My Experience Coaching a 9-10 Year Old Baseball Team in a Rigged League

[Atocep]

Thanks for the positive comments. I was wondering if I had bored everyone with the constant updates on league drama so it's nice to see people are still checking in.



A few odds and ends after the first weekend of games

League Rules
*6 innings played with a 2 hour 15 minute time limit.
*10 run rule is in effect after 4.5 innings are complete.
*All players on your roster will be in your lineup and will bat whether they play the field or not.
*There is no participation requirement for playing the field. 2 innings in the field is encouraged. (All of our players played at least 2 innings in the field in both games this weekend and I will do my absolute best to make sure that's the case every game)
*There is no pitch count but a 3 inning limit per day and 8 innings per week limit. 60 pitches are strongly encouraged as the limit and will be the rule starting next season.
*Dropped ball 3rd strike is in play.
*No leadoffs. A baserunner can't leave a base until the ball has passed the plate.
*5 run limit in all innings except the 6th. The 6th inning is uncapped.

I touched on the rules earlier and was mostly going off of memory from last year (which proved to be wrong).


The Blue Raiders beat the Rockets 20-9. That's the only result from this weekend I hadn't mentioned yet. I'm guessing the Blue Raiders were using pitchers that never really pitched before as the Rockets are a very small team and look a hell of a lot like us last season. The season was supposed to start with games Tuesday and Thursday, but in typical Western Washington fashion those games were rained out.

We play the Blue Raiders on Tuesday and then we travel to Olympia to play on Saturday. The league in Olympia has balks, leadoffs, and steals so this is going to be tough on our pitchers. My experience with those rules last year was that once a player gets on base he basically gets 3rd base for free unless you have an outstanding catcher. We have a pretty damned good catcher this year so it will be a good test for him. I'm really nervous about our pitchers though.

[Atocep]

/sigh

I just got back from our game against the Blue Raiders. I really haven't gone into yet, but the Blue Raiders are easily our biggest rival. They're the team our parents and players can't stand and it was made all the worse when Christopher joined our team this year after having issues with their coach last season. Of course, we've never beaten them despite playing against them since both teams were in machine pitch and we've never made it more than 4 innings without getting 10-runned as far as I know.

The plan today was to give Quentin, Kaden, and Joey 2 innings each on the mound today. Joey went 60 pitches on Saturday and both Kaden and Quentin were around 50.

In the top of the first we took advantage of a really tight strike zone and a wild pitcher to score a couple of runs. The Blue Raiders answered with 4 in the bottom of the first after rattling Quentin a bit. We scored 1 in the top of the 2nd to make the score 4-3 Blue Raiders while Quentin settled down in the bottom of the 2nd and put them down easily.

They changed pitchers for the 3rd and went to a small kid that struggled to put the ball over the plate. We scored 3 runs on him without hitting the ball before he was pulled for another pitcher. We ended up putting 5 on them when it was all said and done to jump out to a 8-4 lead. In the bottom half of the inning we had Kaden replace Quentin and Kaden shut them down again after allowing a couple of base runners.

In the top of the 4th we threatened with a couple of base runners, but the bottom of our order just couldn't get much going and we failed to score. In the bottom of the 4th Kaden got a bit wild, gave them some walks, they had a hit, and scored a couple of runs before Kaden picked off a runner on 1st base with 2 outs and the bases loaded to end the inning (I nearly had a stroke when he made that throw).

So at this point it's 7:50 and we can only go to 8:30. It's getting dark, but we hold a 8-6 lead. Their pitcher walks a couple of our batters, we score a run on a force at 1st, and I send another runner from 3rd. He comes in to slide but the catcher blocks home and he's called out. It's a bad call. The catcher isn't allowed to the block the plate the way he did because the runner by rule has to slide so it doesn't give him any chance of being safe. The call was missed. It was frustrating, but we rally back to score another run before the end of the inning to make the score 10-6.

With the score 10-6 and entering the last half inning I had to make a decision. Either stick with the plan and bring in Joey or send Kaden back out there for the final 3 outs. I decided to go with Joey because I'm not going to push our pitchers too hard this early in the season and Joey pitching puts Kaden behind the plate and Quentin at short (so we're much better defensively).

Joey walks the first two batters, but steps up big and strikes out the next hitter. The problem we're facing is it's getting dark and with an umpire with a tight strike zone it makes it much harder for the defense since you either have to hope for a strikeout or make plays in the field. Long story short, Kaden makes 3 beautiful throws to try and nail base-stealers over the next couple of batters and all 3 end up in the outfield because our kids can't see the ball. They get a huge hit with a runner on 2nd and 2 outs before Joey strikes out the last batter. Final score 10-10 after some initial dispute on whether to keep playing or not.

I had such conflicting feelings. On one hand we just outplayed (IMO) our biggest rival and a team no one would have ever thought we could beat to we walk away with a tie. On the other hand I had to settle for a tie and the missed call at home is going to bother me for a while.

The tight strike zone was frustrating. I can't stand to see a tight strike zone at this level. The missed call at home was frustrating. We also had a call at 3rd where Kaden threw out a guy stealing because he slid 3-4 inches short of the bag at 3rd but was ruled safe because the ump was out of position on the play and couldn't see that he didn't touch the bag.

In the end I'm trying to be pleased with what we did tonight. I think we put a shock into the league and continue to send a message to other teams that we're a different team this year. Now I have 1 practice to teach my kids not to balk, how to handle lead-offs, how to lead-off, how to steal, ect because of the rules we'll be playing under in Olympia for Saturday's double header.

[Atocep]

I hung around and talked to the Blue Raiders coaches after the game and the thing they kept bringing up was our pitching. One coach said that when you get past the first pitcher you expect to see a drop off. There was no drop off. Then when when our 3rd pitcher came in and there was no drop off he said he was wondering how many we had.

Those two coaches also run a select travel team after the season and Kaden was invited to play with them this year. I was also invited to help coach if I'm interested.

There was a lot of good that came from this evening's game, but it's really hard for me to look at a tie and be pleased.

[Atocep]

Here are the standings after the first week of games. We only play 12 league games (along with 8 non-league that don't count in the standings) so we are already a quarter of the way through our league schedule. We're also the only team that has played both the Blue Raiders and the Tigers so far.

                        W       L	T   	 PCT	GB	GP	RS	RA
1	Blue Raiders	2	0	1	.833	0.0	3	45	33
2	Tigers          1 	0	0	1.000	0.5	1	11	0
3	Rough Riders	1	1	1	.500	1.0	3	22	24
4	Tacoma Lions	1	2	0	.333	1.5	3	34	39
5	Rockets	        0	2	0	.000	2.0	2	21	37

Areas That Need Improvement

1.) First is baserunning. I need to get our players more confidence in running the bases. We're way ahead of the Tigers and the Lions when it comes to baserunning, but the Blue Raiders are a great example of just how good baserunning can be and the impact it has on a game. Right now the only naturally aggressive baserunners we have are Kaden and Quentin.

2.) Throwing out baserunners. We have a catcher with a big arm, but he isn't confident in making the throw to a base before the person covering gets there. The timing on these throws needs work and if we can get it down we're going to have teams scared to death to run on us.

3.) Our defense is vastly improved and the players are getting a better understanding of where they're supposed to be on each play, but we've given up a 3 runs on plays where our players assumed the play was over and held onto the ball instead of getting back to the pitcher or the pitcher not paying attention as he gets back to the mound.

4.) Something I plan on working on during practice next Tuesday is bunting. If Quentin can get to the point where he's able to lay down bunts consistently no one will ever throw him out at first. It's something defenses at this age aren't prepared for and just the threat of a bunt starts to get into kids' heads.

[hoopsguy]

It is cool to read about the kind of strides you have made with this team from year to year. I hope that when my daughter gets into this age group that she has coaches as invested in her team as you are with this one.

[Atocep]

Not much to write about with these games.

The first game I started Joey and he gave up a run over 3 innings and we ran around the bases at will. Christopher came in and pitched the last half inning and the game was called after 4 innings. Final score 11-1.

The second game we came out playing very lackadaisically. We only scored 1 run in the first inning because we decided to watch pitch after pitch instead of swinging the bat. Quentin brought his A-game to the mound though. He ended up giving us 3 solid innings, but we were leaving runs on the field all game because we just weren't into game.

We did manage to jump out to a 7-1 lead after 3 and half innings before they scored 2 in the bottom of the 4th to cut our lead to 7-3. We scored 6 in the top of the 5th to put the game away although Kaden had a shaky half inning on the mound in the bottom of the 5th. Final score 13-5 with the game called due to time limit.

[Atocep]

The results here surprised me a bit. Our only work with balks, leadoffs, and steals was done as a cram session at practice on Thursday, but our kids took to the rules immediately. They understood when to pitch out of the stretch and were aggressive on the bases.

The first team we played had scored something like 38 runs in 2 games and they only put 1 on the board against us. The Tigers are the only team with pitching that's been better than ours and it hasn't been close with any of the other teams we've played.

Highlights
*Easily the top play today was Kaden throwing out a guy stealing 2nd. The runner took his lead, got a jump, and Kaden made the perfect throw to 2nd he needed to make and nailed the runner.

*Christopher gave us a scoreless inning.

*Only 1 error in the field.

*Quentin pitched like an ace today.

*Canaan and Nolan both hit the ball really well. Both had 2 doubles.



I've been really sick the past few days so it was nice to go out there, get a couple of easy wins, and get home so I can get back on Nyquil. Our next game is Thursday against the Lions followed by a double header Saturday that's over an hour's drive away.

[BYU 14]

Nice, can't say enough how impressed I am with your dedication to these kids and the turnaround you have engineered.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Nice, can't say enough how impressed I am with your dedication to these kids and the turnaround you have engineered.

The best part of it is seeing the amount of confidence the kids have in the field now. They're talking to each other, making sure everyone knows where they're supposed to be, and everyone is paying attention.

I already feel rewarded for giving these kids a chance to really play some baseball and succeed.

[MacroGuru]

I love to see the turn around....

AND not to thread jack, but I am getting back into coaching, granted it's at the junior high city league level.

I will be coaching my 11 year old on the city league varsity team this season. So I should be starting one of these threads in a couple of months.

[Atocep]

A quick update for the other games played this weekend.

The Blue Raiders and Lions traveled to the same place we played this weekend and played similarly skilled teams. The Blue Raiders won by scores of 13-1 and 14-5 and I'm not sure of the scores, but the Lions lost both of their games. The Tigers traveled to Shelton to play the number one team in Mason county in a double header and lost by scores of 10-0 and 11-1. The Rockets were supposed to travel with the Tigers and play some low level teams but either the scores weren't reported or they didn't make the trip.

Pony breaks its teams into divisions (1, 2, 3, 4). A division 1 team would be a team good enough to play competitive travel ball. A division 2 team would be a typical Pony or Little League level team. Division 3 would obviously be a bit below that. Division 4 would be considered rec league level. Since our league is so small right now we all play in one division and specify the division we want our Interlock (travel) games to be at when the schedules are being formed. Last year we played as a Division 3/4 team while this year we're playing as a Division 2.

I believe the Tigers have labeled themselves as a Division 1 team and while they have the talent for it they don't play like a Division 1 team. They're not aggressive on the bases and they don't do anything outside the norm. They just line up and try to out-talent you. This is why I think they're beatable. We had a division 1 team in our league last year that everyone knew was unbeatable. This year the Tigers are the favorites, but it's definitely not going to be a sure thing.

Something I forgot to mention after the game against the Blue Raiders was that the Blue Raiders coach told me the Tigers' coach had tipped them off on us not being anything like we were the previous year. They had asked because they saw the 11-0 score and wondered how competitive the game was and the Tigers coach explained that we actually played them really tough and the score was misleading. It was obvious to me that the Blue Raiders were playing us differently after the first inning when they had 2 guys bunt and were looking to steal at any opportunity. That's something we didn't see from them last year when we played. They brought their A-game for us this past Tuesday and it made for a very fun and exciting game. And that's the best part of this season. The games are fun.

[GoldenEagle]

I am following along. I have umpired youth baseball in the past at a pretty high level (USSSA World Series championship games), so I understand everything that you are going through. One thing that umpires need to do is have a huge strike zone at that age. Otherwise, the game becomes a walkfest and the kids don't swing the bat.

Also, the dropped third strike thing is pretty weird. Usually the progression is kids pitch (9-10), leading off (11-12), dropped third strike (13-14) or in the case of USSSA, all three are in play at 9 years old.

[Ksyrup]

Not to take this off on a tangent, but I have an umpiring question.

What happens when an umpire mistakenly calls the infield fly rule? We had this happen a couple of weekends ago in a softball tournament - girls on 1st and 2nd, then they advanced a base on a wild pitch. Next pitch, popped up to 3B and the home plate ump yells infield fly, batter's out. 3B drops the ball. Girl runs down to 1B, other runners advance a base. Ump admitted he was wrong when the other team protested, and he allowed the runners to advance and put the girl on 1B. We were not happy, to say the least. To me, that's nearly the equivalent to calling a ball foul, which negates everything after it (although not quite, because I recognize that the runners can advance on the play, especially if the ball is dropped).

Just curious - how should that have been resolved? I recognize the ump screwed up, but to me, it got resolved in favor of the batting team and wasn't fair to us in any way.

[Ksyrup]

And BTW, I think using dropped 3rd strike at the lowest levels is pretty absurd. I guess I can understand it at the travel ball level, even at 10U, but in our softball rec league these girls couldn't throw or catch, yet they used the dropped 3rd strike rule. The one year Caitlin played, to get some pitching experience, she'd allow one ball in play, strike out 18 in 4 innings, and give up 3 or 4 runs on dropped third strikes.

[Subby]

The umpire resolved the play correctly. The rule doesn't change despite his call. It is not an infield fly situation and has to be treated as such.

Sucks, but that's baseball.

edit: or softball

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

I am following along. I have umpired youth baseball in the past at a pretty high level (USSSA World Series championship games), so I understand everything that you are going through. One thing that umpires need to do is have a huge strike zone at that age. Otherwise, the game becomes a walkfest and the kids don't swing the bat.

Also, the dropped third strike thing is pretty weird. Usually the progression is kids pitch (9-10), leading off (11-12), dropped third strike (13-14) or in the case of USSSA, all three are in play at 9 years old.

I love an ump with a big strike zone. I just want the kids to get out there and play baseball and in my experience at this age the games play much more like actual baseball when strikes are being called and kids are forced to swing the bat when the pitch is close. The best umps I've talked to all say that they always want to call strikes and they really get into a game when there's a good pitcher on the mound putting the ball over the plate.

We've adapted to the dropped ball 3rd strike and I think we handle it better than any team we've seen thus far, but I still have several issues with it at this age. First, this is the first age group for kids pitch so it's the first age group that uses real catchers. The dropped ball 3rd strike puts even more of a pressure on what's already the most difficult and most important position on the field. Second, it makes players new to this age group passive at the plate as they know that even if they strike out they have a chance to reach first base. Third, it creates a burden of knowledge that doesn't belong at this age group. For example, Saturday we had a situation where we had the bases loaded and 2 outs and a full count on our batter at the plate. I know it's a dropped ball 3rd strike situation because of experience so I send our runner from third as soon as the pitch is thrown. The catcher drops the 3rd strike right in front of home plate, picks it up, and goes to throw to first right as our runner slides in safely. The runner at first ends up being safe, we score a run, and keep the inning alive simply because a 10 year old didn't know to step on home plate for the force out in that situation.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Kinda funny for me to see discussion about the dropped third strike rule here. I started playing organized baseball at hmm, age 6 or 7 I guess, never played a game without it in use.

[GoldenEagle]

You will usually see umpires signal to each other when the infield fly rule is in effect. We would always use our index finger and point at the tip of our cap. The other umpire should confirm it by doing the same signal. In that situation, I would usually wipe both my arms off to indicate no more infield fly.

I never had that situation come up when I umpired. You are not usually looking to call infield fly. I called it on average maybe once a game and that would be pushing it.

If I was coaching, I would probably have a word with the umpire just to get in his/her head a little bit and try to get a make-up call in the future. You would be surprised how effective this is. I would then tell my 3B to catch the ball.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by Atocep

I know it's a dropped ball 3rd strike situation because of experience so I send our runner from third as soon as the pitch is thrown. .

Do you delay the runner enough so that if the batter swings, it does not turn into a dangerous situation? The worse injuries I have seen in youth baseball (other than a pitcher taking a line drive to the head) have been runners stealing home and the batter not knowing it.

[Ksyrup]

3B in softball plays ridiculously close because of the prevalence of bunting/slap hitting. I'm surprised I haven't seen a girl get knocked unconscious yet. Last week we had a game where the batter squared to bunt too quickly and the corners charged in so far that the 3Bman scooped up the bunt in time to tag the batter. If that girl had pulled back and swung, she might have hit the 3Bman on her follow-through. She was that close.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

If I was coaching, I would probably have a word with the umpire just to get in his/her head a little bit and try to get a make-up call in the future. You would be surprised how effective this is. I would then tell my 3B to catch the ball.

I ended up arguing with him from the stands. I tried my best to get thrown out. We had history with this particular umpire, though. Last year, he screwed us in the 9th inning of the state championship game by failing to call a girl out for bunting and running on the inside of the baseline. The catcher's throw hit her, went into RF, and we lost. He did just what he did this time - admitted he was wrong, refused to correct it, and let the play stand. That's what pissed me off so much about it.

In a game the day before, the same thing had happened on a bunt and another umpire correctly called the runner out. This guy apparently knew the rule but didn't call it when it happened and decided he would rather admit he was wrong than correct the call after the fact. In the 3rd extra inning of a state championship game, no less. Dude shouldn't be umpiring any more.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

3B in softball plays ridiculously close because of the prevalence of bunting/slap hitting. I'm surprised I haven't seen a girl get knocked unconscious yet. Last week we had a game where the batter squared to bunt too quickly and the corners charged in so far that the 3Bman scooped up the bunt in time to tag the batter. If that girl had pulled back and swung, she might have hit the 3Bman on her follow-through. She was that close.

Some baseball leagues ban this. I can't remember the name for it off the top of my head. I know the rec organization (Dizzy Dean, you may have heard of it since you live in GA) that I umpired did not allow this. USSSA did if I recall correctly. Maybe it is called slashing? Either way, it is really dangerous.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I ended up arguing with him from the stands. I tried my best to get thrown out. We had history with this particular umpire, though. Last year, he screwed us in the 9th inning of the state championship game by failing to call a girl out for bunting and running on the inside of the baseline. The catcher's throw hit her, went into RF, and we lost. He did just what he did this time - admitted he was wrong, refused to correct it, and let the play stand. That's what pissed me off so much about it.

In a game the day before, the same thing had happened on a bunt and another umpire correctly called the runner out. This guy apparently knew the rule but didn't call it when it happened and decided he would rather admit he was wrong than correct the call after the fact. In the 3rd extra inning of a state championship game, no less. Dude shouldn't be umpiring any more.

From my experience umpiring baseball and now refereeing soccer, there a lot of people who do just for the power trip. They are not in charge of anything else, so they come out there just to show off. I always try to admit when I screw something up. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about it, but this sounded like a situation that he could have got corrected.

There was also an umpire-in-chief who could overrule us on rule interpretations. There should have been a tournament director or something like that at this game. It also sounds like you could have protested.

To me, there is no excuse for an official to ever get a rule interpretation wrong. Those are written in black and white and you are being incompetent if you don't know them. Judgement calls are judgments, but always get the rules right.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

Some baseball leagues ban this. I can't remember the name for it off the top of my head. I know the rec organization (Dizzy Dean, you may have heard of it since you live in GA) that I umpired did not allow this. USSSA did if I recall correctly. Maybe it is called slashing? Either way, it is really dangerous.

If you're talking about baseball, we used to call that the butcher boy play. In softball, it's called slap hitting and it's a very large part of the game at all levels (except 8U coach pitch, where bunting/slapping isn't allowed). Some teams will load up the top of their order with bunters and slappers to get on base (95% of the time, the slappers are RH hitters who turn around to slap LHed). One of our coaches is big on defense designs and will pull the CF and RFover to the left side of the infield and the LF up to the edge of the OF grass to defense the slap hit.

So 3B and 1B have to be very aggressive on bunts/slaps. You key on bunters by the fact that they are up in the box, and slappers because they are hitting LHed and start at the back of the box to get a running start. I'm not sure how/why it started and why it's so much different than baseball, but slapping is a softball art.

[Atocep]

It's been typical Washington weather this week so we've had a practice and a game rained out. We head to Shelton to play a double header tomorrow and we'll be without Quentin for the 2nd game since his soccer tryouts are scheduled for tomorrow evening.

So we have a double header with no practice or games since last Saturday and we'll be without one of our 2 best players for game 2. Should be interesting.

[Atocep]

We hadn't played since last Saturday and we played like it in the first game today. We were way better than the team we played, but the fact that we played down to their level combined with the other team having a good understanding of how to exploit leadoffs steals made for a tough game.

We hit the 5 run cap in each of the first two innings and only made 1 out total while giving up 6 (4 in the 1st and 2 in the 2nd) to jump out to a 10-6 lead after 2. Quentin was our starting pitcher and just wasn't into the game at all today. He wasn't paying attention, I had to tell him almost every pitch to go to the stretch, and he made several bad decisions that led to runs. It was just one of those days for him.

In the 3rd inning all hell broke loose. I honestly don't remember how things broke down because the other team couldn't put the ball over the plate and it was really just who had better baserunners. We couldn't catch this game, couldn't throw, and when we did throw it was to the wrong base. It came down to the 4th inning being called the last inning because of time constraints. We had a 15-10 lead heading into the bottom half of that inning and I put Kaden on the mound. The put a couple of balls in play that we made errors on, Kaden walked one, and Quentin allowed a run because he wasn't paying attention at home plate (he was catching). We ended up in a situation where they had the tying run on 2nd, 2 outs, and Kaden struck out their final batter to get us an incredibly ugly 15-14 win.


The 2nd game wasn't much of a game. We were missing Quentin and we could have been missing Kaden as well and still won easily. We scored 10 runs without making and out and the other team had gotten a baserunner to 3rd, but no one else had reached base. At that point I put a stop to our stealing and started moving kids all around to get them to positions they wanted to try. We scored 5 more in the top of the 3rd without steals and then gave them 5 runs in the bottom of the 3rd. In the 4th Kaden hit a ball as far as I've ever seen a 10 year old hit the ball for an easy homerun and we easily got 5 more which effectively ended the game since we were up 20-5 (10 run rule in effect after 4). I put Brendan in to pitch the 4th and we gave them another 5 before the game was called. Final score 20-10 and I'm glad it ended because the 5th and 6th innings are uncapped and it would have gotten incredibly ugly unless I told my kids to go make outs.

The first team we played was apparently pretty good. They said they had won all of their league games up to that point and had lost to 1 team that came in from another town. The 2nd team was rec level.

So we walk away with 2 wins, but I'm not all that happy. We made more errors today than in all of our games combined to this point. There was a week between our games, but the errors combined with the lack of attention was frustrating. We have a practice on Monday to straighten these issues out before we play the Rockets on Tuesday.

[Atocep]

Highlights

*Kaden homered twice in the 2nd game. The first was to the opposite field over the right fielder's head. The right fielder had a weak arm and they just couldn't get the ball into the infield in time to even make a play at the plate. The 2nd was pulled to left-center and would have cleared a fence if there was one. He was rounding 3rd by the time the outfielders got to the ball.

*Britt caught a flyball hit to him out in right field. This was the only defensive highlight we had all day.

*Christopher absolutely crushed a ball down the left field line that would have least been to the fence of a standard little league field. He's not the fastest kid out there and he still easily managed a triple on it.

*Everyone but Donovan got infield time. I don't think he's quite ready to play on the infield yet and as much as I would have loved to get him in the infield today it would have been setting him up for failure.

*Everyone scored a run at some point today.

[Atocep]

An updated look at the standings after this weekend.

          Teams	        W	L	T	PCT	GB	GP	RS	RA
1	Rough Riders	5	1	1	.786	0.0	7	81	54
2	Blue Raiders	5	1	1	.786	0.0	7	102	59
3	Tigers	        3	2	0	.600	1.5	5	36	26
4	Tacoma Lions	2	3	0	.400	2.5	5	66	62
5	Rockets	        2 	4	0	.333	3.0	6	59	75

[Atocep]

I stopped by the Lions and Tigers game today because our division director wanted to have a meeting with the coaches. The Tigers showed just how beatable they are by needing to score 2 runs in the bottom of the 6th to take a 4-3 win over the Lions. The Tigers play the Blue Raiders on Thursday and I fully expect the Blue Raiders to win.

The meeting was because Tacoma's select league called looking for 9 interlock games. I decided that we'd take 2 of them on June 9th and we'd shuffle around a couple of league games to make it happen. These are really good teams. We played 2 of them last year and didn't belong on the same field as them last year. Of course that doesn't say much since there weren't many teams we did belong on the same field as. I'm looking forward to seeing how we play against these teams now.

We also discussed what to do with All Stars. There isn't a huge push to do All-Stars for the 10 year olds because there are quite a few parents of the 10 year olds that are pains to deal with. They also happen to be good players that would be deserving of an all star selection. If All Stars don't happen Kaden will play in travel tournaments with the Blue Raiders as I mentioned earlier. There's also a tournament on memorial day weekend that the Blue Raiders are considering playing in that Kaden has been asked to play in if they decide to enter it.

So regardless of what happens Kaden is happy that there's a lot of baseball to be played this summer.

[Izulde]

I love the work you've done with this team. This type of turnaround and growth of the kids on an athletic and personal level is what coaching youth sports is all about.

[Atocep]

We played the Rockets today who aren't one of the stronger teams we'll play, but were coming off of 2 wins this past weekend. My goal was to get Magnus some more work on the mound, rest Kaden as much as possible, and not have to pitch Quentin. All of those goals were accomplished.

Magnus started and had some wildness, but struck out 5 over 2 innings while giving up 2 runs. He has a tendency to try to aim the baseball before he settles down and just pitches. That problem was there tonight and he walked the bases loaded both innings before working his way out.

Kaden played shortstop the whole game while Quentin played catcher. We had a chance toward the end of the game to move some kids around, but the game didn't last very long so there wasn't as much of an opportunity for that as I would have liked.

The best way to describe the game tonight would be boring. The first 3 pitchers the Rockets put out there may have thrown a total of 10 strikes. We had made one out through 2 innings and held a 10-2 lead. We scored 5 more in the 3rd watching kids walk around the bases before I decided to put Joey on the mound just so we could see some strikes. He ended up throwing strike after strike and the Rockets did manage a couple of hits off of him and scored a run, but he was pitching very well.

In the top of the 4th they put a pitcher out on the mound that didn't throw hard, but did throws strikes. My kids finally got a chance to swing the bats and took advantage of it. We scored 4 quick runs before the game was called. Final score 19-3.

We played well. It was night and day from how we looked Saturday so it was great to see the kids respond to my challenge to play harder at practice yesterday. I'm giving the kids a break until Saturday when we play 2 teams from Shelton at our park and then the practice schedule picks back up again with 2 per week for the next couple of weeks. We have the Tigers next Thursday and we owe them.

[Atocep]

Highlights

*Tyler smoked a double that scored 2 runs and ended the game.

*Magnus had some bouts with wildness, but when it came down to it got the outs he needed and only gave up 2 runs in 2 innings. We'll take that every time.

*Joey shut things down for us by throwing strikes.

*We only allowed 1 run because of poor defensive play. A solid defensive effort even though we didn't get many chances.

*As mentioned earlier; Kaden didn't pitch or catch a single inning and Quentin didn't pitch. I wanted to get them some rest and we played well enough to make it happen.

[Commo_Soldier]

Really enjoying your dynasty. In fact I was at a church service this past Saturday in Puyallup and there was a little league dinner / auction going on. I then noticed the name on the uniform was the Tacoma Barristers, kinda interesting to see one of the teams that was in your league at one point. Hope the season keeps going well for your team!

[Atocep]

I have some fairly rudimentary stats from Mark. Mark likes playing around with numbers, but doesn't know baseball stats all that well. So I have to work with what he gave me.

Kaden is hitting .500/.636/1.188 with 3 doubles, 1 triple, and 2 home runs. He doesn't lead the team in OBP or BA but easily has the highest OPS because he has 19 total bases and the next highest on the team is Magnus with 11.

Statistically our best pitcher so far is Joey. Joey is only seeing an average of 5 batters per inning and is allowing .93 runs per inning. Both are tops on the team. As expected, Kaden and Quentin are right behind him (5.5. and 5.4 batters faced per inning and 1.3 and 1.5 runs allowed per inning). Kaden and Quentin's stats are thrown off a bit since neither one pitched against the two weakest teams we've faced while Joey has 3 of his 9.2 innings against those teams.

Tomorrow I'll post some stats on each player. I have to calculate SLG% on my own since Mark didn't include it with the numbers he gave me.

[Atocep]

Batting Stats

Quentin: .308/.619/.308

Nolan: .286/.545/.428

Kaden: .500/.636/1.188

Joey: .167/.750/.167

Christopher: .308/.700/.462

Canaan: .583/.750/.833

Magnus: .615/.750/.846

Brendan: .462/.750/.538

Tyler: .250/.579/.333

Sean: .143/.765/.143

Brit: .111/.588/.111

Donovan: .143/.400/.143



As you can see we're actually hitting the ball pretty well. Last year Kaden led the team in extra-base hits with 6 (all doubles). Kaden leads the team in extra-base hits this year with 6 and our team has 16 total extra-base hits. I'm 100% certain we didn't have 16 total at the end of last season.

On Base Percentage gets inflated by the dropped ball 3rd strike in this league and is why having a good catcher has such a huge impact on your team.

Our hitting is going to be much more of a focus in practices starting next week. We're going to work on bunting on Monday and Wednesday in preparation for the Tigers on Thursday and my goal is to have batting practice at least once per week from now until the end of the season.

After the games this weekend we'll be at the halfway point of the season so early next week I'll give a brief update on each player's progress so far this season along with some additional comments on anything of note.

[britrock88]

Is that also your typical batting order?

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by britrock88

Is that also your typical batting order?

Typically, yes. That would be our try-hard lineup. It can shift around a bit if we're playing a weaker team to get the guys toward the bottom some extra at bats here and there. Joey is the biggest disappointment at the plate so far, but at least he's getting on base for us. Talent wise, he's our 2nd best hitter. He struck out a couple of times early in the season and I think that's made him passive at the plate. Right now my plan is to work with him before I even consider dropping him. He can lose confidence rather quickly and I worry that dropping him in the order would do more harm in the long run than good.

[Atocep]

Today wasn't a good day and baseball was only part of the reason. Kaden and I arrived at the field for our 10am game at a little after 9. I got our equipment set up and our players started trickling in at about 9:15 and by 9:30 I had everyone there warming up. At 9:45 we still hadn't seen anyone from the team we were supposed to play so I called our division director who was on a field a couple of blocks away preparing to play a game at 10am as well. It turns out none of the teams from Shelton showed and after our league president made some calls he found out that the Shelton teams had rescheduled at some point to play somewhere else and didn't tell us.

Personally, I think what happened last weekend played a role in them deciding to not show up. I talked to a coach from one of the 11-12 year old teams in our league who coached in the 9-10 year old division last year and he said that they're "funny about losing out there" and added that he's not surprised at all that they didn't show.

When the Blue Raiders and us traveled out there last weekend we beat their best non-select team in our first game and the Blue Raiders were beating the first team they played so bad the ump just called the game mid-inning during the top of the 5th. The Blue Raiders coach said he had lost track of how many runs they had scored in the 5th and there still wasn't an out so the ump just ended the game. The game was rolled back to the end of the 4th and given a final score of 18-6. That wasn't the end of things though.

Apparently the team team the Blue Raiders beat went to their division director and complained about the game and their division director called in their select team (the same team that beat the Tigers twice a couple of weeks ago) to play the Blue Raiders in place of the team that they had been scheduled to play (they were originally scheduled to play the 1st team we beat out there). According to the Blue Raiders coach the Blue Raiders were tied with them after 3 innings and when the Shelton select team sent their starting pitcher out for the 4th inning he asked the ump why he was pitching a 4th inning when there's a 3 inning limit. The ump at this point informs him that the game is being played under tournament rules so pitchers can pitche 4 innings with no pitch count. The Blue Raiders go on to lose 14-11 and their coaches were frustrated with what had happened, but they were also proud of how their kids played against what is essentially an all star team.

Back to today. What the Blue Raiders coach (our division director) decided to do at that point really didn't sound like a terrible idea at 10am, but it turned out to just be a bad experience for my kids. I was told the Tigers and Blue Raiders were just going to go ahead and play a game at the field they were at and we would go out there and play the Tigers when that game was finished. Then after we play the Tigers we'd get a short break and then play the Blue Raiders. My team was warmed up and ready to play at 9:45. We didn't end up playing our first game today until 1pm. It was the hottest day of the year so far and the sun was brutal by 1:00. We finished our game against the Tigers and then the game with the Blue Raiders didn't get started until 3:30. I finally got Kaden home at 6:30. By the end of the Tigers game my kids had little interest in being out there and we still had to play the Blue Raiders.

I should also mention that for some reason these games were played under lead-off and steal rules. By some reason I mean the Blue Raiders coach requested to play with those rules and it just so happens that they work on baserunning more than anything else. Basically, they just wanted what they saw as an advantage since there's absolutely no reason for teams from our league to play under lead-off/steal rules.

As for the games, we jumped out to a 3-1 lead after 1.5 on the Tigers despite a couple of awful calls and unfortunately there would be more to come. During the game we had a player clearly safe on a steal of home that was called out (initially called safe and then changed for a reason that was never explained to me). We had a player called out stealing 2nd that the Tigers coach in the dugout told me was a bad call. The Tigers had a player swing at a ball that hit him and he was awarded 1st base. We had a play at 3rd where the ball beat the runner, the tag was applied on the feet, and the Tiger's runner was called safe. We had a play at first where Kaden was playing short, fielded the ball in the hole, made a big throw to nail the runner by a step at 1st ruled safe. Now, I'm a competitive person and can get worked up a bit during games, but I realize the umps are doing the best they can and the calls typically even out. We got the benefit of 1 call at first this game that turned out to not be that big of a deal while the 3 of calls I mentioned above had a HUGE impact (the play at 3rd, the runner at home, and the steal of 2nd).

In the bottom of the 2nd we went out with 3-1 lead and I had Joey pitching. Joey did a great job of shutting them down in the first. In the 2nd he was off. He wasn't pitching very well while our defense misplayed a couple of balls which lead to them getting 5 runs on us. Joey comes off the mound and into the dugout in tears telling me that he spent that inning listening to the Tigers parents making fun of him while was pitching. I talked to the ump and he said that there really isn't much he can do if he doesn't hear the comments and he said that he didn't hear them. He did say he knows Joey and knows he wouldn't lie about something like that, but he was paying attention to the game and had the parents tuned out.

For the 3rd I sent Joey back out there and Iwent and stood on the Tigers side of the field for that inning. He pitched ok, but was clearly bothered by the previous inning. By then my desire to be out there was dwindling quickly. I was pissed at the Tigers parents, I was pissed at the ump, it was hot, I had at least 1 kid that wasn't enjoying his time out there very much, and we still had another game after this one.

For the 4th the Tigers sent their best pitcher out to the mound and I decided that instead of letting them see Kaden or Quentin for the first time this year in a game that meant nothing I'd send Christopher to the mound to pitch because I wanted to get another look at him. He did ok. Our defense killed us while he was out there and their best pitcher is the best pitcher in our league. We scored a couple of runs off him, but didn't threaten too much. Final Score was 13-6. Mental mistakes, the 5 run 2nd that was largely due to parents heckling a 9 year old, and bad calls killed us. The runner stealing 2nd and the out at home I mentioned above were both in the 1st inning and put an end to what could have been a big inning. The play at 3rd that should have been and out would have been the 3rd out of the 2nd and instead of scoring 5 the Tigers would have scored 1. As I said, those 3 plays had a big impact on the game.

The Blue Raiders game really wasn't much of a game. My players didn't want to be out there and I really can't blame them all that much. I had to pull Magnus from short because he didn't move at all on 2 plays where he was supposed to cover 2nd. I had Chris fail to cover first on a grounder back to the pitcher. I had Quentin pitching like it was batting practice instead of throwing the ball like he's capable of. It was painful and frustrating to watch.

The Blue Raiders had a 9 run lead entering the bottom of the 4th and I sent Kaden out to pitch. Kaden was one of the few we had playing hard (Brendan, Tyler, and Sean were the others) and he pitched mad. He despises losing and it's funny to see him get locked in and pissed off in situations like this. He struck out the 1st 2 batters. Then the 3rd batter he faced reached 1st on a weak grounder that he beat out. On the next 2 pitches that runner stole 2nd, 3rd, and scored on a bad throw back to the pitcher by our 3rd baseman. That run ended the game. I'm honestly not sure what the score was but it was 10 runs and I was just ready to get out of there.

As for the Joey situation I talked to Joey's mom and I talked to our division director about it. I encouraged Joey's mom to email the league president and she said she would. Our division director agreed that it's something she should do because the Tiger's parents are known to be brutal to opposing kids and the league needs to be made aware that it's an issue. I plan on calling the league president Monday to make sure he did get an email and is aware of what happened.

It was a very long day. We have practice Monday and Wednesday before we play the Tigers under normal rules and hopefully without the bad calls. I'm looking forward to the game and hope I can get my kids focused again by Thursday.

[BYU 14]

Geez, that is about as wrong as everything can go. I am just amazed at the way things are run and that Shelton can essentially changes games, institute rules as they go and then just completely blow off games.

Isn't there an overall governing body that can address stuff like that or is it just up to the individual league? I would never schedule a game against Shelton again.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I'm with BYU on the Shelton thing. There's simply nothing that I see that makes it worthwhile, much less imperative that you play them. In short: F them and the horse they rode in on.

I have to think Monday is one of those cleansing days, where you briefly address the miserable weekend & get back in synch. Just a bad situation all around.

[Atocep]

I can't stand playing at Shelton so it wouldn't bother me a bit if the league decided to look at other places for games next season. The combination of the people out there, the rules, and the fields just doesn't make for a good experience. When you have lead-offs and stealing on a high school field that's been forced to 10u dimensions what is played out there doesn't even look like baseball. It's closer to kids running around the bases non-stop like it's tee ball.

I believe part of the problem this year is the league didn't hear back from the Tacoma select league for games and when we played out at Ording last year the teams there weren't competitive at all. We were able to keep our 2 games in Ording last year close which meant that everyone else had easy 10+ run wins. I guess the league decided to keep Shelton on the schedule, replace Tacoma with Olympia, and replace Ording with Vashon Island. However, Olympia teams weren't competitive with the top 3 in our league this year and the Rockets actually won 2 games against Vashon teams. They're the only team that's seen the Vashon teams so far though. We play 2 games out there next weekend against teams we know nothing about followed by 2 games against the teams that lost to the Rockets the first weekend in June. If the Rockets can win against 2 of the 4 teams they have out there it makes me wonder what kind of talent and organization they have.

The league needs to do a better job of getting local kids to play so it can have more than 5-6 teams in a division each year. I was told there would be a big effort to advertise better as soon as this season ends in hopes of attracting more players and thus relying less on teams from outside of Lakewood to fill schedules.

[Atocep]

I emailed our league president over the incident with the Tigers parents this weekend and I got an email back fairly quickly stating that the league will be investigating the issue and that it's absolutely unacceptable behavior. Our president promised to get back with me on this in a couple of days.


I'll take some time now to go over each player's progress thus far. We're at the midway point of the season and after the Shelton teams failed to show up we're officially sitting at 8-1-1. We've shown we're capable of beating anyone, but our margin for error is smaller than teams like the Blue Raiders and the Tigers simply because, for the most part, their players have been in the same system for 3 years.


Kaden - Living up to his potential. Mark, who is conservative with his comments about our players, even mentioned that he's the best catcher we've seen this year and one of the best players. His hitting is where I expected, his pitching has probably been the best on our team, and his play behind the plate and at short have been outstanding. I strongly felt he should be among the top 2-3 players in the league this year and he has a strong argument to be the best.

Chris - His overall play at 1st base has been solid, but he's had his ups and downs as of late. At the plate I love his swing (although there is some swing a miss there) and he has a patient, but not passive approach. On the mound he gives us an extra arm that isn't going to kill us. He's been everything we hoped for when I found out we got him.

Sean - The initial plan was for Sean to split some time between 2nd base and outfield. After Jacob moved that pushed Sean into a role as our primary 2nd baseman and he's done his job. He doesn't have a lot of range, but he understands where he needs to be and he doesn't make many errors. At the plate his batting average isn't exactly great, but he has a excellent understanding of the strikezone and doesn't chase bad pitches. If I had to pick a kid on our team to teach someone else how to field the ball correctly Sean would be the kid I'd pick.

Quentin - He struggled in the lead-off spot last year and was bumped out of it by our coaches. This year I put him the lead-off spot and I'm keeping him there. His speed and baserunning are too good to not have at the top of the order. His pitching is typically as good as you'll see at this age. The only problem with Quentin is he loses focus and when he's not focused he looks like a different player. He's played short as long as he's been playing baseball, but this is the first year he's actually learned how to play the position. He's learned when to cut off, how to cut off, how to receive the ball at 2nd, and I've eliminated some bad habits fielding the ball. As a catcher he's as solid as you could expect from a backup. Overall, he's a really good player that could be a great player if he'd focus a bit more.

Nolan - Nolan is one of our most improved players and has taken over as our primary 3rd baseman. Last year he didn't step when swung, couldn't catch all that well, and couldn't throw. This year he's become a solid fielder, catches everything, makes the throw he's supposed to make, and has become a well rounded hitter. He's stepping into his swing and when he makes contact he's shown he's capable of driving the ball. His patience at the plate also makes him a very good #2 hitter in our lineup.

Canaan - He's primarily played LF and CF, but he's also seen some time at 3rd. At the plate he's developed into a consistent hitter. He has a knack for putting the bat on the ball and hitting line drives to right field. His arm, both in the field and on the mound, is still a work in progress. Canaan's development has probably been hurt more by the loss of Nick than anyone else's. I'm currently working on trying to get rid of a lot of wasted motion in his throws and get him looking at his target throughout the pitch/throw hoping that combination will make him more consistent when throwing the ball. His biggest problem is he's constantly thinking about failure rather than just playing baseball. I've already had many talks with him about relaxing and just playing the game and I'll continue working with him until he gets it.

Joey - Has been a revelation on the mound. In the field he's usually reliable, but can forget to cover a base/back up a play. At the plate he should be our 2nd best hitter. Unfortunately, he's like Kaden was at the plate early last year. He's letting frustrations from one at-bat carry over to the next and it's put him in a big slump. His pitching, however, has been a big part of our success and his overall effort level is much better than it's been in the past. I even got him to catch 2 innings and it wasn't a disaster.

Magnus - Could be our best pitcher, but slows his arm down sometimes and it looks like he's trying to throw a dart instead of a baseball. At the plate he's also inconsistent with his mechanics. He has a tendency to lean toward the pitcher instead of step toward the pitcher. He's still vastly improved over last season and has learned to be a shortstop on top of his solid play at first and in the outfield. He's only 9 and if he decides to play next year in this league he could be one of the best players, if not the best player.

Tyler - He's improving in all areas. He has a nice, quick bat and has made contact much more consistently than he did last year. His throwing has improved and his fielding has developed to the point of being adequate. He still struggles with baserunning. He just doesn't know when to be aggressive so he plays overly cautious on the bases at all times. He's primarily played right field (with some brief time at 2nd) and now understands that he has to backup 1st base and doesn't really let the ball get past him. Huge improvements from last season.

Brendan - He started the year really rough around the edges, but has a great attitude, and is coming along nicely. He's a kid that really wants to do things the way he was coached. His bat has played better than I expected it to when I first saw him play this spring and his throwing is improving. I actually think he'll pitch for whatever team he's playing for next year and I plan on getting him a little more time on the mound when the opportunity comes along this season. He's seen time at all 3 OF positions and 2nd base. He's become the backup to Sean at 2nd and is getting better at understanding where he needs to be in the infield.

Brit - A great kid. His attendance has been great after some early issues. He's played all 3 OF positions along with 3rd base so far. At the plate he's very passive. I plan on working with him on bunting because the combination of his speed and being left handed would be impossible to deal with. In the field he's been reliable in the outfield and has our only catch of a true flyball hit to the OF. Any problems he has really come from the fact that he's played one year of coach pitch and that's it. He's constantly telling me that's been working on his pitch and I told him I'd get him his shot on the mound at some point.

Donovan - He was put in bad situation because of the Barristers issue. He's playing his first year of organized baseball and missed all but 1 practice before the season started. I think he's coming along. Donovan has been very passive since he joined us, but against the Rockets I saw him start to get into the game when he came off the field after striking out. He was mad that he missed a pitch he felt he should have hit. That was the most emotion I'd seen from him. I've seen improvements in his throwing, his catching, and his confidence on the field. Another great kid that I'm just trying to get relaxed out there and playing without thinking or worrying about what's going to happen.

[Atocep]

It turns out the game between the Blue Raiders and the Tigers from last Thursday is under protest and, in typical Lakewood Baseball Club fashion, it's under strange circumstances.

I don't know remember the exact description given to me of the play in question, but when the 6th inning ended the Blue Raiders thought the score was tied 3-3 and the scorekeeper for the Tigers had the game a 4-3 win for the Tigers. It turns out the discrepancy was over a run that crossed the plate in the 5th. The Tigers were at bat with one out and two runners on. The ball was hit and I believe there was some confusion among the kids on both teams as to whether the ball was fair or foul. The Blue Raiders got an out at 3rd while a runner crossed the plate and the batter was just starting to leave the batter's box. The Blue Raiders got that player out at first as well to end the inning. The problem comes from the fact that the ump not only counted the run, but didn't make it clear to both teams that the run counted. The Tigers scorekeeper asked if the run counted and was told yes, the Blue Raiders assumed (correctly) the run didn't count since the batter was never safe at first base.

The coach for the Blue Raiders filed his protest to the league Friday morning and the Tigers coach has countered by accusing the Blue Raiders coach of being on the field for that play which distracted the kids. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a coach crossing onto the field of play be a judgement call by the ump and have no bearing on the protest?

Just another week in the Lakewood Baseball Club.

[Atocep]

Last night we had our game with the Tigers. We knew it was going to be a tough game for us and it definitely was.

We started off with Quentin catching the Tigers napping on the first pitch of the game and bunting for an easy single (something we worked on this week). Then after Nolan walked Kaden ripped a triple down the 3rd base line that scored 2 runs. Kaden scored on a single by Canaan. Canaan reached 3rd with 2 outs, but is stranded there.

I decided to start Kaden out on the mound. Quentin said he'd rather not start and our defense is weakest when Kaden is on the mound so the thinking was to get Kaden out there for 2 innings and then get our best defense out there for the last 4. Although our defense is much weaker with Kaden on the mound he's usually good enough to not give the defense much work. Unfortunately, last night he just didn't have it. He walked the first couple of batters, and then the Tigers were good enough to barely get the bat on the ball and make it difficult on our defense to make plays. Over the first 2 innings they had 3 slow ground balls to 3rd that we missed getting an out at 1st on by a step. We had a ball popped up about 6 feet in the air that stopped dead when it landed about 2 inches into fair territory because there was about an inch of loose dirt where it landed. To top things off we just made error after error the first 2 innings. The Tigers ended up scoring 4 in the first and 5 in the 2nd. To take a 9-3 lead after 2.

For the 3rd I sent Joey out to the mound. If you recall from my earlier posts, the parents that had Joey in tears on Saturday were from this team. I had a talk with him before I sent him out and another brief talk with him during his warm-ups and I was very confident I had a locked in a pissed off Joey out there. Then the Tigers first batter absolutely crushes a triple and scores after the next batter hits a weak grounder (of course) and reaches 1st. Joey then settles down and strikes out the next 3.

In the 4th we score a run quickly and have a little bit of a rally going, but for some reason we stop swinging our bats and decide to watch pitches go by. At the end of 4 the score was 10-4. Neither team really threatened to do anything from that point on. The Tigers sent out their best pitcher for the 5th and 6th and we got in the habit of watching him throw strike 3 by us. Final score was 10-4 dropping us to 8-2-1 with both loses to the Tigers.


We played terrible in the field the first 2 innings and then settled down, but those 2 innings killed us. We really need Kaden behind the plate and Quentin at short to be at our best defensively. Kaden is a really good pitcher, but I may have to look to Magnus to get us 1 or 2 innings the next time we play the Tigers or Blue Raiders and use Kaden to shut down some of the weaker teams we play.

We have our trip out to Vashon Saturday and follow that up with the Rockets on Thursday before heading into the holiday weekend.

[Atocep]

Highlights

*Joey was lights out on the mound. He was locked in and it was impressive considering the circumstances.

*Our defense once Kaden moved back to catcher was outstanding.

*Quentin was solid the the inning he pitched.

*We hit the ball pretty well as a team. We hit the ball better than the Tigers, but the difference was we gave the Tigers too many free runs.


In other news, the league ruled in favor of the Blue Raiders in their protest of the Tigers game. There will be no continuation of play. The game will go down officially as a 3-3 tie.

[Atocep]

We're making an honest effort to put together an All-Star team, but I don't know if it's going to happen. The politics and parents involved in this makes it something none of the coaches really want to deal with. The Lions have said they plan on entering some tournaments after the season so they're not sending anyone to All Star tryouts. That leaves us, the Blue Raiders, the Tigers, and the Rockets.

I've encouraged several of my players to at least try out. So far Kaden, Canaan, Nolan, Joey, and Magnus have shown interest in tryouts. Quentin's focus shifts to soccer when the season ends so he's out. Overall interest around the league has been lukewarm, but I told the Blue Raiders coach (I'm helping him with this) that at the very least we could hold the tryouts to see how many show up and then if we just don't have talent or the numbers to pull it off we could use what we see to consider kids for a tournament travel team. That seems to be the plan thus far.

[Atocep]

We had our trip out to Vashon today. It was definitely an adventure and our kids really enjoyed the trip. Especially taking the ferry across to the island.

I got out to the field at about 1pm for a 2pm start. I was greeted by the head of umpires at Vashon who wanted to explain to me that they use the older kids from their leagues to umpire the young kids. So I'm expecting a 14-15 year old kid to ump and I have to say I was surprised when a 12 year old showed up in full umpire gear. Of course, my kids immediately start asking how old the ump is (they could only see him from a distance at this point) so I told them he was 42 and that the sea air probably keeps you looking young or something. They spent from then until the top of the first was over in awe over the ump being 42 before they caught on.

I will say both umpires (we had a different 12 year old for the 2nd game) did an excellent job. Far better than I could have possibly imagined umpiring at that age and probably better than I could do now.

The head of umpires did tell me that the first team we were playing was the weaker of the two we'd play. The 2nd team was supposed to be pretty good, but hadn't played well of late. This was a big help in determing who our pitchers would be. I was also told that the teams out there typically play with 10 fielders. The other team's coach told me that they're coming out to Lakewood in 2 weeks and are fine with using 9 if we want to. I really didn't want to use a 4th outfielder so we agreed we'd play 9.

I decided to go with Magnus to start game 1. I want to get him settled down and get him stop aiming the ball. He could easily be on the same level as Joey, Kaden, and Quentin if he'd just throw instead of aim.

Quentin, once again, led things off with a bunt single (he's really starting to like bunting). Nolan struck out, but then we had hits from Kaden, Joey, Christopher, Canaan, and Magnus to get us 5 runs in a hurry.

Magnus started out in typical Magnus fashion on the mound. He found himself with the bases loaded and 1 out before he worked his way out of it without giving up a run. In the 2nd we really didn't do much. We scored 1 run off a walk and some stolen bases, but mostly just watched strikes. In the bottom of the 2nd I saw a new Magnus. He was pitching. He struck out the side on 11 pitches and really impressed. The 3rd was the same story for us. We watched pitches and even though we had the top of our lineup out there we only scored 1 run. This inning we weren't swinging the bat and we left some runs out of the bases. The bottom of the 3rd was more of Magnus pitching beautifully. 3 up 3 down all strikeouts. The score after 3 was 7-0 and our lead should have been much, much bigger.

In the 4th we got our bats going again and scored 5 runs rather quickly. For the bottom of the 4th I sent Christopher out to pitch to get him some more work. He pitched about as well as you could hope your 5th pitcher could pitch. He gave up 1 run and it could have been a little worse, but he got through.

So now we're up 12-1 and I had to go ask about a mercy rule, which made feel like an asshole. However, I needed to know how many innings we were going to go so that I could plan my pitching out. I was told that there is a mercy rule, but other team asked that it not be used just so their kids could play. I agreed. Like I said, my concern was just knowing which order my pitchers would be pitching in.

For the last 2 innings I sent Kaden out to pitch. He'd still have an inning for the 2nd game if needed. He didn't have his A-game out there, but he was good enough. He put some runners on here and there, but they couldn't touch him when it was over the plate and he got through both innings easily. We purposely took our base stealing down a notch for the last 2 innings and scored 5 runs between the two. Final Score 17-1.



For the 2nd game I wanted to know if the other team planned on using 9 or 10 in the field so I made my way over to where they were warming up while talking to the coach for the team we had just beat. He was in awe of our pitching because he had assumed we had used our best pitchers against him. I told him I still had a couple saved for the next game. When the 2nd team's coach told me they'd be using 10 in the field the coach of the team we had just beat said to him "you should consider using 12" I couldn't help but laugh thinking about how far this team had come.

I was told the 10 run mercy rule would be in effect for the 2nd game. The other team made a point of mentioning it so I think they assumed we were out of pitchers and were optimistic about their chances.

Now this game was our best hitting game of the year by a longshot. The team we played wasn't bad at all. They were well coached, organized, and at worst an average team. We were just better and we really hit the ball. Quentin led off the game with an easy inside the park homer on a ball hit to the fence (they actually had a little league fence out there). Nolan struck out. Then we had a double from Kaden, a triple from Joey, a single from Chris, a double from Canaan, and a single from Magnus to get us 5 runs. Joey was on in the first inning and had an easy 3 up 3 down inning.

In the 2nd we just continued hitting and scoring runs. We put 5 more runs on the board although we did make 2 outs this time. In the 2nd Joey was a little off and gave up a couple of runs to make the score 10-2. From there we just kept going. We entered the bottom of the 4th with a 17-2 lead which meant the game was over. They had a 5 run cap for the 4th and even if they scored their 5 the mercy rule would be in effect. I sent Quentin out for the bottom of the 4th because he hadn't pitched yet, I had told him he'd pitch that game, and he would have been disappointed if he hadn't. I would have rather put Brit or Brendan out there to have some fun for an inning because they're both always asking me about pitching, but I decided to stick to my word. Quentin gave up 2 runs mostly because he decided to take this opportunity to work on changing speeds a little and it wasn't really working. He got through the inning, but it definitely wasn't pretty.

After this game the father of the other team's coach started talking to me and he told me that softball is the big sport on the island and the people on Vashon always complain that the Seattle teams will never come there to play because they know they're just taking the ferry over to lose. Then he said "I don't think I'd send our teams to Lakewood to play you guys". He went on to tell me that the league out there isn't built for competitive play like Lakewood is. They redraft every year at all levels and he said the drama there is everyone is always accusing everyone else of trying to find a way to stack their team. I told him Lakewood is a sink or swim league. You're in charge of getting your own team together, you get very little to no help from the league, you're actually encouraged to stack your team, and if your team is weak you're going to lose a lot of games.

It was a good conversation with him though. Everyone out there was fantastic to deal with and it was fun for our kids. One thing that stuck out for me after the 2nd game was the team we just played had just lost 17-4 and their kids were having a blast joking around with our players a bit and acting like you'd expect 10u kids to act on a day they played baseball. That's something you do not see in Lakewood.

[Atocep]

Chrisopher was injured in the 3rd inning of game 2. There was a dropped ball 3rd strike and Kaden had to throw from the backstop (another 20 foot backstop like they had at Shelton) to first and throw made Chris stretch out a bit. As he stretched he fell forward and the ball bounced off the ground then caught him just above the eye. He was bleeding pretty badly and was shaken up. We got him off the field and settled down and his mom decided to take him to the emergency room to have the doctors see if it needed stitches and to make sure the slight headache he was complaining about wasn't anything serious.

I emailed asking for an update to make sure everything is ok with him and haven't heard back yet. My email didn't go out until after 10 so I don't expect to hear anything until tomorrow anyway.

Something of note for us as a team is the wins out there today gave us a 10-2-1 record and clinched a winning season for us. That is an accomplishment that anyone with knowledge of our team would have said was impossible before this season started. These kids have gone from a joke to the team other coaches and parents want to come over and talk to us about when we go someplace.

We also finished the year 6-0 in games where we traveled. Our last games against teams outside of Lakewood are home games against 2 Vashon teams on the 2nd of June.


Highlights

There really are too many to name today. We played really well both games. We had moments where we didn't want to swing the bat and had a couple of bad decisions in the field, but overall I couldn't have asked for any more from these kids.

The 2nd team we played had already played the Tigers a couple of weeks ago and said we're definitely better than they are. I just have to get my kids to understand that and get them to stop being intimidated at the start of their games against the Tigers and Blue Raiders.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Quentin, once again, led things off with a bunt single (he's really starting to like bunting).

I love this, brings back some fond memories of my own childhood ... and I was one of the slowest guys on any team but still made a pretty good living off of bunt singles.

One thing that stuck out for me after the 2nd game was the team we just played had just lost 17-4 and their kids were having a blast joking around with our players a bit and acting like you'd expect 10u kids to act on a day they played baseball.

I didn't love this at all, but felt better after re-reading it. Somewhat oddly perhaps but I'm not overly bothered by their kids cutting up & having fun with your kids after the drubbing. I would have been considerably bothered by them doing so strictly amongst themselves after a loss like that. Never really pondered that distinction before, not sure I would have predicted making such a distinction if I'd been asked.

[Young Drachma]

I didn't love this at all, but felt better after re-reading it. Somewhat oddly perhaps but I'm not overly bothered by their kids cutting up & having fun with your kids after the drubbing. I would have been considerably bothered by them doing so strictly amongst themselves after a loss like that. Never really pondered that distinction before, not sure I would have predicted making such a distinction if I'd been asked.

I tend to agree with your analysis. I think the key is really 1) the age of the kids and 2) the context. I doubt I'd have been as lenient on older kids in any competitive setting at least immediately after because you'd expect them to at least think more seriously about how the game went. And so many variables involved. But for kids at that age, you just want them to love the game and enjoy playing and having fun and if they're loose in a 2nd game after they just got beat rather than defeated and "this sucks, I don't want to do this anymore," it'd be more concerning.

Not sure it'd be anything I'd have a different opinion for either unless it was a context like this.