, by the sheer necessity of what we are dealing with she is going to get more innings.
Anyhow instead of being up by 2 we are now down by 5. I had been noticing some bad dynamics going on the bench when I had been coaching first. Further, Bobby had made a comment to me. Jesse, I think, has been crossing the line from player to coach on occasion. What he’s saying isn’t ever wrong, but I don’t think the team is responding well to hearing it from him. So I have Brendan’s father coach first base, while I stay in the dugout. Last year since we had 3 coaches we rotated who was coaching bases and in the dugout and I have realized how valuable this time was. As such I have decided that I will make this a semi-regular habit for me and am encouraging Steve to do the same. Everett starts off by striking out, Brendan then draws a walk and steals second. Brendan does not know how to slide and could have really hurt himself the way he slid into second here, so I think we will work on sliding at our next practice. Jesse grounds out to the pitcher. Percy walks. Both advance a base when there is a passed ball. Bobby then hits a triple into the gap in right center. Sadly Fuller records his first strikeout of the year to end the game.
And we lose 10-7.
Post Game Analysis and Looking Forward
Frankly I’m not sure what we could have done differently that would have made a difference. Both Steve and I made a bad call on sending a runner, but that alone wouldn’t have made the difference. Trey not listening to us on a throw cost us two runs but that alone wouldn’t have made the difference. Both of those put together though? That’s likely the 3 runs we lost by which is frustrating. In the end this was a game Steve and I both feel that we should have won. We basically dominated and were it not for the seven run inning we’d have won. The sad thing is that with who was there I didn’t feel better about bringing in a different pitcher for Jodi since I wasn’t sure they’d have been an improvement. Hopefully we will not have that situation again.
Steve noticed that Brendan was showboating and so he’s going to have to talk to him about that.
Our game tomorrow is against the Braves who have been just killing everyone in the league. I don’t know what happened Wednesday but going into that game they had hit at least 1 homerun and had reached the 7 run cap in each game. They appear to be a dominating team. I think as such that we should use it as a learning experience. Try and see if Avi can pitch two innings. See how Percy and Bobby would pitch against real batters, etc. Steve would rather not take this development of people approach and instead would like to really try and throw our best possible pitchers against them. So we’ll see what we end up doing.
We have also had some talks about how in general to use our pitchers. Steve is wondering if we shouldn’t hold back our good pitchers more. I pointed out that if we had done this we wouldn’t necessarily have had the momentum we had going into that inning. I do like the idea of developing Percy as a “relief” pitcher who would come in and throw hard for 1/3 or 2/3 of an inning but he isn’t there yet. For now it seems that we will likely hold Avi in reserve as he can be spared but also seems to be able to get outs.
There is no doubt we’re getting loads better with each game and so it’s sad that we didn’t win this one and are going to face such an uphill climb in the next game.
Showing posts with label Jodi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jodi. Show all posts
Friday, April 28, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Game 2
Score
So we got shellacked. Final score was 16-3 including 6 runs in the last inning. Glad they got those insurance runs cause we were a real threat considering you can’t score more then 7 in an inning. It’s frankly not worth doing an inning by inning breakdown so you’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
Jodi is the real deal. She hit the only ball into the outfield, though it was just barely in the outfield, which not so coincidentally was also our only hit. She was also consistently where she needed to be no matter which position she was at, has pretty good speed, and handled, flawlessly, a nasty one hop ground ball while at second base.
Despite getting pounded from the first inning on, we basically played the same level all game long; it was a level we’d never win a ballgame with, but it was the same level. At no point were fielders moping or not paying attention.
Jesse did an excellent job of countering the ridiculous efforts when catching. Basically every time they got a runner to 3rd base, which was often thanks to all of the wild pitches, he held them on.
Bobby is very coachable. When Steve or I explained something to him about fielding, he would remember to do it the next time. I also worked with him on pitching for about 10 minutes before the game and he later threw during a time when he was not scheduled to be in the field to supposedly good results.
Kelvin might be able to play 1st base. This was unexpected really, since he can’t really field ground balls, and is only so-so with flyballs, but looked very solid at his inning there.
The Bad
Steve is an inconsistent base coach. I had forgotten this from last season, but he doesn’t remind his runners to consistently do what they’re supposed to do. So we had a situation where a ball was hit with 2 outs and Ethan just stood by Steve at 1st base rather then running on contact.
Brendan cannot play 1st base. On the nicely fielded play that Jodi made he botched an easy throw and then stood around rather then getting the ball, allowing runners to advance. I wouldn’t judge him on one play too harshly, if it weren’t for the fact that he can’t catch either. His catching really belongs in The Ugly. While he is very good at many important catcher skills, like getting the mask off quickly, or throwing it to a base, he’s not so good at the most important of catching skills: catching and blocking the ball. And by not so good I mean terrible. If your catcher isn’t catching the ball you’re not going to get strikes you would get otherwise. Not to mention the havoc it caused on the base paths. Steve and I agree that he needs lots of work at catcher before he gets more chances. And we’re going to work with him, but our seeming surplus of catchers have turned out not to be so.
This means we are left with-out a #2 catcher. What this means for us is that Trey and Everett are going to have to step up, or rather behind, the plate. Everett has already expressed interest, and caught a pretty good inning in our first game, but Trey might need a little coaxing. In fact, I am thinking we might not so much ask him about it, as assign it to him at the next game. Steve and I will have to talk this over.
Everett just doesn’t have the arm strength right now to pitch 2 innings. Hopefully he’ll build this up, but when we essentially had to call on him to do this in the game he really struggled during that second inning, even against easier batters.
Our hitting. I mentioned earlier that we didn’t hit it out of the infield except for Jofi. The good news is that we are hitting the ball, as opposed to striking out. The bad news is that we’re going to need a lot of work on our hitting, and I am not sure I have the chops to be a good hitting coach. I will be doing my best, however, as we work on hitting it past the pitcher.
The Ugly
Our pitching. Percy was a huge disappointment walking 4 of his first 5 batters, meaning he had to be yanked. Trey came in and did a good job that inning and a terrific job the next giving us a 1, 2, 3 inning, our first I believe of the season. Ethan was our next pitcher as it was going to be the “bottom” of their lineup (I put it in quotes as it was actually the top of the lineup except because of our continuous batting order it was the worse players). He then proceeds to walk the first four batters he faced and so we had to yank him. It was as bad as I was expecting. At this point I call Everett in for relief and he gets us out of the inning. However, the wheels fall off in the 4th and he has a couple of bad luck fielding and gets hammered at bat with the other team batting around all 11 players before we can retire the side. I had to really juggle the pitching order here especially with Percy being unable to make it out of his inning. The only person who consistently was throwing strikes was Trey, with Everett doing it during the 3rd, but not 4th inning. I just don’t know where we’re going to get six innings each game. Avi will get another chance to pitch on Saturday I would expect, but I don’t think he can throw 2 innings. So we will use Trey for 2, Everett for 1, Avi for 1 and then what? Likely Jim for 1 and then we’re looking at either Percy or Bobby. Thank goodness we don’t have that extra game each week is all I can say at this point.
Little Mistakes. The other team just ran us ragged. Every little thing they were taking an extra base. The catcher would catch the ball and they would take off stealing. People weren’t where they needed to be. Now the good thing is that we got better as the game went on. We had more people running the ball in rather then throwing at the end which is good. Granted they were getting on base but it seemed like every walk was turning into a run because of how they were running. Our fundamentals just plain sucked and I frankly think that was on me and Steve. We will be working on it at practice, that’s for sure.
The other team’s sportsmanship. They needless ran up the score. They taunted us from the basepaths and from the bench. When it became clear that we were in the 4th and last inning the coach continued to run up the score. I talked to him about it and he gave me some lame excuse about how is team was destroyed on Saturday and went home with their heads down, yadda yadda yadda. I made my point to him which is all that could really be done in the situation.
Where we go from here
Our plan for practice is two fold.
1. We want to teach bunting. This has been a priority with us for a while and it’s time we hunker down and do it.
2. Work on fielding. Boy do we need the work.
I will go into greater depth about what we do after tonight’s practice. Clearly we also need to work on hitting, which Steve is going to do while I’m doing small group bunting instruction, but I would like not to be embarrassed at our game and so fielding will be the priority at the practice.
So we got shellacked. Final score was 16-3 including 6 runs in the last inning. Glad they got those insurance runs cause we were a real threat considering you can’t score more then 7 in an inning. It’s frankly not worth doing an inning by inning breakdown so you’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
Jodi is the real deal. She hit the only ball into the outfield, though it was just barely in the outfield, which not so coincidentally was also our only hit. She was also consistently where she needed to be no matter which position she was at, has pretty good speed, and handled, flawlessly, a nasty one hop ground ball while at second base.
Despite getting pounded from the first inning on, we basically played the same level all game long; it was a level we’d never win a ballgame with, but it was the same level. At no point were fielders moping or not paying attention.
Jesse did an excellent job of countering the ridiculous efforts when catching. Basically every time they got a runner to 3rd base, which was often thanks to all of the wild pitches, he held them on.
Bobby is very coachable. When Steve or I explained something to him about fielding, he would remember to do it the next time. I also worked with him on pitching for about 10 minutes before the game and he later threw during a time when he was not scheduled to be in the field to supposedly good results.
Kelvin might be able to play 1st base. This was unexpected really, since he can’t really field ground balls, and is only so-so with flyballs, but looked very solid at his inning there.
The Bad
Steve is an inconsistent base coach. I had forgotten this from last season, but he doesn’t remind his runners to consistently do what they’re supposed to do. So we had a situation where a ball was hit with 2 outs and Ethan just stood by Steve at 1st base rather then running on contact.
Brendan cannot play 1st base. On the nicely fielded play that Jodi made he botched an easy throw and then stood around rather then getting the ball, allowing runners to advance. I wouldn’t judge him on one play too harshly, if it weren’t for the fact that he can’t catch either. His catching really belongs in The Ugly. While he is very good at many important catcher skills, like getting the mask off quickly, or throwing it to a base, he’s not so good at the most important of catching skills: catching and blocking the ball. And by not so good I mean terrible. If your catcher isn’t catching the ball you’re not going to get strikes you would get otherwise. Not to mention the havoc it caused on the base paths. Steve and I agree that he needs lots of work at catcher before he gets more chances. And we’re going to work with him, but our seeming surplus of catchers have turned out not to be so.
This means we are left with-out a #2 catcher. What this means for us is that Trey and Everett are going to have to step up, or rather behind, the plate. Everett has already expressed interest, and caught a pretty good inning in our first game, but Trey might need a little coaxing. In fact, I am thinking we might not so much ask him about it, as assign it to him at the next game. Steve and I will have to talk this over.
Everett just doesn’t have the arm strength right now to pitch 2 innings. Hopefully he’ll build this up, but when we essentially had to call on him to do this in the game he really struggled during that second inning, even against easier batters.
Our hitting. I mentioned earlier that we didn’t hit it out of the infield except for Jofi. The good news is that we are hitting the ball, as opposed to striking out. The bad news is that we’re going to need a lot of work on our hitting, and I am not sure I have the chops to be a good hitting coach. I will be doing my best, however, as we work on hitting it past the pitcher.
The Ugly
Our pitching. Percy was a huge disappointment walking 4 of his first 5 batters, meaning he had to be yanked. Trey came in and did a good job that inning and a terrific job the next giving us a 1, 2, 3 inning, our first I believe of the season. Ethan was our next pitcher as it was going to be the “bottom” of their lineup (I put it in quotes as it was actually the top of the lineup except because of our continuous batting order it was the worse players). He then proceeds to walk the first four batters he faced and so we had to yank him. It was as bad as I was expecting. At this point I call Everett in for relief and he gets us out of the inning. However, the wheels fall off in the 4th and he has a couple of bad luck fielding and gets hammered at bat with the other team batting around all 11 players before we can retire the side. I had to really juggle the pitching order here especially with Percy being unable to make it out of his inning. The only person who consistently was throwing strikes was Trey, with Everett doing it during the 3rd, but not 4th inning. I just don’t know where we’re going to get six innings each game. Avi will get another chance to pitch on Saturday I would expect, but I don’t think he can throw 2 innings. So we will use Trey for 2, Everett for 1, Avi for 1 and then what? Likely Jim for 1 and then we’re looking at either Percy or Bobby. Thank goodness we don’t have that extra game each week is all I can say at this point.
Little Mistakes. The other team just ran us ragged. Every little thing they were taking an extra base. The catcher would catch the ball and they would take off stealing. People weren’t where they needed to be. Now the good thing is that we got better as the game went on. We had more people running the ball in rather then throwing at the end which is good. Granted they were getting on base but it seemed like every walk was turning into a run because of how they were running. Our fundamentals just plain sucked and I frankly think that was on me and Steve. We will be working on it at practice, that’s for sure.
The other team’s sportsmanship. They needless ran up the score. They taunted us from the basepaths and from the bench. When it became clear that we were in the 4th and last inning the coach continued to run up the score. I talked to him about it and he gave me some lame excuse about how is team was destroyed on Saturday and went home with their heads down, yadda yadda yadda. I made my point to him which is all that could really be done in the situation.
Where we go from here
Our plan for practice is two fold.
1. We want to teach bunting. This has been a priority with us for a while and it’s time we hunker down and do it.
2. Work on fielding. Boy do we need the work.
I will go into greater depth about what we do after tonight’s practice. Clearly we also need to work on hitting, which Steve is going to do while I’m doing small group bunting instruction, but I would like not to be embarrassed at our game and so fielding will be the priority at the practice.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
3rd Practice
Before Practice
As of yesterday Steve and I have not heard from Jodi’s family. I am off at a meeting all night and so Steve does the calling. He calls and leaves a message at 6:45ish. He is a commodities trader and so he wakes up very early and is lying in bed ready to fall asleep when his phone rings at 9:30 and it is Jodi’s mom. Following the conversation Steve leaves me a message which basically boils down to “Did you know about this **** with Jodi? I know if you knew about it you’d have let me know. I have the biggest ******* headache right now because of this. Call me in the morning.”
I call Steve and he is extremely pissed at Jodi and at Libby, the Park District coordinator of the league, as it seems that Jodi has conflicts because of Softball and Hebrew. Oh and there is something about soccer which he doesn’t understand. The whole conversation was rather incoherent but he’s really upset with Libby so I tell him to write her an email and we talk about what the email will say, essentially that Jodi is rather unfair to us, and I hang up confused.
Fast forward several hours. I am on jury duty this week. I am assured that only in the strangest cases do people in the jury pool get kept beyond 5 o’clock. Well I guess when you get Judge Dickweed strange cases happen, as he started assembling a jury 2 and a half hours late. We don’t get out until 5:50. Practice started 5 minutes ago and I’ve been unable to call Steve except to warn him I’m going to be late several hours earlier. The bigger problem? I am the bunting expert and that was what we wanted to start practice with. Oh and I have all the equipment.
I find out later that Steve adapted to another idea we had tossed around besides bunting and essentially they make do by Steve hitting grounders to a theoretical shortstop who throws it to a 1B. The throws are, not surprisingly, off, but he said the actual fielding and catching was better then expected.
I arrive to the practice in record time, with most of the way it seeming like the sea of cars had parted perfectly for my purposes. I arrive just in time for us to take the field for our second half of practice.
Infield Practice
So my idea was to get a sort of game situation going here by taking our players and putting them in the field, calling ones up to hit, and changing every 2-3 batters each position. This went very well in helping cement our views on players. I’m going to do a rundown of each of players in a second so the important observations from it will go there.
After Practice Talk with Jodi
Jodi was, to my surprise, at practice. After practice I talked to her mom and got the scoop.
The Park District states that in order to play travel you have to play in the house league. However, as Jodi plays softball, but in house league she plays baseball, Wednesday is a common day between both leagues, with it being their practice day. So Jodi’s mom and Libby have been emailing and the basic resolution is that Jodi will come to all our games, but have to miss all practices either for Hebrew or Softball. Jodi will also, unfortunately, miss several of our games on Saturdays. Basically it seems like she will be around, about 40-60 percent of the time. Steve is considerably less fine with all this then I am. But it is what it will be.
Setting the Line-Up
After practice Steve and I set our line-up. You are only allowed to do this twice during the season and so it’s rather important. It’s also continuous so if you have a terrible player sandwiched in between good players, as we had last year, you learn to expect a lot of potentially big innings being killed. Since we have had 3 practices, rather then 2, I feel that this is going to be less of a problem.
As the league is a development league it also has strict rules that ensure that all players in the six inning game get at least 2 innings in the infield, including at least 1 inning of the first 3. Further, no player may sit out twice until everyone has sat out once, and no player may play any position, except catcher, for more then 2 innings and a catcher may catch for 3 innings.
There is also a rule that says that pitchers may not pitch more then 5 innings a week. Last year this was very important, but Steve made a brilliant observation: this year we only have 2 games a week until the play-offs. This is great, because it removes the problems that can be created when you have to have a kid you had planned on pitching 1 or no innings come in for relief and basically means you don’t have to plan pitching for the week and can do it more on a game to game basis.
Steve and I want to see a lot of people at a lot of different positions. It likely means we will lose and I am ok with that. No kid, except Jesse who catches for 2 innings, plays the same position twice. We also made a conscious effort to sit some of our best players in the earlier innings to show that everyone will sit. As the game has a 90 minute time limit, it is unlikely because of bad pitching, that we will get past the 4th inning.
Here’s the quick version before a detailed look at it:
Jim
Trey
Everett
Brendan
Jesse
Percy
Bobby
Fuller
Avi
Ethan
Kelvin
Jodi
The Detailed Look at the Line-Up
So here’s our line-up.
Jim – Frankly this is a bit of a risk as he’s really not all that great of a hitter. Steve and I feel, however, that he will be patient at the plate. And so he will get on base because even our travel pitcher, Trey, had a hell of a time pitching low enough to him. He’s got pretty good speed for his size and so we feel he’ll do a nice job of setting the table. At worse, he’s simply become thought of as the bottom of lineup instead of the top. I mentioned before that he said he pitched last year. Today he looked much better and of the pitchers we looked at today was BY far the most consistent at getting the ball over the plate. I feel he’ll be a strong role pitcher for us: someone who won’t be one of our go to pitchers, especially with the relaxing of the pitching rules, but someone who will see an inning every 2 or 3 games. Come play-off time having someone who can take innings is huge so, this is great.
Trey – Trey will be our starting pitcher and our workhorse. He can really fire the ball in. He also has a very nasty rising fastball that he over used today in our practice game. High strikes simply are not consistently called in the league, so I will be encouraging him to use it as more of a “strikeout pitch” as kids will swing at it. As a batter he’s certainly one of our best, but does not overly impress me.
Everett – Continues to be our best hitter. Hopefully Trey and Jim will setup some good situations for him. Funny aside: I had a chance today to visit the guy I student taught for today during lunch. When I went into the cafeteria I went into the lunchroom and looked for him. After being literally swarmed by kids (it was really touching considering I hadn’t seen many of them for 2 years and never taught any of them) I found out that Everett was in the “quiet room” aka the elementary school version of detention. So at practice I tell him “I hear you’ve been a bad boy” with a smile, of course. He got SO flustered, it was clear that he was upset that I thought this and so I had to reassure him I was only joking and didn’t think he was a bad kid. It was really cute, actually.
Brendan – Will be our #2 catcher behind JM and shows promise there. There is a big drop off in talent we perceive between Everett and Brendan. He does not have very good plate discipline/eye but he can make contact with balls outside the strike zone, which in this league can often turn into errors.
Jesse – Our #1 catcher. Really gets the leadership aspect. He kept saying to the team to encourage the pitcher today. It was great. He and Trey clearly have clicked already as a battery which is great considering he is the only one I am sure can catch him, with Brendan likely being able to as well.
Percy – I’ve been under whelmed with this supposed travel kid. He’ll keep getting opportunities for the moment, but I feel very good about the decision to put him here in the batting order.
Bobby – Had an extended chance to pitch today and could not locate the strike zone with a live batter in there, though he did fare better against righties then lefties, so he’ll be getting an inning Saturday. He muffed an infield groundball and an outfield ground ball. Not good.
Fuller – We’re in the dregs of the lineup here. Continues to want to catch, despite not really having very good skill so he’ll get a couple chances early on, but for Saturday’s game he is scheduled to catch the 6th inning so he’ll likely not see action.
Avi – This is the biggest question mark. If he had been around, as a Hebrew kid he’s only been to 1 of 3 practices, he could have earned a higher spot. He’s going to be pitching the second inning so he’ll have an early shot to impress us.
Ethan – Couldn’t hit TG even when he was lobbing them in. Needs work in a million areas. I can’t decide if keeping his eye on the ball, or “dancing feet” (he’ll literally spin himself around, despite wearing cleats) is the bigger problem. Dancing feet is the more important one though so it’s where we’ll start. Also has huge focus issues in the field. He literally took off his glove during the “game”. This will not be good. Not good at all. I wish we could make him last, but sadly that honor, based on skill, goes to:
K.S. – Poor kid has no hand eye coordination I think as his mechanics have improved a lot already and he still can’t hit anything thrown to him. It’s a shame we didn’t get to bunting.
Jodi – She really deserves higher, we think, but since she won’t be around a lot it’s another one of those “she could be though of as the start of the end of the lineup” decisions. She’s clearly talented, but without ever being at a practice it will limit her opportunities on this team.
Our pitching order goes as follows:
Trey
Avi
Jim
Bobby
Everett
Percy
If people are interested I can post the whole chart we do which shows their positions for each inning. I am very excited about Saturday and hope to win, despite knowing that isn’t our first goal for the game.
Thanks as always for reading, and I promise that things should get shorter when I start recapping games.
As of yesterday Steve and I have not heard from Jodi’s family. I am off at a meeting all night and so Steve does the calling. He calls and leaves a message at 6:45ish. He is a commodities trader and so he wakes up very early and is lying in bed ready to fall asleep when his phone rings at 9:30 and it is Jodi’s mom. Following the conversation Steve leaves me a message which basically boils down to “Did you know about this **** with Jodi? I know if you knew about it you’d have let me know. I have the biggest ******* headache right now because of this. Call me in the morning.”
I call Steve and he is extremely pissed at Jodi and at Libby, the Park District coordinator of the league, as it seems that Jodi has conflicts because of Softball and Hebrew. Oh and there is something about soccer which he doesn’t understand. The whole conversation was rather incoherent but he’s really upset with Libby so I tell him to write her an email and we talk about what the email will say, essentially that Jodi is rather unfair to us, and I hang up confused.
Fast forward several hours. I am on jury duty this week. I am assured that only in the strangest cases do people in the jury pool get kept beyond 5 o’clock. Well I guess when you get Judge Dickweed strange cases happen, as he started assembling a jury 2 and a half hours late. We don’t get out until 5:50. Practice started 5 minutes ago and I’ve been unable to call Steve except to warn him I’m going to be late several hours earlier. The bigger problem? I am the bunting expert and that was what we wanted to start practice with. Oh and I have all the equipment.
I find out later that Steve adapted to another idea we had tossed around besides bunting and essentially they make do by Steve hitting grounders to a theoretical shortstop who throws it to a 1B. The throws are, not surprisingly, off, but he said the actual fielding and catching was better then expected.
I arrive to the practice in record time, with most of the way it seeming like the sea of cars had parted perfectly for my purposes. I arrive just in time for us to take the field for our second half of practice.
Infield Practice
So my idea was to get a sort of game situation going here by taking our players and putting them in the field, calling ones up to hit, and changing every 2-3 batters each position. This went very well in helping cement our views on players. I’m going to do a rundown of each of players in a second so the important observations from it will go there.
After Practice Talk with Jodi
Jodi was, to my surprise, at practice. After practice I talked to her mom and got the scoop.
The Park District states that in order to play travel you have to play in the house league. However, as Jodi plays softball, but in house league she plays baseball, Wednesday is a common day between both leagues, with it being their practice day. So Jodi’s mom and Libby have been emailing and the basic resolution is that Jodi will come to all our games, but have to miss all practices either for Hebrew or Softball. Jodi will also, unfortunately, miss several of our games on Saturdays. Basically it seems like she will be around, about 40-60 percent of the time. Steve is considerably less fine with all this then I am. But it is what it will be.
Setting the Line-Up
After practice Steve and I set our line-up. You are only allowed to do this twice during the season and so it’s rather important. It’s also continuous so if you have a terrible player sandwiched in between good players, as we had last year, you learn to expect a lot of potentially big innings being killed. Since we have had 3 practices, rather then 2, I feel that this is going to be less of a problem.
As the league is a development league it also has strict rules that ensure that all players in the six inning game get at least 2 innings in the infield, including at least 1 inning of the first 3. Further, no player may sit out twice until everyone has sat out once, and no player may play any position, except catcher, for more then 2 innings and a catcher may catch for 3 innings.
There is also a rule that says that pitchers may not pitch more then 5 innings a week. Last year this was very important, but Steve made a brilliant observation: this year we only have 2 games a week until the play-offs. This is great, because it removes the problems that can be created when you have to have a kid you had planned on pitching 1 or no innings come in for relief and basically means you don’t have to plan pitching for the week and can do it more on a game to game basis.
Steve and I want to see a lot of people at a lot of different positions. It likely means we will lose and I am ok with that. No kid, except Jesse who catches for 2 innings, plays the same position twice. We also made a conscious effort to sit some of our best players in the earlier innings to show that everyone will sit. As the game has a 90 minute time limit, it is unlikely because of bad pitching, that we will get past the 4th inning.
Here’s the quick version before a detailed look at it:
Jim
Trey
Everett
Brendan
Jesse
Percy
Bobby
Fuller
Avi
Ethan
Kelvin
Jodi
The Detailed Look at the Line-Up
So here’s our line-up.
Jim – Frankly this is a bit of a risk as he’s really not all that great of a hitter. Steve and I feel, however, that he will be patient at the plate. And so he will get on base because even our travel pitcher, Trey, had a hell of a time pitching low enough to him. He’s got pretty good speed for his size and so we feel he’ll do a nice job of setting the table. At worse, he’s simply become thought of as the bottom of lineup instead of the top. I mentioned before that he said he pitched last year. Today he looked much better and of the pitchers we looked at today was BY far the most consistent at getting the ball over the plate. I feel he’ll be a strong role pitcher for us: someone who won’t be one of our go to pitchers, especially with the relaxing of the pitching rules, but someone who will see an inning every 2 or 3 games. Come play-off time having someone who can take innings is huge so, this is great.
Trey – Trey will be our starting pitcher and our workhorse. He can really fire the ball in. He also has a very nasty rising fastball that he over used today in our practice game. High strikes simply are not consistently called in the league, so I will be encouraging him to use it as more of a “strikeout pitch” as kids will swing at it. As a batter he’s certainly one of our best, but does not overly impress me.
Everett – Continues to be our best hitter. Hopefully Trey and Jim will setup some good situations for him. Funny aside: I had a chance today to visit the guy I student taught for today during lunch. When I went into the cafeteria I went into the lunchroom and looked for him. After being literally swarmed by kids (it was really touching considering I hadn’t seen many of them for 2 years and never taught any of them) I found out that Everett was in the “quiet room” aka the elementary school version of detention. So at practice I tell him “I hear you’ve been a bad boy” with a smile, of course. He got SO flustered, it was clear that he was upset that I thought this and so I had to reassure him I was only joking and didn’t think he was a bad kid. It was really cute, actually.
Brendan – Will be our #2 catcher behind JM and shows promise there. There is a big drop off in talent we perceive between Everett and Brendan. He does not have very good plate discipline/eye but he can make contact with balls outside the strike zone, which in this league can often turn into errors.
Jesse – Our #1 catcher. Really gets the leadership aspect. He kept saying to the team to encourage the pitcher today. It was great. He and Trey clearly have clicked already as a battery which is great considering he is the only one I am sure can catch him, with Brendan likely being able to as well.
Percy – I’ve been under whelmed with this supposed travel kid. He’ll keep getting opportunities for the moment, but I feel very good about the decision to put him here in the batting order.
Bobby – Had an extended chance to pitch today and could not locate the strike zone with a live batter in there, though he did fare better against righties then lefties, so he’ll be getting an inning Saturday. He muffed an infield groundball and an outfield ground ball. Not good.
Fuller – We’re in the dregs of the lineup here. Continues to want to catch, despite not really having very good skill so he’ll get a couple chances early on, but for Saturday’s game he is scheduled to catch the 6th inning so he’ll likely not see action.
Avi – This is the biggest question mark. If he had been around, as a Hebrew kid he’s only been to 1 of 3 practices, he could have earned a higher spot. He’s going to be pitching the second inning so he’ll have an early shot to impress us.
Ethan – Couldn’t hit TG even when he was lobbing them in. Needs work in a million areas. I can’t decide if keeping his eye on the ball, or “dancing feet” (he’ll literally spin himself around, despite wearing cleats) is the bigger problem. Dancing feet is the more important one though so it’s where we’ll start. Also has huge focus issues in the field. He literally took off his glove during the “game”. This will not be good. Not good at all. I wish we could make him last, but sadly that honor, based on skill, goes to:
K.S. – Poor kid has no hand eye coordination I think as his mechanics have improved a lot already and he still can’t hit anything thrown to him. It’s a shame we didn’t get to bunting.
Jodi – She really deserves higher, we think, but since she won’t be around a lot it’s another one of those “she could be though of as the start of the end of the lineup” decisions. She’s clearly talented, but without ever being at a practice it will limit her opportunities on this team.
Our pitching order goes as follows:
Trey
Avi
Jim
Bobby
Everett
Percy
If people are interested I can post the whole chart we do which shows their positions for each inning. I am very excited about Saturday and hope to win, despite knowing that isn’t our first goal for the game.
Thanks as always for reading, and I promise that things should get shorter when I start recapping games.
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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