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Barkeep49 · 04-28-2006, 09:47 AM

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 JS and one without. JS’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 AK’s house. AK, who we of course have pitching. I pick-up the phone and AK’s mom tells me AK will not be at the game. When I ask why she starts to babble a little before it is discovered that AK 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 use 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 JS 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 BS2 an inning at catching. As of now Steve and I agree that we do not want TG or ES 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 AK to do we end up giving JF two innings. I’m still not sure what made us think this was a good move.

We end up with the following pitchers:
TG, TG, ES, JF, JF, PW

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 BS1 on the line. Now I only heard 1 side of the conversation but it must have gone something like this.

BS1: I am not coming to today’s game
Steve: Why not buddy?
BS1: 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?
BS1: Yes
Steve: Well then you should come and we’ll sort out the uniform issue at the game
BS1: You’re sure?
Steve: Yes. Just come. We’ll see you at the game.

He hangs up and explains. Now BS1 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 but 2 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 JS 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 endup with the following Pitcher/Catch combos:
TG/JM, TG/JM, ES/TG, JF/JM, JS/ES, PW/ES

I manage to get some time with PW 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. TG is leading off so we hope to get right on the board. TG starts off with a walk and steals second. ES grounds out, advancing TG to 3rd. Now we have BS2. 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 TG home. Now this was a questionable decision. TG, 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 TG is out. BS2 ends up stealing second on the first pitch which lets me talk to TG 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 baring on what will happen later. Anyhow JM strikes out to end the first.

TG 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 BS1 to 3rd with 1 out. TG has little problem in the bottom half and it remains 0-0 in a pretty well played ball game.

In the third JS leads off with a walk. And then we start to pound the ball. TG hits a double, ES hits a 2 run single, JM absolutely KILLS a ball into LF for a double. BS 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 ES seems like he’s never going to have an easy inning. Anyhow the bases get loaded on a ES 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 TG looks him back and when he kind of walks back to the bag TG makes a throw. PW 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 TG makes a terrible throw that ends up sailing well over his head. TWO runs score and it’s only a nice throw by JF to JM that holds the last, slow, runner at 3rd. The run ends up scoring on a single to 3rd, but overall ES does a nice job of pitching out of trouble, striking out two. BS2 also makes a great diving catch on a popup at 3rd.

The next inning when TG is on the bench I talk to him as he’s putting his bat away. I ask him “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. TG 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 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. JF 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 TG and ES 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 an accurate arm. So yeah that was a bad call. JS strikes out and TG pops up to end the inning.

This is JF’s inning to pitch. However, as BS1 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 BS1 that I need to go see what’s happening. Steve later tells me that EG booted a ball at second base and then stood there instead of trying to either get the ball, or cover 1st, for KS who evidently was attempting to recover the ball. The first play I see is a ball hit to short. JS, our SS, positions himself well, but then like a bat out of hell, EG comes and grabs the ball, WAY on the SS side of second base, muffs it and the runner ends up safe. Later on KS misses a throw that pops out of his glove. A kid hits a hard hit ball to third and BS2 ends up throwing the ball so far into right field that it ends up being a “grand slam”. It was ugly. JF 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, BS1 had made a comment to me. JM, 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 BS2’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. ES starts off by striking out, BS2 then draws a walk and steals second. BS2 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. JM grounds out to the pitcher. PW walks. Both advance a base when there is a passed ball. BS1 then hits a triple into the gap in right center. Sadly FO 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. TG 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 JF since I wasn’t sure they’d have been an improvement. Hopefully we will not have that situation again.

Steve noticed that BS2 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 AK can pitch two innings. See how PW and BS1 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 PW 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 AK 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.

04-28-2006, 09:47 AM	#43
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	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 JS and one without. JS’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 AK’s house. AK, who we of course have pitching. I pick-up the phone and AK’s mom tells me AK will not be at the game. When I ask why she starts to babble a little before it is discovered that AK 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 use 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 JS 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 BS2 an inning at catching. As of now Steve and I agree that we do not want TG or ES 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 AK to do we end up giving JF two innings. I’m still not sure what made us think this was a good move. We end up with the following pitchers: TG, TG, ES, JF, JF, PW 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 BS1 on the line. Now I only heard 1 side of the conversation but it must have gone something like this. BS1: I am not coming to today’s game Steve: Why not buddy? BS1: 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? BS1: Yes Steve: Well then you should come and we’ll sort out the uniform issue at the game BS1: You’re sure? Steve: Yes. Just come. We’ll see you at the game. He hangs up and explains. Now BS1 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 but 2 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 JS 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 endup with the following Pitcher/Catch combos: TG/JM, TG/JM, ES/TG, JF/JM, JS/ES, PW/ES I manage to get some time with PW 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. TG is leading off so we hope to get right on the board. TG starts off with a walk and steals second. ES grounds out, advancing TG to 3rd. Now we have BS2. 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 TG home. Now this was a questionable decision. TG, 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 TG is out. BS2 ends up stealing second on the first pitch which lets me talk to TG 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 baring on what will happen later. Anyhow JM strikes out to end the first. TG 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 BS1 to 3rd with 1 out. TG has little problem in the bottom half and it remains 0-0 in a pretty well played ball game. In the third JS leads off with a walk. And then we start to pound the ball. TG hits a double, ES hits a 2 run single, JM absolutely KILLS a ball into LF for a double. BS 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 ES seems like he’s never going to have an easy inning. Anyhow the bases get loaded on a ES 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 TG looks him back and when he kind of walks back to the bag TG makes a throw. PW 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 TG makes a terrible throw that ends up sailing well over his head. TWO runs score and it’s only a nice throw by JF to JM that holds the last, slow, runner at 3rd. The run ends up scoring on a single to 3rd, but overall ES does a nice job of pitching out of trouble, striking out two. BS2 also makes a great diving catch on a popup at 3rd. The next inning when TG is on the bench I talk to him as he’s putting his bat away. I ask him “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. TG 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 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. JF 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 TG and ES 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 an accurate arm. So yeah that was a bad call. JS strikes out and TG pops up to end the inning. This is JF’s inning to pitch. However, as BS1 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 BS1 that I need to go see what’s happening. Steve later tells me that EG booted a ball at second base and then stood there instead of trying to either get the ball, or cover 1st, for KS who evidently was attempting to recover the ball. The first play I see is a ball hit to short. JS, our SS, positions himself well, but then like a bat out of hell, EG comes and grabs the ball, WAY on the SS side of second base, muffs it and the runner ends up safe. Later on KS misses a throw that pops out of his glove. A kid hits a hard hit ball to third and BS2 ends up throwing the ball so far into right field that it ends up being a “grand slam”. It was ugly. JF 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, BS1 had made a comment to me. JM, 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 BS2’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. ES starts off by striking out, BS2 then draws a walk and steals second. BS2 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. JM grounds out to the pitcher. PW walks. Both advance a base when there is a passed ball. BS1 then hits a triple into the gap in right center. Sadly FO 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. TG 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 JF since I wasn’t sure they’d have been an improvement. Hopefully we will not have that situation again. Steve noticed that BS2 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 AK can pitch two innings. See how PW and BS1 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 PW 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 AK 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.