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04-30-2006, 04:48 PM
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#51 | ||
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Before the Game
So I go over to Steve’s house and we agree that AK should be our first pitcher. We had no sooner agreed to this then Steve’s phone rings and he looks at the caller ID and goes “uh-oh”. Long story short, AK is going to be about a half hour late to the game. We can deal with this and so he gets the nod for the sixth. We end up deciding to start TG, but also decide we want to see a lot of different pitchers and so we only pitch each of our pitchers for an inning. The pitchers we want to see are: TG, ES, AK, and PW PW, if you recall, had a disastrous outing. However, he’s been throwing very well in “bullpen” sessions so I want to see how he does in a game. We put in JS in for the 5th figuring he had a bad outing the last time and would still be able to come in for relief if PW can’t get the ball over. We don’t expect to get past the 5th, with the exception of our first game we haven’t gotten past the 5th and it’s cold, with a chance to rain, further decreasing the chance we’d get past the 4th, let alone 5th. Not to mention we expect the other team to be scoring runs. With all that in mind, we decide to go ahead and schedule BS1 to pitch, since he’s looked pretty good, and have BS2 catch him. We need to start developing BS2 and so we figure this would be a good way to say that he’s going to get some chances without actually having to worry about him catching. It also gives Steve an excuse to work with him before the game. Steve and I decide to start keeping track of who is showing up the requested 20 minutes before the game. We’ll then have them do something not too onerous, but enough to get our message across such as run laps. Today, BS2 is the surprise first arrival, with ES & FO there shortly after. With JM and AK excused it still leaves an awful lot of late people, though all are there 10 minutes before the game, except AK, as expected. I work with BS1 and PW before the game and they both look ok but not great. We’ll see how it goes. Steve does his work with BS2 and he looks, not so great. The Game We’re the home team. TG comes up and takes care of business on 9 pitches with 1 strikeout. Meanwhile, the bottom of our lineup doesn’t get anything going, except for KS getting a single and a couple of steals. ES, as usual has a rough time of it. JM, who was sitting out, even comments that he throws good pitches so it’s kind of surprising that they hit him as much as they do. I think we need to work on his pitching rather then throwing. He’s pretty good about getting ahead in the count, which makes it all the more frustrating. He allows 2 runs and we get out of the inning without more damage after we double up a player on a popup. Now it happens to be against the heart of their order, so it’s not the worse thing, but still isn’t great. In the bottom half of the inning, things don’t look so good when TG and ES both fly out on well hit balls. But then BS2 gets on base and steals 2nd. JM rips a ball, which was over his head, into left for a run scoring single. After stealing second, he then scores when PW hits a triple. BS1 follows it up with a double to score PW and we end up with 3 runs, all produced after we had 2 outs, after FO grounds out to end the inning. It was pretty nice. And the great thing is that pretty much everything was legitimate. It wasn’t like PW got lucky with the triple, he really deserved it. Score is 3-2 good guys and we are definitely in a game we didn’t think we would be. AK then pitches the top of the 3rd. He walks the first batter and gets the next one to line out. The 3rd batter rips a ball into center that gets by the outstretched hand of JF. TG runs over from right and relays it to JF who then tries, against what Steve and I were saying, to throw the runner out at 3rd. She naturally overthrows and the run scores. However, the runner never gets a chance to score as we retire the side while holding him at 3rd. In the bottom of the 3rd, EG, of all people, gets a nice one out single and then scores, when KS, of all people, hits a double. KS steals 3rd and then scores when JF hits one back to the mound. JS walks, steals second and then tries to steal third but comes up short of the bag on his slide and gets tagged out. Ending the inning. At this point we’re moving fairly quickly in his game and it’s starting to drizzle. It’s a little early for the predicted rain, which considering the fact that we’re ahead is a shame. Anyhow PW, the first of our real tests, is up on the mound. After I threw with him I had him throw to JM and both insist that PW has a nasty slider. However, when he tries to show me it keeps rising instead, so I tell him to stick with fastballs. Worse yet he starts off facing the heart of their order. Sure enough their slugger hits a solid single. On the next play we get him out on a fielders choice. Overall he looks good and while that runner on the fielder’s choice ends up scoring after a single and a putout at first, he only lets up the 1 run. I was pretty sure that the first appearance was a fluke and this seems to bear that out. Going into the bottom of the 4th it’s 5-5 As we start off the inning, TG confides in me that he hates leading off. I think this fits in my overall picture of TG as someone who puts a lot of pressure on himself (as does dad) and one of the times he feels this pressure is leading off. Obviously there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, but it’s an important thing to realize for the playoffs when we do have flexibility over the batting order. Anyhow, TG gets an infield single. He then steals second on the first pitch. Before the inning, I had told ES that if TG got out that I wanted to see him bunt. He told me that he doesn’t really feel comfortable bunting as he doesn’t practice. I told him I understood that, but to consider it in-game practice and also assured him we’d be working on it as a team. When the count becomes 1-0 after the passed ball with TG advancing, I tell him to do what we had talked about. He squares around a couple times but can’t get contact. The second time was a ball. After the inning I tell him one of the reasons I want him to practice bunting is he knows where the strike zone is and so he shouldn’t be bunting at balls. Anyhow he gets behind 1-2 and ends up striking out. TG does manage to steal third during BS2’s at bat when he walks. This gives us runners at first and third. I tell BS2 on the first pitch he should steal. For whatever reason their catch throws down to the base. The ball goes into center and TG scores without a problem. On the very next pitch BS2 steals third. JM then hits ANOTHER ball that was way to high and bloops it for a single, though BS2 had to hold up as it was on the third base side. I tell JM to steal on the first pitch, as we have the 1st and 3rd situation again, but on the first pitch PW hits a single advancing JM to third. I tell PW he should then steal. And he does and gets a good jump. Yet AGAIN the catcher throws, though his throw is on time this time and in a close play PW is called out. However, BS2 does score giving us a run for an out. Later in the game their coach confides in me that he can’t believe his catcher threw down the second time and let us have another run. BS1 grounds out to second to end the inning, but putting us up 8-5. Now we’re in the 5th. There is still 25 minutes left before the mandatory stop time of an hour and a half. I hope for a LONG inning as I do not want to have to throw BS1. JS is once again having clear control problems. He walks the first batter. The second one grounds out to short, he then walks the third batter. Both score on a double, where we once AGAIN overthrow 3rd. Their slugger gets another great hit and drives in the guy who was on second scores on a close play at the plate. The guy however overruns 3rd and ES makes a dead on throw to AK who applies the tag and we get the out. Now was the guy really out? I don’t think so, neither does Steve, or the other coach. But as the other coach said even if he wasn’t out it was the right call to make as kids shouldn’t be overrunning third. Despite the 3 runs that scored when we get that out it was a clear momentum shift and JS strikes out the next batter. Overall, JS did not have great stuff, but neither did he fall apart on the mound. He kept his cool and got us threw the inning. It’s now tied. Out bottom of the order acts like the bottom of the order as they bring in their ace pitcher, and we strike out 1-2-3. As we were are coming in from the field I say to Steve that BS2 shouldn’t catch in the inning and we should use JM instead. He agrees. Steve goes over and explains to BS2 that since we’re in a close game and JM has “more experience” (which I thought was an excellent way of phrasing it) that we were going to have him catch. BS2 takes this well. All of this is karma for our pitching a pitcher who we didn’t want to pitch. Anyhow BS1 gets up and walks the first batter. On four pitches. Steve turns to me and says “I want to keep him on a short leash.” I ask him “Who can we sub for him?” The answer is nobody. Our choices at his point would be KS or JF, neither of which is appealing and BS1 almost for sure has better stuff then both of them. He starts to pitch better but does allow a run to score. We end out getting a man out at third on a caught steal and BS1 had a nice inning. Overall, BS1 got better the more he threw which was great and just what we needed. As we head out into the field I hope that their ace will not be on the mound again. He is. However, we have the top of our order up. JS gets permission to bunt. He then lays down a great bunt… if he was trying to sacrifice. Unfortunately, bunting right back at a travel team pitcher with no one on base does us no good. Still, I’m glad we tried it. TG, with no doubt a good deal of self imposed pressure, strikes out. This gives us 2 outs. ES gets a nice single. I give him the green light to take off and he does on the second pitch. Alas, BS2 reverts to form and strikes out ending the game with a 9-8 loss. Post Game Analysis and Looking Forward Well the good news is that we didn’t allow any big innings. The most they scored in an inning was 3 which is good. Our fielding was terrific. We were hitting the ball hard and having multiple people score. PW and BS1 both had good outings, JS, not as much. During the post game speech Steve said if they think about where they were at during the first game and where we’re at now it’s a huge improvement. BS1, little wise guy that he is, says “So you’re saying we used to be crap?” which draws a large chuckle from the parents. I mean that is what Steve is saying, but still. If you all could see the progress they’d made you would agree that we’re improving far more then most teams. It’s a shame we don’t get the victory here, but unlike last game where I think there were some decisions which could have given us the runs we lost by, in this game we were right in it, and got shut down by their ace pitcher when we threw 6 pitchers. The good thing is that it has given us enough confidence that we’re going to try and not pitch TG next game, or to save him for a relief situation. If we can keep getting good outings from six kids we’ll be in great shape come the playoffs. It’s frustrating that we haven’t had practice in so long, especially as they are forecasting rain again for Wednesday, but we’re looking good, especially as we play a team that I was not impressed with when we scouted. So once again the future is looking great even if the individual result was not as much. We had the kids, after our short speech, do the “name something good you saw” and they all have no problems naming 11 different things. We awarded PW the ball for a great day at bat, a nice inning on the mound, and a heads-up play as a RF when he backed up TG on a play that TG blew at 1st. So I pretty hopeful that when I write the next game recap on Tuesday or Wednesday I am talking about a win. |
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04-30-2006, 04:49 PM
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#52 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Oh and a quick follow up: After all that scouting, the kid who I talked to didn't even show. What a disappointment.
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04-30-2006, 06:15 PM
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#53 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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That's what I like to call a hard-fought valiant loss, the kind where even though you lost, you played a hell of a lot better than you thought you were capable of and against superior opposition. (and yes I hate the phrase moral victory). Those kinds of losses can be huge confidence boosters.
Like my senior year in high school I was on the tennis team playing doubles. My partner was a freshman and we were up against this insanely good duo relative to us. We were down 5-0 (we only played one set) and fought back to tie it up at 5 games a piece before we just ran out of energy. I'll never forget that game, the excitement of our comeback, the large crowd outside the fence.... those are the kinds of games you always remember as a player.
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2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) |
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05-03-2006, 11:00 AM
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#54 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Well. What a day. Steve and I start off the day emailing each other our confidence against the A's. At around 9:45 I get a call saying that JF will not be there due to 103 degree fever. This adds to the fact that the previous night I learned that BS2 had a doctor's appointment for a battery of exams that was set months in advance and thus would be missing the game. Both understandable.
Then at about 4 I get a call from KStelling me he TOO has a 103 degree fever. Just as I am about to finish my conversation with Kellen, I AK on call waiting. I hang up with KS to talk to AK. He then tells me he won't be at the game. When I ask him why it is because he got in trouble again. I ask to speak to his mom. I then explain if AK isn't there we'd have 8 players due to illness. She tells me she's going to call me back. 35 minutes later she calls me back and tells me that she will punish him some other way and he'll be at the game. But he's going to be a half hour late. Ok. Fine. We can play with 8 players for a half hour. I get to the field about 5:25, as I had been working at the youth center right next door to the fields and that was the earliest I could get away. When I get there all that is there is JM. ES and TG arrive shortly thereafter. In the end 5:40 rolls around and we have all our expected players except FO. Only the thing it is 5 minutes before the game is to start we also don't have any equipment, the box is locked, nor do we have an ump. We call the team over anyway for our pregame talk. Steve later tells me that he could tell from the way they came over that he knew it was going to be a bad day. We simply didn't have energy. I think the best possible explanation is that we were missing so many people that they felt defeated. Anyhow, we still have no equipment, though we now have an ump. I then start to make phone calls. I make so many phone calls BS1, later asks me if I work for the Park District too (I work for the Youth Center and Library) but no I don't. I literally call 4 different people, none of whom answer, and leave messages for all. During this time the other coaches came over and, after discovering that I was not the field supervisor, but instead a coach, (you'd have thought the bright Marlins uniform was a give away there) tells me that they also are locked out. One of the dads on the other team has the idea of going to the THIRD field to see if by some chance that equipment box is open. It is. As he's going off I get ahold of one of the park district people and he tells me he's sending someone over as soon as he can. I thank him. The dad comes back with a bag, having dropped the other bag off at the other field. So we'll have to share, but it's better then not having anything. Now at this point it's 6:00 and we still have no FO or AK. While all the hubub was going on about equipment, JM's little brother, NM, and JM's father had offered to have NM play. NN plays 4th grade travel. I thank him and tell him I want to sort out the equipment first, still thinking FO was going to show. Anyhow when it looks like FO isn't going to show I ask the other team if we can "call up" this player as we only have 7 and are expecting 1 late. He agrees, as is reasonable. He also agrees to let us have an outfielder if we need one. I thank him and tell him I hope we won't need to do that. NM goes home to change. So we go to bat in the first inning and score 2 runs. I'm thinking that perhaps things will be OK. We send ES up to the mound as our starter. And they hit him. The good news is that they hit one to the borrowed outfielder and he catches the ball. He lobs it back in, letting a run score, but Steve and I agree A. We're thankful he cought the ball, as many of our kids would've dropped it B. It's better then having no one there. A batter later AK arrives and he gets sent out to the outfield. ES and I had talked about pitching rather then throwing before the game, but I think he tried to do too much and didn't look as sharp. I am doing this writeup without the scorebook next to me, so I don't have all the details, but he ends up letting up 3 runs. And basically the game goes downhill from there. They keep scoring and we don't. We don't get any energy until the 4th inning when TG makes a good play at short. We are down 5 going into the 5th and approaching the time limit. We try and rally, but can't get a run and the game is over. Quick comments on each of our players: PW -- Did not pitch well in the 4th. I went out to talk to him after his 3rd walk. There were runners on 1st and 3rd. I basically told him to forget the runners and just focus on the batter. And he did. His pitching improved then and he got 2 outs in only 3 batters which was fine. More work will be needed here, but he COULD be our 2nd or 3rd best pitcher if he can put it all together. JM - Got the game ball for going 2 for 3. Though the out was on a ball that was way too high and he hit, which is becoming a pattern. He got very frustrated with himself after that one. This is not the first time he's gotten frustrated, though Steve and I are getting better at being able to get him to calm down when he does. BS1 - Caught the only flyball on the team. The big nes is that he tried to coach AK when AK was pitching. That didn't work too well. Steve and I will be talking to him today about not coaching the pitchers. Or other players for that matter as there has been some of that. AK -- We pitched him two innings. First inning went well. He struggled during the start of the second inning. After he walked his second batter I went out to talk to him as I thought we could still win it at that point. He explained that he was getting mixed messages from his players. I told him to ignore his players and listen to me: throw strikes. He did and got the last 2 outs with only about 5 pitches. Now the thing is I think he can pitch 2 innings. Which we need. However, if he's going to regularly get grounded during games, which it also seems like, then we can't really schedule him to pitch. When we do the lineups we always do Pitchers first and then Catchers and everything else falls into place around that. If he's going to bow out on us at the last minute it really messes us up. So I think AK will be seeing more chances a relief pitcher until we see that we can count on him showing up. EG - Unremarkable this game. Struck out each time at bat. Focused better then ususal in the infield I feel. JS - He's very excited about bunting. We ahd runners on 1st and 2nd and asked if he could lay down a sacrafice. I said sure. So he laid down a perfect bunt... for a hit. The runner then got out at 3rd. It's funny that when he tried to bunt for a hit he did a sacrafice and then did the opposite yesterday. What was great though was that his bunt then setup a play in the 5th where they came way in on him and he then hit a line drive, which if they had been playing normal depth would have been an out, but turned into an easy hit. However, he then got called out stealing when he was really safe and he exploded. This is not the first time he's gone of the hook but it was the worse. He even refused to shake the other team's hands. Steve and I did a mixture of the calm down/you madea bad choice speech after the game and he seemed to get it and Dad thanked us. We will NOT have a kid displaying bad sportsmanship. TG - His hitting slump continues. He fielded well today. He also caught pretty well. I'm sure he'll snap out of slump soon. ES - He did a pretty nice job of catching. I already discussed his pitching. He really made a bonehead decision on the basepaths getting caught way off the bag after a pitch killing a rally we had in the 3rd. NM - We was a ball magnet. The rule is when you call a kid up from the lower league they can only play the outfield and have to bat last. Which in our case was unfortunate since he endedup in the heart of our order. Anyhow the first time a ball was hit to him he was completely unprepared and the ball got by him. The next two were flyballs which he dropped but then managed to throw in and get somebody out. I talked to him later and he told me he had a good time and would want to play for us again. Which is good because normally you have to go through the league supervisor 2 days in advance, so she can find someboyd, but with him we can call him up on very short notice with no problem. |
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05-04-2006, 09:42 AM
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#55 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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We were expecting a small group, but it was even smaller then expected. Steve and I, competitive people that we are, have been predicting who we think will arrive to practice/games first. Today we upped the ante and formally made it a pool. You predict a person and whatever place they come is how many points you get. Lowest score better. SO if you predict the first person you get 1 piont. If the person your pedict comes 5th you get 5 points. Anyhow, Steve took PW and I took ES. ES came in a close second, behind EG, and PW came 6th. Anyhow just a side note on the ways Steve and I amuse ourselves.
We started off by making EG run 3 laps. He had been late to the last 2 games so that would have earned him 4 laps, but we knocked off 1 for being first to practice. ES, who owed us no laps, did it for fun. The person who this hit home the most was PW who had to run 4 laps, once being late to a game and then for being late to practice and was not happy about it. Steve and I say good. We started off practice by reviewing JS's, who we were expecting to be there and was not, at-bats. We talked about how he laid down a great bunt at his first at bat and then because he had done that the infield came way in on his 3rd at bat allowing him to get the basehit. This is just one reason why bunting is so important. This segued into our first activity, what I call modified batting practice. For this they get at least 5 swings. The first 2 are to be bunts. Setup about 5 feet from home plate are three cones. One cone is on the baseline, another cone is about 2 feet in from that and the third another 2 feet in. If on their bunt they hit it through the two cones closest to the foul line they earn 2 more regular swings. If they hit it through the outer cone they get 1 more. This activity proved to be very popular. We ended up sending everybody through it twice. The big surprise here was EG. He not only bunted well, being the only person to earn 2 extra swings both times through, but really hit the ball well during his regular swings. Steve later told me that TG had been on his team last year and that EG was one of their better hitters. I had said at the first practice that he carried himself like an athlete, despite not having come through. This combo of information means I'm going to be looking really close at him during the next game to see what he's doing with his batting mechanics to see if something's off. It also means he's likely to be encouraged to bunt sometime on Saturday as I would actually say that next to JS he's the most likely to get on using it. Following this we introduced a "trick" play for the situation with runners on 1st and 3rd. If the runner on first tries to steal, the catcher, will throw it to short, who will then throw it home if the runner on 3rd goes. This segued into some preliminary work on rundowns. Our time on the field was up so we moved off the field. Next we divided the group into 2 and Steve and I each threw fly balls to the team. I've read that this is better to do with tennis balls, hit from a racket, but neither of us have any. So we threw up balls. Afterwards we compared notes. PW was the best on Steve's side, easily catching even difficult balls, while FO really struggled for me. We then introduced footbaseball. It is basically tag football, except instead of your hands you use your gloves, which when on defense have two baseballs in them. If you tag somebody and drop the ball then they can keep running. So basically this game teaches them how to track balls (on offense) and how to make good tags without dropping the ball (on defense). The team really got into this, though it'd have worked much better with a full team there. Overall it was a great practice. Both fun and informative. As we were leaving EG asked when we were going to work on pitching. He had asked at the start of practice if we were going to work on this, and I had told him no. When he asked at the end of practice I told him if he got to the game at least 20 minutes early I would work with him then. Steve and I also gave BS2 some "homework" telling him he was to have his dad practice, using a tennis ball, catching balls from the catcher's position. Not a ton to writeup but a good solid affair. |
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05-05-2006, 02:41 AM
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#56 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Evidently not everyone is as scrupulous as Steve and I. An email from the Pard District coordinator entitled "Some Concerns"
Quote:
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05-06-2006, 08:07 AM
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#57 |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Troy, NY
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"no side practice"?
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Quis custodiets ipsos custodes? |
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05-06-2006, 08:20 AM
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#58 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Quote:
Also I found a way around our no standings dilemna. While standings might not be posted, the scores are put into the local paper every other week, which simply mean I have to put together the scores myself, which I consider no big deal. |
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05-07-2006, 03:07 PM
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#59 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Well it was another disappointing game. Once again we got shelled in the first inning with ES up for us. Once again he was pitching well. The other coaches even commented on how well he could vary his control and speed. This despite the fact that kids who have never hit a double before hit a double. We had one homer against him, as we were playing at 1 of the two fields with fences. ES gets hit the hardest when he gets ahead in the count.
Their pitching was horrendous which made things more difficult for us as we had very few pitches to hit the whole day. This made getting a rally going very difficult. We had a ton of walks, but also far more strikeouts looking since the umpire had a tendency, and this was true for both teams, to expand the strike zone after 4 or 5 pitches. BS1 got a chance to pitch in the 2nd, as I wanted to make sure we saw him pitch, and had a lot of control problems. We ended up having to yank him. PW, who was perhaps our only good news, came in and looked terrific. He had originally been scheduled to pitch in the 4th, so we had him pitch in the 3rd as well and again he pitched very well overall. AK wondered why PW jumped ahead of him, and I reminded him he had a chance to pitch two innings on Tuesday, which seemed to mollify him. Even when we again changed things around later and had TG pitch the 4th on he didn’t complain, which I was surprised about. BS1 seems very concerned that he’ll never get a chance to pitch again, which just isn’t an option for us. Trying to think of interesting things that happened: I worked with KS on bunting before the game and he looked really good. Unfortunately, we never got into a game situation where he could bunt so he hasn’t had a chance to try it in a game. But, this was encouraging to see. JM saw a man cheating at 3rd, and even after JM walking him back, he didn’t move so he threw to third and the ball got by him. He later expressed frustration at how tired he got behind the plate, which makes sense as he was getting a lot of pitches. We once again induced a throw to second on a 1st and 3rd situation. What made this amusing was the first basemen even said “He’s going to steal on the first or second pitch” as he had over heard me. So off JS went on the first pitch. The catch threw it down and JS was going to be safe, but the 2nd baseman dropped the ball anyway. AK, not listening to Steve, didn’t take off a long time, which then caused a throw home after the SS recovered the ball, and he too was safe, advancing JS to third. The opposing coaches, who were substitutes, laughed and in general were very good natured about the game, which made things a bit nicer. In the 4th inning, which technically we weren’t supposed to play due to their lead, and the closeness of the game to the time limit, BS2 barreled over the catcher on a play at home. Both Steve and I have, in response to questions, have previously told him he had to slide always at home which made it frustrating. Even after that BS1 then did not slide on his own close play at home. On a BS2 note, his father also spent an inning in the outfield talking to him from behind the fence which we are not very happy about. Despite our good practice on Wednesday, it’s clear the team is starting to get down on themselves. And all the losses too are bothering me, as well. Today we didn’t play poorly, but neither did we play well and we got killed. I think I had been maintaining a really even keel about things, and my ability to remain on an even keel is even considered one of my strengths as a teacher, but I got very frustrated Saturday, and Steve even more so. We had a pretty long talk after the game. We talked about how there have been side conversations going on when Steve and I have been talking. We talked about how there has been coaching going on in the field, rather then encouragement. We talked about how there have been questioning of our decisions in places where that hesitation could make a difference. We talked about how the regular season doesn’t matter but their outlook about the game does matter. Following this, we had a private talk with BS1 who has been our worse offender on a lot of these things and also who seems to demand every two seconds the score, which Steve and I aren’t big on focusing, whether we’re ahead or behind. While we briefly retouched on the topics from the whole team discussion I also mentioned how the only time the score matters in this league is at the end of the game if it’s close. Otherwise it’s just going out there and playing. Steve also talked about moping in the field, which he certainly did after he got pulled from pitcher. After the game we had a nice talk with one of our favorite sets of parents from last year, whose son misses us a lot because his coach isn’t so great this year. Despite how depressed I was when I got home, I think this talk was good at relieving some of my self-doubt though there’s still quite a bit of that there. I know that we can win. We’re going to put up TG in innings 1 and 2 on Wednesday to try and give us an early lead, which worked well enough against the A’s. Then we’ll try PW for 2 with AK and ES filling out the rotation. We really need to come out gung-ho as that’s been a problem for us. Hopefully Steve has something in his bag of tricks to get us fired up so we come out strong. I know as much as we’re snowballing now we can snowball in the opposite direction and hopefully that will be Wednesday. |
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05-07-2006, 03:55 PM
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#60 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Good luck and stay strong.
 I find it's when you get that first win that you're able to really start believing in yourself and in the team. I know you've coached before, but I just wanted to point out that we all have self-doubts when we coach and while yes, the emphasis isn't on winning (and nor should it be), getting a win here and there does wonders for the confidence of both coach(es) and team.As you pointed out, there tends to be a snowball effect. Regarding the side conversations, I ran into that problem too coaching soccer. What I'd do is just stand there silently and watch them for a minute or two, letting them chatter before I'd say, "Okay guys, time to get moving here." or something to that effect. I found that if I let them chatter a little bit now and again, they tended to focus better and not be nearly as talkative when I was explaining something or they were going through a particular practice game (I hate the term drill  )As for the coaching thing, I'm not entirely sure what to do about that, as that's something I never encountered myself. I know you've addressed the issue before, but maybe try a different tack? I'm not sure if you've done this before, but maybe ask them as a team, "Do you trust us to be your coaches and do a good job of coaching you?" If they say yes, then you can explain that they need to show that by stopping the coaching of one another and just putting their faith in you guys coaching them. On the other hand if on the remote chance they say no, you and Steve just pick up the equipment and say, "Okay, you guys obviously don't need us then and can coach yourselves, so good luck with the rest of the season." and start heading back to the car. Okay, so I was a little facetious with their no answer as I honestly don't think they'd say that, but the fact of the matter is, something needs to hit it home to these guys that they need to put their trust in you guys and not get caught up in coaching each other.
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2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) |
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05-07-2006, 04:15 PM
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#61 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Quote:
I have no problem with them talking to each other during games or during practice, as long as it's the right time. When they're waiting to bat, they can talk about whatever they want. If we're doing something that requires some to wait around, such as when they're going through a line, again no problem with them talking. Builds team commradery after all. It's really been the fact that they will interupt and/or talk as Steve and I clearly are tying to make a point. I really appreciate the advice especially as it seems to reaffirm what we're already doing. Other suggestions are also welcome. Last edited by Barkeep49 : 05-07-2006 at 04:16 PM. |
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05-09-2006, 11:30 PM
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#62 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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We’re about half way through the season. I have compiled some very interesting things statistically. We’re also about half way through the season so I want to do a player by player rundown combing these stats with my own evaluations. However, it is late, I am tired, and since I won’t have time to post really before tomorrow I wanted to recap today while it’s fresh.
The weather forecast was terrible. Steve called me 3 times during the day to find out if I had heard if they were going to cancel practice. It was clear he wanted them to cancel. I worry with all this losing that he’s tuning out. Anyhow, it doesn’t start raining until he gets off the train where I pick him up (which is typical for us). I drive him to his house as we are taking separate cars (which again is not something we normally do) as I have a job interview of sorts after the practice (I mention this as it’ll be important for something later on). So I arrive at the field about 30 minutes before the game and it’s unpleasant and raining. Due to my not wanting hat hair at the interview I have no hat on so we hang in the care for a few minutes and then get out. BS is the first to show, with EG there right after. It is raining somewhat hard when BS1 arrives and JM calls me to find out about practice. Steve and I confer and decide he shouldn’t bother as we’ll likely practice for about 15 minutes, especially as the other team isn’t present. Of course at that point it clears up, almost at the exact time practice is to begin. I do some work with EG on his pitching and Steve works with BS1 on his catching. When it becomes clear that we’re not going home imminently we get the team out there for batting practice. The other team we are to share the field with, arrives nearly all at once on time, it’s kind of scary. The other asks what time we’re practicing until. I tell him the time and we agree on a time to switch the field. We get our team up there for the “modified” batting practice where they can earn bonus swings based on how well they bunt. EG comes out as the only person to bunt through both times, but overall our bunting has improved. Especially ES. He later tells me he’s been practicing with his brothers. This warmed my heart. It to me is an example of having standards, as he had indicated that he wasn’t so good at bunting and didn’t want to do it, and I told him “well tough luck we’re going to be bunting” so he decides that maybe he should work on it. Especially as a travel team player having one more tool in his arsenal is not something that will hurt him, and will be something which will definitely benefit the team. We then do our “2-1” drill where each batter starts the count at 2-1. BS1 is our pitcher for this and BS2 the catcher. BS1 does not look very good. BS2 also does not look particularly great. In particular, he is still not getting almost any ball in the dirt and his throws back to the pitcher are wild half the time. The former I can excuse, the latter I find maddeningly frustrating. As the plan is to use TG and ES for 2 innings each tomorrow we really sort of need BS1 to be available to catch, but I’m not sure he’s there yet. We’ll see what Steve says when we do lineups tomorrow. So as TG, our last batter is at the plate, the other team starts to come in literally swarming over our team. I look at my watch and see that it’s 3 minutes before our agreed switching time. I sort of pleadingly ask for one more batter before I think “why ask?” and say “We still have time. We’re going to finish this batter before we switch.” This guy was clearly a bit of an asshole, as will become clearer later, and so I was glad I had been firm here. Anyhow so we go into the deep outfield, out of the other team’s way which is more then they did for us. We then work on sliding. The kids just ate this up and had a blast. BS2 has been a terrible slider, but improved a lot in this practice. KS is clearly afraid of sliding as he slows way down before sliding. I did get him to run faster though before the slowdown so even that was good. Next we worked on a rundown drill. They looked terrible. But they still had a fun time, though they looked pretty bad. We’ll definitely have to return to this as it’s an important skill and a good way to get an “easy” out. We the ended practice with running bases. Steve and I were the throwers. The kids all had a blast. Lots of fun. KS won. What’s interesting is that he has the worse base running skills of any of our kids. Getting doubled up in our last game and also doing fairly poor as a runner in the rundown drill. So it seems like he needs some instruction here rather then lacking natural instinct. What I found amusing is that Steve really wasn’t so good at executing rundowns. He became far too determined at outrunning the kids, which he can do as he’s 24 and they’re 12, and so this was amusing in light of the poor way they did rundowns. Overall it was another really good practice. And we had a few more kids this time, which was good. JS was once again an unannounced no show which concerns me as next to BS1 he’s the person I want to work with the most on pitching. The kids left the practice feeling upbeat. I feel that their work on sliding went very well. They all got some good chances to hit the ball in batting practice and the 2-1 game and they had fun with running bases and the rundown drill, even if they weren’t very good at it. So once again it become incumbent upon us to get the energy going before the game. If they didn’t tire themselves out so much with running bases I would even play that for 5 minutes before a game. Perhaps a game, instead of a talk, is our pregame key. I mean our talks are short, 3 minutes or less, but perhaps we do a 60 second one. Dunno. We’d have to think of a good game as well, perhaps “footbaseball” as there’s SOME running there. This idea just came to me as I am writing this out so it’s very unfinished. Anyhow practice ends. I go inside the building there to change into a suit for the interview. When I come back out, 15 minutes, after our practice ended the other team is JUST on their last person. In other words their coach not only wanted to kick us off the field early, but was not really splitting the time equally as they were staying later then we were in any case. I do not think well of this, though am somewhat muted in light of what comes later. So off I go to job interview and I realize that I’ve left my suit jacket back at the building. After the interview (which I totally kicked ass at, but will not accept the job if offered to me unless the salary blows my mind) I return. There is a game going on the field we had used. I see that a kid I have a pretty good relationship with from the library/youth center is about to pitch so I go over to watch. I then can’t help but overhear the kid’s manager really complaining about how stacked the teams were and how he got the short end of the stick. This guy’s team has not done too well from what I’ve heard, so I can understand his frustration. While he’s bitching, I insert myself into the conversation, to ask questions of process. And from what I heard, overall I can’t complain too much about it. If desired I can explain all that I learned, but basically it sounds like the assigning into teams was down in a good matter. The best part was when the Park District guy said “And then we had 5 parents come and review the teams. In fact weren’t you one of those people?” That was classic. Anyhow that guy goes and coaches so I’m left with the park district guy. We talk some more. Turns out that he had suggested the idea, done in a nearby community, that a team would stay together for 2 years. So the 5th graders we had this year would all be together again as 6th graders next year if they returned to the league. I thought this was a great idea, considering that I think the work we’ve done this year would really pay dividends. Turns out this idea was rejected by the Park District Board, for whatever reason. When the season ends I will be using my political contacts to try and champion this idea, which I will pretend was my own for his sake, as it would be really good for the kids. The positives are overwhelming. What I also find interesting is that he says he’s seen every team play twice now and that there are 2 teams head and shoulders above the rest of the league and 2 heads and shoulders below it. We’re 1 of the two that has a talent deficit and that this guy has no real right to complain as he’s got several players who can really play. And from the two innings I saw? He’s right. Overall today I am in a much better place then I was Saturday. The team we play tomorrow is supposedly the other team that is one of the bottom two. That gives me hope. In general I have taken the time to zen and that has helped. I also came up with what I think will be a great plan on how to use our pitchers to the best. It seems right now that PW, TG, ES, and AK are a notch above everyone else. We’ll need two more come playoffs but for now 4 is great. Anyhow, I remembered that towards the end of last season we started taking pitch counts very seriously. We gave a kid a number of pitches he could throw and then we’d pull him. While I’m not as worried about pitch counts now, I think as we try and find our 2 inning pitchers we can use a similar strategy. So, unless disaster strikes, TG will pitch the first 2 and ES the third. In the fourth ES will be told that he will pitch to 4-6 batters, depending on how many pitches he throws. Then PW will come into the game and pitch the remainder of the inning. Depending on how many he throws a similar strategy can then be used in the 5th with AK. In this way we can put a hook on a kid who is tired, without bruised egos. It’s not that they’re pitching poorly, it’s just a matter of the pitch count. So that’s the plan. I’m excited. I want to win. I think we can win. So now we just have to do it. |
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05-10-2006, 11:41 PM
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#63 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Pregame
We expect 12 players. Neither of us have gotten a call. The weather forecast is once again ominous but the storm time keeps moving back so Steve and I are optimistic about getting our game in. We go to his house and make the lineup. It’s a really nice lineup considering we have to sit every kid by the 4th inning. Normally Steve and I go above and beyond the rules and have every kid scheduled to play at least one outfield inning. No such doing today. We’re going for the win, just as we would in the playoffs. We do the following for pitchers/catchers: TG/JM TG/JM ES/TG ES(.5)&PW(.5)/C PW/ES AK/ES The idea is that the moment ES starts not to look sharp we yank him, with the possibility of doing the same if PW starts not to look sharp in the 5th, as the 6th inning is a pipe dream. We go to dinner. We head to Sportmart, to pickup some tennis balls, for flyball practice, and a handheld counter (you know a little circular medal thing that clicks). Only they have no pitch counters. Not only that but they’re very unhelpful about it. Anyhow we decide to check out Target next, but during the drive over there I come up with the idea of using my stopwatch with it’s 99 “laps” as pitch counter if need be. And need be it will, as Target does not carry the item. We get to the filed. PW’s sister has a soccer game at the adjacent field to our baseball game so he’s there really early. After throwing some toss and fielding some grounders, I have him throw to me. After he throws two bad pitches, I tell him to shake it off, he does, and throws in several nice ones. I then have him try and throw me a change. And it’s a nice enough off speed pitch. He looks like he could have another good outing. As discussed in the post yesterday, we decide to play “footbaseball” before the game. Several of the parents were clearly skeptical about this, but the kids came out with energy. I was busy talking to the ump and opposing coach when Steve did the pregame talk. We go out to the field with energy. The Game The game begins and we have no EG, KS, or BS2. And honestly? That’s not the worse thing in the world as none of them are great fielders. But it means I have to scramble to redo our lineup, going from 3 subs to no subs. Luckily we’re batting first. Right as we finish batting I finally finish the first inning and KS nearly simultaneously shows up. Batting wise JF, TG, and ES all strike out while JS draws a walk. This is clearly their ace. He has good control and great velocity. I hope we won’t see him in the bottom of the inning. As I continue to scramble to do the lineup, as subbing 3 players and 1 player require completely different schemes rendering our pregame plan pretty much useless, TG let’s up a well hit double. He then strikes out the next batter, but the leadoff batter advances to third on a steal during the at bat. The next batter, AVC, a kid I know well from my days of student teaching and because he lives in the neighborhood, lofts a HIGH flyball into deep in the infield on the second base side. PW and ES converge on it and ES calls for it and catches it like a routine flyball. He then proceeds to talk to PW while the runner goes home. Steve and I scream at him, but by the time ES realizes what’s going on the run has scored. It is utterly ridiculous. I mean if it had been KS, or EG, catching the ball I understand how a sac fly which scores a runner goes down, but I am amazed at ES’s lack of awareness of the runner and the situation. TG then gets the next batter to ground back to him. Now I happen to know from my talking around the league that AVC is their best player. I make a mental note of the fact that he’s hitting 3rd and that the 4th batter is their ace pitcher. So it’s now 1-0 Cubbies but it’s still anyone’s game. They bring in a new pitcher and I breath a sigh of relief. PW starts us off with a walk, and he then steals second. JM rips a ball into center and it goes to the fence easily scoring PW and landing him at second. BS1 grounds out to first and JM has to hold at second. FO then grounds out to second and JM is able to advance. AK then walks. Their coach calls time and brings the shortstop and catcher in to talk at the mound. Steve and I think he’s going to use our play of throwing to short. On the first pitch Steve sends AK and instead they throw to 2nd and nail AK dead to left. It wasn’t even close. That’s out 3. But we’re tied 1-1 The first two batters are interesting. The first batter hits a ground back up the middle, just under TG’s mit. JF, at short, is getting in a good position to make the play, until it hits the rubber, and flies into center. Base hit. Next batter hits a ball to the first baseside. ES has the best play, and fields the ball, but there’s nobody at first. I have repeatedly told TG that if the first basemen is going field the ball he needs to be over there. After this happens I remind of this and he says he thought the second basemen was going to cover. Technically, he’s correct that the second basemen should have covered in this instance, but I don’t expect AK to know to do this, especially as he’s played far more 3rd base then 2nd this year, where as I do expect TG to know to move to the bag as a pitcher. Anyhow due to freakish sort of plays we now have runners at first and second. It is, by this point, drizzling and so the ball is hard to handle. The next pitch, JM loses his grasp on the ball and the runner, who is pretty fast, takes off to third. JM has him dead to right. He throws, FO catches and makes the tag, out 1. What’s great is that even if FO hadn’t made the tag the guy didn’t slide so we’d have gotten the out anyway, which I confirmed afterwards with the ump, as we hadn’t discussed mandatory sliding in the pregame meeting. TG strikes out the batter with ease. He then looks like he’s struggling against the next batter, ending up walking him after 8 pitches. Which is sort of remarkable as up until that point he’d only thrown 24 pitches in the two innings. Anyhow on 1-0 pitch the next batter grounds right to AK on a ball, who fields it like a pro, recording out 3. We escape what could have been a disastrous inning, unscathed. 1-1 after 2 JF is at bat and she strikes out again. JS, per my instructions, shows bunt on the first pitch. He pulls back, as it was a ball, but this draws the infield in. I tell him after he’s done this that he can either bunt or hit, his choice. He chooses to hit and once again gets a single thanks to having the infield in. Score one for the coach. TG then grounds into a FC. I give him the greenlight. He steals second and advances to third on ES’s single. Once again there is time as the coach pulls in the relevant fielders. I tell ES that they’re going to try and throw him out so he needs to go as soon as there is a slightly mishandled ball and go hard as he can beat out the throw. He does go, the catcher’s throw is way off and TG scores easily. Their coach was yelling at his catcher not to throw, despite the fact that a good throw could have made it a close play (though ES should’ve still been safe) so I’m not quite sure what the talk was about there. Anyway PW walks. On the second pitch, it gets by the catcher. PW immediately starts running hard for second. ES delays and only starts running when he realizes PW is barreling down towards second. Steve later tells me that he was telling ES to run. It ends up a close play at third but ES is clearly safe. JM is unable to take advantage of the opportunity, however, and we strand the runners after he strikes out. Marlins are up 2-1. I had told Steve I wanted a 4 run with ES coming into pitch, but overall we’re playing sharp, and with energy, so hopefully things will be ok. On the first batter it’s a hard hit groundball to the first base side. At first it appears to be a redux of the last inning, with their first base coach even telling the hitter “No one is covering” . But he’s so wrong. JS, at second, had been pulled towards first by the ground ball, and just as the coach finishes his sentence he appears at first and easily catches the lob from JM and it’s out 1 in what looks like a routine play though is anything but routine. ES walks their next batter, and it is clear that “coincidentally” they have their best player first and their worse player last. Anyhow, runner is at first. Their next batter hits a long flyball to left center. With outstretched glove the left fielder makes the catch. The runner is practically at second base when this happens. We yell for him to make the throw. It’s a pretty dead on throw, but comes in a little low. JM misjudges it and it gets by him, but the runner is forced to stay at first. Steve and I both yell out a good job to BS1, who has made several great catches for us, only to realize that it was FO, who was standing right next to BS1, who made the catch. Whoops. If you remember I talked about how FO was terrible at catching flyballs. But man did he get that one. Two outs. At this point ES has thrown 8 balls and only 1 strike (with one foul ball on a pitch that would have been a ball). But he manages to strike out the next batter, looking very sharp. As we get ready to hit, I talk to AVC’s mother and she expresses some surprise to see AVC batting third this game. Which confirms my suspicion, along with the fact that the opposing coach does not keep a scorebook, that this guy is fiddling with things. Which, considering his team is one of the worse two in the league, I can understand on a certain level. Anyhow, I’m glad to have caught this jerk cheating. Fourth inning, sees a truly horrendous pitcher come in. I pull BS1 aside and say I don’t want him to swing until after the pitcher throws a strike. When he lets an easy strike go past him, the coach asks me “did you tell him to take?” I confirm that I did. He’s not to pleased with this. I tell him it’s the only time all game I’ve told a player to take. He tells me that he thought I had earlier. I say that I haven’t, and he again says that he thought I had. I tell him point blank I’m not going to lie to him. The only reason that this is a point is that this league promotes kids swinging. And we do tell kids to swing. Now I’m sure if I didn’t already know this guy’s a cheater this goes down a little differently. Anyway, that is the only strike this pitcher throws and after 17 pitches, including having walked in a run, the pitcher is pulled. JF has struck out the first two times looking, so I had told her, even before our discussion with the Cub’s coach, that she needs to swing. She does swing, and strikes out, swinging this time. JS then has a play recorded in the book as a sac, which I just can’t recall to be honest but which scores FO. TG then grounds out to the pitcher to end the inning. 4-1 good guys. Before the game we’ve told ES and PW about how this is going to work. ES walks the first batter, on a full count, with a very close ball four. On the next player the player hits it back to ES who listens to what I’m yelling this team and gets the lead runner out at second. Their next player, on a 1-2 pitch of course, gets a single. ES is throwing better though. And he proves it striking out the next batter on three pitches, even making the guy fall down on strike 3, though the runners do manage to advance on a ball that gets by TG. I tell ES that he should throw it hard as this will be his last batter. On the second pitch, ES throws a bad pitch, which gets by TG. Despite Steve having reminded him that he needs to cover, ES mopes and by the time he recovers the runner is close to scoring. It’s a close play at the plate, but the runner scores, more because ES has had his 3rd mental lapse of the game then anything else. After falling down 2-0 ES battles back and ends up striking out the guy. So much for PW needing to pitch. 4-2 Marlins heading into the 5th. ES grounds out to the second basemen, who manages to make the play despite mishandling what is now a very slippery ball, as there has been a near constant drizzle for the past 50 minutes or so. ES ran out the ball really well though, so that was good. PW then strikes out. JM comes and rips a single past the shortstop. I have him steal second. BS1 then walks. FO gets up and rips a double into right center, scoring JM. On the first pitch it gets by the catcher and BS1, noticing the pitcher isn’t covering, takes off running and slides into home scoring. I call him over after the play and congratulate him on what I think is heads up base running. He says thanks though he somewhat mysteriously apologizes at the same time. I later hear from Steve the whole story. Turns out Steve had said to listen to him and BS1 made some smart alec comment and then moments later scores. This is one of those times where if he gets called out it is a major issue, but since he scored it becomes harder to make an issue out of it. Anyway, AK walks, and KS again gets a check swing “single” which scores FO. JF then comes up and strikes out for the fourth time, looking at strike 3 for the third time, though she did get several good swings in. When she makes contact she can really rip it, so I feel it’s less a case of mechanics then timing, though with her not being able to come to practice due to Hebrew/Travel Softball it’s hard to know as we can’t ever get time to work with her really. So we start the bottom of 5 up 7-2. On 8 pitches PW walks the first batter. He often doesn’t look good on the first batter so I’m not too concerned, though he only has a little leeway before we get to the hart of the order, and due to time constraints this is the last inning. However, as the second batter comes up, one of the Park District people comes running in, having spotted lightening and the game ends. And, we won. With that note I’m going to end this entry. Look for a special extra post tomorrow as I do a midseason status report and talk about Saturday’s game a little. |
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05-10-2006, 11:57 PM
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#64 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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I'm curious... What course of action do you have for dealing with the other coach cheating?
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05-11-2006, 12:10 AM
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#65 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Congratulations on your first win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) |
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05-11-2006, 07:39 AM
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#66 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Jul 2001
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Congrats on the win, that's great!!!! Hopefully it'll spark everyone and the team will continue to get better.
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05-11-2006, 09:02 AM
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#67 | |||
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Quote:
I didn't include what happened postgame, as I wished to convey the abrupt nature of the ending of the game, but I told the Park District guy who came in that while I didn't know for sure, especially because the opposing coach did not keep a score book, I had good reason to suspect it. Quote:
Thanks. Those exclamation marks acturately reflect how we felt. Quote:
That's my hope too. Frankly the game we played against the Braves a few weeks ago we played better overall, for instance our hitting wasn't all that great save JM's and FO's doubles, but the win was so important for them. More about this in my post later today. Last edited by Barkeep49 : 05-11-2006 at 09:03 AM. |
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05-11-2006, 08:12 PM
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#68 | ||
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Team Overview
We clearly are at a turning point. For the first 5 games, despite losing everyone, and some of them pretty decisively, we maintained a great team spirit. However, games 6 and 7 were not played well or with much enthusiasm. Now we have our first win under our belt. The team last night looked like the team from the first few games. We had chants going on, a first for us, and particularly fun was the “two out rally” (clap clap clap-clap) chant in the 5th. It was spirited. It was positive. And at the same time it was demoralizing for the other team. The problem is that our next two games are against teams identified as cream of the crop. It looks highly likely that our game Saturday will be rained out. The following game has us play a team with 3 players on sixth grade travel. Now granted some travel players are overrated, but that is still one stacked team. The good news is that our pitching and fielding are at pretty good places. Now this was helped by the fact that 2 of our worse fielders weren’t present at the game meaning we could do things like play ES at 2nd, a luxury we’ve never had before. But still we’ve grown a lot and hopefully the win drives that home for the team. A second win in one of our next two games would give Steve and I a lot of freedom then in giving opportunities for players to develop, as our team would have more of a feeling that they’re not losers. This is partly because our pitching is at a pretty good place. AK has either been very lucky, or else is very good, at getting outs. ES and TG are 2 legitimately good pitchers. I have a feeling PW should be quality as well. If we used these four pitchers exclusively we would never be in danger of getting blown-out. However, we still need to develop two more pitchers for the play-offs. JS and BS1 are our most likely candidates. What this means is that we need to get them innings, innings which have the potential to be disastrous. Where are the player’s at? With our season just over half way done, now seems like a good time to take a look at each player. (Quick notes about stats: Steve and I do not record errors for the most part as they are par for the course in the league. This does mean that a player’s OBP and BA are inflated over what they would be if kept by a major league score keeper) JF – The problem with JF is that she’s simply not been around. She hasn’t been at practices, has been sick or otherwise had commitments which have prevented her from coming to games. Despite 4 at-bats yesterday she still only has 10 plate appearences for the season, far below the average (especially the average taken without her). She has the skills, no doubt, but the lack of experience has meant that she has reached a plateau, or even slightly regressed, since the start of the season. I think she’s a better fielder then Steve does, though the empirical numbers (in terms of errors) back Steve up. She has been my biggest disappointment, and it’s frustrating because I’m not sure we will have the ability to turn this around into a positive before the season ends. GOAL: Get her timing down so she’s making contact with the ball which will be further helped by reducing the number of balls she’s swinging at. TG – Clearly our standout pitcher. He averages 1.9 strikeouts per inning while only 0.3 walks, by far the best ratio on our team. In fact, statisticall,y he is better then our star pitcher last season, while not having nearly the same heat, speaking to his ability to change speeds and consistently find the strike zone. His catching has been exactly what we needed, good though not all star. Speaking of all star he hasn’t tried to make any “all star” plays lately either, which is good. He has a .417 batting average and a .588 OBP, but has been in a bit of a slump lately. It doesn’t look like he’s doing anything different and I’m working hard to try and make sure he doesn’t pressure himself too much when at the plate. His catching has brought out some leadership qualities, though this is still an area where he could see improvement. He’s somewhat unusual in this regard as normally talented athletes, which he is, are the natural leaders since they’ve had the most practice at this age. Basically we can plug him into any position and know that we’re going to see good things defensively, which is a great thing to be able to say. GOAL: More leadership. Make sure any continuation of his hitting slump doesn’t effect other parts of his game. EG – I don’t think we’ve seen his best yet. He has a lot going for him, including his speed and good mannered nature. I would peg him as the most likely to have a second half breakout. Especially good is his ability to bunt. Just as it is with JS, his showing of bunt (not to mention ability to actually lay them down well) will lead to base hits when he’s swinging. In the field he continues to have huge concentration problems. This could easily be effecting him at the plate as well. His fielding mechanics are fairly sound, though he does struggle with ground balls sometimes, but he has a pretty weak arm. This combines to his seeing 65% of his innings either at 2B or RF. I really think he could turn from being a 2B because we have to play him in the infield to a good 2B, if we can get him to field grounders with more consistency. I worked with him a little on his pitching at practice the other day and he still looks horrible, so I don’t think he’ll be seeing any more mound time this year. GOAL: Help him find his groove at the plate. AK – Statistically he’s our second best pitcher in ERA after TG with an ERA of 4.8 (which is indeed a good ERA in this league). In fact this ranks him in the top 3 players comparing players from last season and this. As I alluded to above, I’m not sure how much of this is skill, and how much has been luck. He clearly can get the ball over the plate, averaging only 1.4 walks per inning, but his 0.6 strikeouts per inning, the lowest among pitchers with at least 2 innings, shows he hardly has overwhelming stuff. In terms of hitting he’s hitting .222 (team average is .322) but his OBP is above average at .563 (team average is .488). I haven’t seen him hit the ball yet so it’s just as well that he’s got a fairly good eye. His attitude has improved fairly significantly, through the season which is good and I no longer think there is as much concern of him being a drain on our chemistry, though he’s still not quite as filled with team spirit as most. He listens to Steve and I without complaint now and hopefully continued pitching success will earn him more leeway with the team. He has expressed interest in catching, though we still haven’t really seen him do this yet, so his skills are unknown, though I am skeptical about his ability to do it. However, his play at 3B on steals has been solid, in terms of catching the throw and tagging the runner. He can make a long throw with pretty good accuracy as well so he’s a very nice option there for us. GOAL: Develop him into a reliable 2 inning pitcher. See if he has any skill as a catcher. JM – Our team leader. He has been more positive in his leadership lately which is good. A rock behind the plate. He has caught 21 of the 37 innings we’ve played. And he’s deserved every inning he’s played there, though I am hopeful that BS2 will, someday, be able to assume more of the load, as I would love to have him play at 1B more often. He has hit the ball consistently and hard, with the most extra base hits on the team. He has very few strikeouts, with only 9% of his at bats being a strike out (2nd lowest on the team and versus an average of 22%) but a lot of that is because he’s a good junkball hitter. Then again it’s hard to knock a kid at the plate who has a team best batting average of .474. His position in the batting order is, I feel, a reason why we’ve had several two out rallies as he gives us another spark after we leave the top of the order. GOAL: Work on developing his sense of the strike as a batter FO – He has come through with some big hits, but then at other times has looked lost at the plate. This combines to make him a nearly perfectly average hitter, in terms of BA, OBP, and strikeout percentage. He is our “starting” 3B as has the most innings of anyone on the team at that base. I wish I could say that it was this skill or that which has made him the 3B of choice but it’s really not any one thing and just a lot of the things he’s done. I think we’ve not given him nearly the attention we should to develop his catching. Which is a shame because we need more catchers (more on this subject when we get to BS2). GOAL: See if he can be our catcher. Work on his consistency at the plate. JS – Something which hasn’t been mentioned is that JS has missed our last two practices without notifying one of us. He made some excuses about thinking that Tuesday’s practice was canceled despite there being no official confirmation, from the park district or one of us, about it. Anyhow, I really had high hopes about him at the start of the season in terms of what he could do for us as a pitcher. These hopes haven’t panned out. But pan out they must. The kid is tiny and so perhaps we’ve simply reached a point where the mound is just too far away from home plate for him to get it in consistently. We need to find him innings, despite the fact that I have a hard time finding an upside with him at the moment. Batting wise, he’s getting some good in-game practice at games with bunting, though I would still love to see him get some practice at practice with it. Twice now his showing of bunt has drawn the infield in enough to get him a base hit. Base hits are good because he only has a .250 average, though his OBP jumps by 300 points speaking to how hard it is to pitch to him. In the field he’s a jack of all trades, master of none. He’s seen playing time at every position except catcher and first, and we’d have given him time at first were it not for the height. While I never feel like we’re in trouble with him at a position, neither am I ever excited about having him in the field. The temper that we’ve seen come out a few times is clearly lurking beneath the surface, but when things are going well he’s a positive addition to team morale. GOAL: Make him into a somewhat reliable pitcher. ES – His numbers as a pitcher, are great. Second fewest walks per inning and 3rd best strikeouts per inning. Of course his ERA is not great. I didn’t have a chance to talk to him about luck and variance, and how the long-run can be a long time, but hopefully last game is indicative of the other team’s luck running out. He seems to get hit hardest when the count is 0-2 or 1-2 which I frankly don’t know if it’s luck or if he’s doing something different that I haven’t identified. His catching has come a long way in a short time and he’s been great as our second catcher, but long term I would love for him to be our third catcher, as his efficiency as a pitcher goes way down after he’s caught. This has meant he’s seen a lot of first inning appearances. His hitting isn’t up to what I would expect, as he’s got a below average .450 OBP. I’m willing to take some blame for that, as his early unsuccessful bunts put him behind the eight ball pitch count wise. I still think he has the best eye on the team which makes his strikeouts all the more frustrating, but also I think more of a blip then anything else. His fielding, with the exception of the last game, has been nearly flawless in the field, which again is a reason I’d love to not have him behind the plate as much. GOAL: Have his in game hitting match his hitting potential. BS1 – He has the best first step of any player on the team. Whether it’s in the field, out of the batter’s box or on the bases, he’s “quicker” then his speed because his reaction time is incredible. He also can track and catch fly balls as well as anybody on the team. This has netted him quite a bit of time at SS, and next to TG, who plays it on travel, he is definitely our best player there. Our high regard for his fielding abilities is reflected in the fact that he has the most infield innings not counting pitcher or catcher, and the second most not counting catcher. He has now consented to playing first base where, after the big 3 of TG, ES, and JM, he should be competitive with PW as a great 4th choice. His inability to pitch consistently is something I am hoping will be cured with time. His gross deficiencies in his mechanics are fixed, though some finer requirement is still required. I had hoped he’d turned a corner but obviously he’s not there yet. He’s got nice, though not great, velocity, which we can hopefully use to our advantage once he gets regular strikes. I will be excited when we can count on him to be our fifth pitcher. Though his BA and OBP are just slightly above average, he is a close third in fewest strikeouts, and his ability to put the ball into play can make good things happen in this league. BS1, as a character, is far more complex. He has this interesting combination of leadership qualities, he’s often the ONLY one talking to the pitcher and will be the one who starts a cheer on the bench, while also being the class clown type. I suppose these two aren’t mutually exclusive from a kid perspective, but from a coaching perspective they are rather annoying. Steve and I have both had our fill of interrupting us to make a remark. After our talk Saturday, he has been better about not coaching the other players though, which is good. GOAL: Two words: consistent pitching. BS2 – He needs to get his skills to where his desire is. If he could start to take 2 innings of catching a game it frees us up in innumerable ways. It means that TG and ES do not have to pitch early in a game for fear they will tire their arms catching. This flexibility alone is vital as I think it’s beneficial to have the worse pitcher pitch the first as there’s still time to recover. Further, it means that not only do we have flexibility with pitching but it also means that we get to see more of them, and to a lesser extent JM, in the field. While I don’t mind JS at shortstop I LIKE having TG or ES there. But before he can catch he needs to: A) catch balls in the dirt. He’s gotten pretty good about the high ones, but he’s afraid to block the balls with his body. B) get the ball back to the pitcher every time. His throws to the pitcher can be wildly inaccurate. That I just have no tolerance for. It was a good thing he wasn’t at the last game as despite all the practice Steve and I had made the tough decision not to play him as a catcher. Honestly, I don’t really think we can ever get BS2 up to two innings a game, but the potential payoff is so great, and he’s closer to being there then FO, that we’ve got to see it. He also has plenty of things to improve at the plate. After JF, he’s got the highest strikeout percentage on the team. Despite what Steve and I tell him to do, and what he claims to be doing, he seems like he’s got a homerun swing when he’s batting. Screw the homerun and give us a single. Especially as he often takes the first pitch or two putting him behind in the count and then does a swinging strikeout, sort of the inverse of JF. Having him catch also solves the fact that he doesn’t present a particularly cutting figure at 2B or 3B in the infield. With several players doing well at third, he’s seen more time at second, but just as in his catching he can’t really get the low grounders. GOAL: Block low balls. Throw the ball back to the pitcher. Swing earlier in the count. KS – Let’s review what I said about KS back in the beginning of the season Quote:
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Goal: Catch a thrown ball. PW – His pitching is almost there. It’s there enough that I will elevate him into the same consideration as TG, ES, and AK, and even above AK because of his superior velocity. He has a pretty nice change up too. I have no doubt that when they put our team together he was thought of being a kid who could regularly pitch for us. Furthermore, he’s a great kid. I don’t think a negative word has escaped his mouth once all year. He has seen a lot of different positions in the infield as he’s a step above JS but his “true” position is clearly centerfield, which does us no good. I was surprised to see that his batting is below average, despite having a below average amount of strikeouts. As has been mentioned he started the season with absolutely a rotten amount of luck with his hitting. He seemed to have turned the corner, however he’s hitless in our last two games again, so maybe the pitchers are starting to outclass him. Goal: Keep the pitching momentum So there you have it. Over 3,000 words on our players. With a bunch more about the team. If we’re going to turn the corner and become a playoff contender we should hopefully know it by a week from today, otherwise it’s going to be a disappointing season. I can only hope it’s the former and not the latter. |
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05-11-2006, 09:56 PM
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#69 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Excellent writeup! I especially agree with not developing FO's catching enough and I'd wondered why you hadn't been giving him some more time there.
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2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) |
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05-12-2006, 06:02 PM
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#70 |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Troy, NY
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Great writeup!
Even though you appear to be quite frank, you have something quite positive to say about every player. I think your players might react really well to pointing out some of their best stats. It seems like almost everybody has at least one stat that you can point to them as being really good at. Also, what happened at the end of the last game? Seems like you left out part of the story.
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Quis custodiets ipsos custodes? |
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05-13-2006, 07:50 AM
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#71 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Quote:
Also, as expected, today's game was canceled due to rain. It's supposed to rain today, tomorrow, and Monday, before clearing up Tuesday, so our Tuesday game remains in question, though it would likely be rescheduled to Wednesday. |
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05-18-2006, 10:02 AM
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#72 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Before Tuesday’s Practice
On Monday morning and Sunday night I sent Steve a couple of emails about what we should do at practice. He doesn’t respond to either. This is out of the norm and tells me he’s going into one of his depressed phases. This has never happened with baseball before, but since baseball is an outlet for both of us, hopefully it won’t effect him there too much. Anyway, I pick him up Tuesday at the train station. The email I sent him had some pretty big holes in it that we needed to fill time wise. We also had no “focus” for the practice. In each of our last two practices we had a focus and I think that’s what helped make them such terrific practices. In the car I try to see if he has any thoughts about a focus, and he does not. I know that this practice, therefore, is going to be heavy on the improvising, which I’m pretty sure means it’ll be a serviceable, though not great, practice. In our little “Guess who get’s there first” competition I’m up by four points. I go further up when I take EG, who arrives in the first carload of people, but we count as 3rd as he was the last of the three to get out of the car, and Steve takes PW, who gets there fifth. The coach of the team we’re practicing with, and will then play, asks us if we want to scrimmage. We decline considering they’re only the best team in the league and it would be nice not to get our butts kicked two days in a row by them. Before practice begins I work with BS1 on his pitching some. Unlike before there isn’t anything hugely wrong with his mechanics right now, he’s just not throwing strikes. One problem that I do see is that he is often trying to overthrow the pitches, but even after I remind him to take something off, he doesn’t always through strikes. Practice This is the first time we’ve had a chance to talk since our victory. Steve and I cover all the positives. He also says how a couple of mistakes could be forgiven since we won “and that’s the most important thing” undercutting our line we’ve been giving them through all the loses that it’s about progress. We then divide our 8 players, with TG surprisingly missing, FO, AK, and JF missing as expected, into two groups to practice run downs. They look much sharper today with it, which is a good thing. Following this we pull them away from everybody and teach them the sign system that we’ve come up with. The system relies on using letters to remind them so “hat – hit” “belt – bunt” and so forth. This takes about 15 minutes and we’re then able to get the field. We do our modified batting practice. AK shows up part of the way through it. We have BS2 catch during this and he looks pretty good. He’s at least getting the ball back to the mound consistently. There are still quite a few balls which get by him, but he’s blocking more of the balls, so I think it’s time we give him another inning of catching to see how it goes. We end the practice with our 2-1 scenario, with JS pitching. He does not do well with it, though his pitching does look better then it did last time he pitched in a game so that’s a positive. We end the practice and send them on their way. As I expected the practice was fine, though hardly great. After Practice Before practice Steve tells me that JS might not be at the game on Wednesday as he is going to the Cubs game. Seeing his father after practice I go up and ask when we’ll know for sure about his going to game and his father informs me that it’s almost definite that he won’t be at the game. He then starts off by saying “I know Libby [remembering that Libby is the name of the Park District supervisor] talked to you, about this, but it seems like some of the other teams are going all out for the win and you guys are going for skill development.” I immediately correct him that Libby has NOT talked to us about this. We then get into about a five minute conversation about this. Seems like he feels we should be playing our 3-4 best players more. He talks about how they’re 10 and 11 and know what they’re record is. Understands what the league philosophy is, but if other teams are trying so hard to win, then perhaps we should be as well. Talks about how really we’re not an untalented team. That pretty much sums up the points he makes. The untalented team part is interesting. I would agree we’re not untalented, and we are stronger with our weakest players, but our best players aren’t as good, which makes things more difficult. My favorite part of the conversation is the part about how we should be doing more with our 3-4 best players. To which I think “Oh so you don’t want your son to pitch any more? Or play SS as much?” Perhaps he wasn’t including his son in that group, I don’t know. But it was interesting. During the conversation I stood firm. I said our philosophy when we get to the playoffs is different, but that we’re going to follow the way the league is meant to be until then. And that frankly in order to have a winning playoff team you have to develop the players and that’s done by playing them in a game giving them chances to improve. The whole thing was very cordial, which was good. But Steve and I were upset by two things. First that he talked to Libby without talking to us first. Second that Libby never talked to us and appears not to have backed us up during their conversation. To address JS’s dad we’re going to print out the email Libby sent to the coaches about cheating, as further reason why we do what we do. I mean I guess technically she did talk to us about winning, but it sort of had the opposite message that JS’s dad wanted it to have. I mean when you’re team is 1-7 you can’t be too surprised that there would be grumbles, so I’m not upset at all about having had the conversation. After much debate we decided that Libby’s lack of communication was part of a larger problem. Here’s the text of what we sent her: Quote:
Wednesday/Thursday The day starts off with my calling JM’s house. Besides JS being at the Cubs game, BS2 has a doctor’s appointment, and AK has to go to his siblings “sing”. Steve and I figure that it’s likely we’ll get another unexpected no show and so it would be good to have NM, JM’s brother, there again if he was available and willing. The day starts off beautiful but then at about 1:30 it starts to rain. It lightly rains, at least where I am about 8 miles to the south, for about 35 minutes. Then the sun comes out again. I expect to have the baseball game, though I’m unsure. So I go home from school and get there around 4:15. The website is supposed to be updated at 4 o’clock if there is going to be a rainout. I check the website and it’s not been updated so I think we’re good to go. I have a message from BS2’s dad explaining that BS2 pleaded for them to change his appointment so they did and he would be at the game, if there was a game. I call and let them know it appears that there will be a game. About 20 minutes later I get a call from BS2’s dad saying that they got one of the automated messages telling them that the game had been canceled. I recheck the website and sure enough it has been canceled. He’s upset about having had to change the appointment, which I understand. Shortly there after it starts thundering and lightening. It rains for about 40 minutes and then the sun comes out again. So it was a good decision, just later then it should have been. As of this morning, we still have not heard from Libby despite the fact that she’s supposed to respond with-in 24 hours. I am actually quite pleased that our games on Saturday and Wednesday were canceled as I think they were against two teams we’d have struggled to beat. Now our next game is on Tuesday, no game Saturday due to parking problems with the Park District’s ice show, and it’s against the team whose coach bitched the other week about how bad his team was. So I feel good about our chances of getting 2 wins in a row, which would be terrific for us and give us that momentum as we start to head into the playoff stretch. |
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05-20-2006, 12:35 PM
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#73 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Supposedly our first playoff game is against the Red Sox. The kid I talked to, and his mother, both seemed pretty sure of this but the website hasn't been updated and I haven't gotten a mailng or anything with that info. We play them the Saturday before the playoffs start, so we would have a pretty good idea of what we'd be going up against.
No game today because of the ice show, we play the Cardinals on Tuesday, and the weather forecast on Wednesday is poor, so there's been very little baseball as of late and it's unknown if these conditions will improve. |
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05-25-2006, 09:41 AM
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#74 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Wednesday May 24
We had practice yesterday. Steve has the scorebook and such so I don’t have the reminder of exactly how things went down to do Tuesday’s game. So look for that this weekend when he’ll be back in the ‘burbs and I can pick it up from him. It was just a beautiful day. It really stormed for about 20 minutes around 10 AM but by the time our practice started at 5:45 it was just beautiful baseball weather. Anyhow, even before the game started yesterday Steve and I agreed we’d like to do an extended scrimmage with the Cardinals. Based on the way the game ended, we felt this to still be a very good idea. The good news is that our team is getting much better about being punctual. Yesterday only a couple of people were “late” (arriving closer then 15 minutes to the game) and today only PW and JM were late, with JF, JS, and AK not being there. This was noticeable as we had 6 players there before they had 2 players there. Anyhow, I went and talked to the other coach and we figured out how we would do the scrimmage. Basically we agreed to do 3 outs (rather then everyone bats) cap an inning at 5 runs, or everybody batting, and do coach’s pitching. This guy is sort of your typical sports dad. He was nothing but nice to me, the players on his team, and the players on our team even but towards his own son? Bit of a jerk. Which makes it not so surprising that the son was a bit of a jerk either. Anyhow so after we debriefed quickly from yesterday’s game, we went out and scrimmaged. Overall the scrimmage went well. The players had fun, except for JM who was in an exceedingly bad mood. ES and TG both rocketed the ball which was good for them since they’ve been in a slump. EG had 2 great at bats that I saw. The first was a beautiful bunt and the second was a screamer down the left field line, that if he hadn’t watched it as it went would have been a triple, but instead was “only” a double. Not a whole lot that was notable otherwise. PW seems to be quite frustrated with himself at bat and didn’t really get good contact on any of his pitches. That was basically it from a fun, light practice. With the playoffs just around the corner things will get more serious again, soon. After our long email to Libby about communication does she get back to us? Nope. Furthermore, the playoff schedule is out and do Steve and I have a copy? Not exactly. So we’re going to email Libby about that today and simultaneously get ready to go to her boss about the issues we’ve been having. Looking forward We have 3 games left and so it’s time to use our 1 reorder to adjust the batting order. We will be doing this prior to our next game. I really am torn about several things. For instance do we keep JS1 at the top of the order? He can set the table OK, but would it be better to move up BS1 who has better speed and makes more contact? Of course BS1 makes better contact so maybe we save him until later in the order? JM should clearly be moved up to 3rd or 4th. What to do with a slumping ES and TG? Where to bat KS who gets on base consistently but can’t hit the ball to save his life? The questions go on and on. Fortunately, while we use this reorder to get ready for the playoffs, in the playoffs the continuous batting order is dropped and we can change the order for each game, so if EG, for instance, finally puts it together and starts hitting the ball fair and hard, we can move him up in the order, especially with his speed. Hitting is our one remaining Achilles heel. The Cardinal’s coach told me after the game that we fielded as well as any team he’s seen this season, and I agree we fielded the game extremely well. As well we should since that’s been such a heavy focus for us. That leaves hitting as our last hurdle. I think we’ll pretty much be concentrating on this from now until the end of the season and if we can hit it even just a BIT better could really take teams by surprise in the playoffs. No game on Saturday due to Memorial day weekend, but look for an update with a recap of Tuesday’s game. |
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05-26-2006, 09:42 AM
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#75 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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An unexpected update from my work last night at the library. Every year one of the schools holds a writers workshop where they invite local bigwigs, local writers, etc into the school to discuss a piece of writing of the student's choice for each 4th and 5th grader. The school invites one of our librarians in to conduct a group and she often has me read the pieces she's assigned, between 5 and 8 depending on the year. Well anyhow, this year one of the people she was assigned was JS, who, not incidentially, was described as "the most egocentric kid I have ever taught" by his classroom teacher in a note attached to his writing.
Anyway he wrote a pretty nice piece of survival/baseball fiction which was clearly wish fufillment. Already in the story we meet Michael, a tall 10 year old, who has had to rescue his parents after they are hurt in a tornado. Upon taking him to the hospital he learns they must have $100,000 in surgery, but never fear, the reason they were in the car was to drive to a baseball tournament with a $100,000 prize. Below is the writeup of the baseball scenes Quote:
A little after I read this piece, EG comes on in. He tells me that he and his dad were out practicing squaring up to the ball and long throws. We joke for a minute or two and then he goes off to use the internet. Maybe 10-15 minutes later dad comes strolling in. He calls EG over and I mention how I heard they were practicing. At this point Dad just goes OFF on EG. "I told him after Tuesday night that if I ever saw him play like that again I would just quietly pull him from the game. He was so unfocused. Throwing dirt around and not paying attention." Later on in the rant "His fielding was just terrible. I'll tell you one thing Coaches don't do in this league. I'll tell you that Coaches don't teach the kids to square up to the ball." Talked about how EG was just "lazy". How "coaches don't teach the kids that baseball is a running game" and they need to run. Later on he said again that if EG was not going to "contribute" to the team he would just quietly pull him from the game. When he took a breath, after ranting for a good couple of minutes (and it always seems longer when you're listening) I finally was able to get a word in edgewise. Considering my two choices of who to defend, myself or EG, I decided to go with EG and said "Steve and I both feel EG is a contributor to the team". This seemed to take some of the wind out of his sails, but he did go on for maybe 30 seconds more. The whole time his father is doing this rant, EG is just standing there uncomfortable with this painful smiling grimace on his face. After EG and his father leave, with EG saying, in a very upbeat manner "I'll see you Tuesday" the librarian I was working with just went off on his dad. She talked about how he's missing the whole point of playing. How the kid is 12 years old so of course his mind is going to wonder. How it's supposed to be about fun and the kid is never going to be a major league player so he should just lighten up. As for me? Well it made me mad. After the incident with JS's dad I was upset, but not really at him, but at Libby. This made me mad. The way he went off on his son, right in front of him and another adult is completely unacceptable. Threatening to pull him from the game is completely unacceptable. Implying that Steve and I are not teaching these kids who to square around to a ball? Completely unacceptable. But the worse part of it was is that Steve and I PREACH the need to run to the ball. To get there quickly so you have time to setup. And if this asshole would attend more then an inning or two of our games he'd hear that. Even typing this now my blood is rising, I am still upset about the whole thing. I haven't talked to Steve about this yet, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to convey how completely unacceptable what his father was saying was with EG standing right there. The funny thing about all of this? EG was throwing dirt, but he was more aware of the game then he normally was. Steve and I both commented on it. I think that perhaps we'll put together a "curriculum" of what we've done with these kids. I've written cirriculums before so I can make them fancy and impressive and so perhaps that's the way to go. I'm not sure really what I think the next step is here, beyond saying something, though what I don't know, to EG on Tuesday. |
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05-29-2006, 10:54 PM
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#76 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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So Steve was very late in getting me the scorebook and so I am even later in my update.
Pre-Game So we haven’t had a game since May 10, and it’s now May 23rd, meaning it’s been almost two weeks. When we last left you we had notched our first victory of the year in a lightening shortened game. We had a practice on the 16th but we haven’t seen some kids since the 10th, or before, so Steve and I are very nervous about people showing up. We anticipate no FO, due to Hebrew school, but otherwise think we’ll have a full squad. Of course I know there’s the possibility that FO will be there because Hebrew School might be over. So what we do is put together a full lineup for 11 players, without FO, and do a lineup with just pitchers, catchers, and subs for all 12 players. We also have several blank sheets so we’re ready for any eventuality. This is a game against the Cardinals, the team considered to be in the bottom three teams in the league with us. Steve and I want to use the rainouts to get a little momentum going and so we decide to throw TG for the first two, AK for the third, have AK and PW split the fourth, with PW pitching in the 5th and ES closing it out. We also decide it’s time to give BS2 some time behind the plate so he will catch AK, our slowest throwing pitcher, in the third. We have a harried dinner and get to the field about 55 minutes before the first pitch. And who should be there awaiting us but TG? Seems his brother had soccer practice at the same park so his mom just dropped them both off at the same time. This ruins our ability to do the “pick who gets there first” contest. Which is a shame because I am TOTALLY kicking Steve’s ass. There’s only one time I’ve had a bad pick and in that case Steve’s was even worse. Steve has only won one time we’ve done this and it’s a shame we didn’t put any kind of wager down on it. Anyhow we throw and talk with TG for a bit. It’s time well spent. JS is one of the first players to show up. Later on I hear him make a disparaging comment about the team. I pull him away from the other player he was near and talk about how if you expect bad things to happen it’s more likely to happen. He tells me about his bad day. So I say, “Let’s put that behind us. What’s something good that’s going to happen on the field today?” I expect him to say something like “We’re going to win” but instead he says “I’m going to leadoff with a bunt and they’re going to make an error so I’m going to be at second base”. This catches me off guard but I say, “OK then I want to see you go up there and do it.” By the time their coach arrives we have 6 players and we have 9 players before they have 4. He asks if he can use one of our players as an outfielder, and I of course agree. Turns out he also called up the younger sibling of one of his players. And this kid is SHORT. I mean even JS is taller then this kid. The complete lack of arrival of his team let’s us sneak onto the field so I grab BS1 and we do some pitching from the mound. And he looks just HORRENDOUS. Can’t get ANYTHING over. The umpire is there and we BOTH try giving him some tips. And progress is made. Instead of throwing the ball extremely high or extremely low and off the plate he just throws it extremely high over the plate. Frankly I’m at my wits end as to what I can do to help him. I’m hoping Steve’s brother, Scott, will be able to make it either tomorrow or Saturday to work with BS1 and perhaps catch something I’m missing. So as I am working with BS1 I see that the whole team has shown up. It’s amazing. Terrific. And all that. And so I grab the right lineup master and go to work. I am SO glad we had this possibility covered as the lineups pretty much fill themselves in. Also helpful? Having BS2 catching. Hopefully it’ll work out, I think. The Game We’re the home team. TG goes up, strikes out the first player, walks the second player, who gets to third on steals eventually, but then strikes out players 3 and 4 and we’re out of the first inning. JS attempts to do the bunt he told me about. He does so and lays down the most perfect bunt. Right down the line. The pitcher is absolutely caught off guard and there isn’t even a play at the base. So far, so good. TG falls into his typical trap and gets too excited against a bad pitcher and hits ends up hitting a ball back to the pitcher, advancing the runner. ES then pops up to the shortstop who makes the play look routine. BS2, not surprisingly, strikes out to retire the side. 0-0 TG strikes out the first batter. The second batter gets hit by a pitch. TG walks the next batter. This is followed up by JM barehanding a wild pitch and nailing a guy attempting to steal third by about 40 miles, with FO once again making the play perfectly. It was a well executed fielding play, especially by JM. And it’s a good thing as that batter rips a double scoring a run. TG then strikes out a player to end the inning. 1-0 Cards. And in the bottom of the inning, we jump all over the bad pitcher. PW hits a singe and steals second. JM walks. PW steals third and is driven home by BS1 on a single. FO walks. AK hits a single scoring JM. I tell BS1 that he is to try and steal home, if at all possible. He does an excellent job of trying to draw a throw from the catcher, as the third basemen is completely not holding him, but despite a valiant effort, scores only when KS walks, after EG strikes out (including having fouled off a ball extremely hard which just goes foul). After KS walks they pull the pitcher. I tell FO that if he gets a chance to score he should take it. On the second pitch the new pitcher fails to cover home plate for the second time and FO takes advantage of it. Unfortunately we can’t get anything else going as this new pitcher is a great pitcher and easily strikes out JF and JS. All together it’s a great 4 run inning. 4-1 Marlins. AK starts off promisingly enough by striking out a very good hitter, which I’m not quite sure how he did, as he was not throwing strikes and got the hitter to swing on a strike three that was in the dirt. AK continues to look poor and after a 6 pitch at bat, gets doubled off of. I don’t quite remember how the inning went down, but AK just looks horrible. He’s not getting anything across the plate and when he does they’re ripping it. Steve and I debate pulling him but decide it would be more damaging to his psyche to do that then to let him get hammered so we leave him up there. This is the inning where EG is playing second base and not doing it the way his father likes. At one point he fails to go out for a relay throw, which would have been terrible had PW not been aware and gone over from Center to do it. In the end we get lucky as PW makes a great play in short center and then runs in to step on second for a double play to limit the damage to three runs, when AK would have had no chance of otherwise escaping the inning without at least 1 or 2 more runs scoring. 4-4 TG leads off the inning with a single and steals second but a good pitcher strikes out ES, BS1 and PW and makes it look easy. As we enter the top of the 4th it’s clear this will be our last inning. PW is pitching. First batter hits a hard hit ball to AK who cleanly fields it to get the out. Next batter hits it right back to PW who records the out easily. The top of their lineup comes and the guy who hit the double now hits a single. PW walks the next guy. And the guy after that, to load the bases. The good news is that through all of this terrible pitching BS2 is looking not just OK, but good. It’s clear this kid has been practicing his butt off since the progress he’s made is substantial. BS2 clearly is ready for some more innings, which does the great service of allowing us the opportunity to field ES, TG, or JM more in the field. The next batter, their callup, hits a ball to ES. With the bases loaded, and ES near second base he can either step on the bag or flip it to KS who comes over. ES does neither of these and then instead throws it wild to first. TG makes a great play to keep the ball from being an overthrow but instead of being out of the inning a run scores. PW refocuses and strikes out the next batter on 4 pitches. 5-4 going into the last inning. They have the same pitcher as before. I am worried as this guy basically struck out our side and made it look easy. Their coach tells me that he’s never thrown him two innings before. It gives me a little hope, but not much. JM starts off with a hit and steals second. BS1 then walks. FO hits a play to short that is misfielded putting JM at third. AK strikes out. EG, in another solid at bat, walks. This brings KS up. Basically I decide that I trust BS1 to steal home more then I trust KS to get him home, which I realize isn’t what the stats, considering KS’s .533 OBP, would tell me what to do, but there you have it. This looks prescient when KS hits a dribbler to the first basemen. He cleanly picks it up, and despite the loud protestations of his coaches, jogs over to first base for the easy force out allowing BS1 to score on the fielders choice. MARLINS WIN! Post Game and Looking Forward As we run to lineup to shake their hands, jubilant at our come from behind victory, the other team is absolutely defeated. Just totally down on themselves. Despite the fact that it is 9 o’clock BS1 managed to talk to me about going for ice cream if we won. Steve is actually going out with a friend after the game so he can’t make it, and in the end only about half the team shows up, but everyone who does has a good time. You already know about Wednesday and the EG incident. Steve moved into a new apartment over the weekend and tomorrow the cable guy comes so he won’t be in town until shortly before the game starts. We talked a little bit today and following that I sent him the following email (though with the kid’s real names) Quote:
And that’s where we’re at going into tomorrow’s game against the Yankees. |
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05-30-2006, 04:09 AM
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#77 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Hopefully you can dig up another couple pitchers.
Congrats on your second win!
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2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) |
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05-31-2006, 09:21 AM
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#78 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Look for an update tomorrow. Yesterday's game was very abbreviated but there are a couple of other this of note that I will write up. Today's practice is cancelled due to me and Steve attending our brothers' graduation.
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06-04-2006, 01:55 PM
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#79 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Tuesday
The forecast for the day is gloomy, but Tuesday morning as I sit at my desk at a library things are looking gorgeous outside. Monday night I had sent Steve the email I posted here. Steve agreed with the revised lineup and pitchers. However, after so more thinking I had thought perhaps we should throw our unreliable pitcher, being BS1 or JS, in the first in the hope we would then still have time to recover if they got shelled. This causes a flurry of emails back and forth between me and Steve. We end up actually doing four lineups, one with BS1 and JS throwing in the first and one with them throwing in the fourth. It should be noted that with BS2 catching we can actually do a pretty terrific infield. We decide we’ll throw them both a little beforehand and see who looks sharper and that’s the way we’ll go. I keep pushing for Steve to try and get his younger brother to come as he’s the high school pitcher, but that’s a definite unknown. As I leave school at just after 3 I listen to a voice mail from Steve. BS1 has called him and he was home sick during the day. So at least that solves our dilemma of who to pitch between BS1 and JS. As I am driving to the youth center the clouds are quite ominous. In fact when I arrive around 3:30 it is thundering and lightening but only rains for a minute. I expect the game to be called. When I call at 3:45 the game is still on. Same thing at 4:00. And 4:30. And 5:30, when I leave it is sunny once again. So it looks like we’ll play some baseball. Unfortunately, it will be a game without Steve. He calls me at about 4 saying he has some stomach bug. It’s definitely going to be weird coaching a game without him. I also worry that there isn’t really a stomach bug and he simply doesn’t want to drive down for a game that could very easily be canceled. As I have said once or twice before Steve doesn’t seem as committed as last season. And so I head out to the field, after a stop at home to change, extra early hoping to catch an early game. Which I do. Only problem is that I then realize I’m at the WRONG field. So I drive to the correct field. JM is already there and EG arrives at about the same time I do. As we walk over to the field, the field is clearly unplayable. Where there should be a batter’s box there is instead a HUGE puddle. A phone call has been made to get somebody to bring some dirt over. Just as I arrive, at 7:15 for our game, there is a flash of lightening. Which means we’ll have to wait 30 minutes to play our game, anyway. The players slowly trickle in. I have JS and JM throw behind the dugout a little. JM comes over and tells me how great JS looks. I swear that no pitcher has ever looked poor throwing to JM when there is no coach looking if you were to ask JM. I take a look at JS and he looks OK. He looks like he’s going to get the ball TO the plate, though it won’t necessarily be a strike. But even that is an improvement. Our 7:45 game time rolls around and nothing. The Park District guy shows up right at 7:45. Eventually the ump and the other manager, at my suggestion, agree to start the game on the other field and to move back. We end up starting at about 7:55, so only 10 minutes late. With no BS1, KS is our first batter. He draws a walk. JM strikes out, but KS has stolen second and third. With KS on third TG is up at bat. And that’s when the Park District guy comes over and says there was lightening. The other coach asks if I really want to wait the 30 minutes, as we are now playing at a field without lights and the other field might, or might not, be ready to play on. I say that I absolutely want to play. So we start to wait. After about 5 minutes of waiting it is decided that conditions simply won’t let us play and so everyone is sent home. I remind everyone at this time that we don’t have practice on Wednesday, but are going to do a light practice on Saturday before the game. Steve and I both feared that the Tuesday game would get canceled and we’d miss the game on Wednesday when we’d be at our brother’s graduation. Fortunately, by the time the other team’s coach suggests this the players from our team have mostly left and so it’s agreed we won’t make up the game. Unfortunately, after I reminded people about our game on Saturday TG goes up to his dad and says “Did you realize we had a game on Saturday?” TG’s dad asks me several times if that game was on the schedule or was a makeup and I tell him it was on the schedule. TG’s dad tells me that TG won’t be there. I do apply a bit of a guilt trip as Steve and I had planned on really going all out against the Red Sox, considering they were our first round opponent. As I leave the field I call Steve to tell him that we will be without TG for our game on Saturday. Friday I work am at work at the Youth Center and JR, who has hit several home runs and is on the Red Sox, is in again. And he keeps trash talking our team, continuing off of something he already started on Tuesday. He keeps trying to get me to admit my team is bad. Keeps bragging about how good his team is. Frankly the whole thing gets annoying, but I never waver in saying that I think we have a good team and that it’ll be a good game. Saturday Before the Game Steve and I make plans to get together, have breakfast and then to head over to the field. We put together a lineup without TG. He is the only one we remember won’t be there, however I later remember that KS had told me he wouldn’t be at the game. While doing the lineup we bemoan the lack of TG. We then go out and have a nice breakfast, in my case, or lunch, in Steve’s case, at a deli. As we are finishing up our meal and getting ready to head over to the field Steve gets a phone call. He goes “Uh-oh”. He quickly establishes that it’s TG on the phone. I think to myself “How can anything with TG be MORE of an uh-oh”. And then Steve says “Well that’s great. How about the practice beforehand?” And that’s when I practically leap out of the booth. A moment later Steve hangs up. We are going to have TG for both the practice, which we didn’t really care about, and the game. The whole thing with him missing was so mysterious I am dying to know what it was. A court date? A urologist’s exam? What? Steve and I decide that this warrants redoing the lineup. In the car ride back from the deli we debate how much we want to use TG. 2 innings? 1? With the playoffs coming up we don’t want to wear out his arm before the “real” games even start. In the end we decide that we will pitch, ES, PW, and TG with the “split” innings approach to try and limit their pitches. We are now expecting all 12 players to be there. We get to the field nice and early and basically lay in the grass watching one of the games and sunning before our players get there. When our players do arrive we go through a very light practice that consists of Steve hitting them ground balls while I hit them flyballs, using a tennis racket and tennis balls, and then switching. We then pitch them some soft toss, and they all look good. We end with “footbaseball”. During practice BS2’s family calls and says he won’t be there. Also absent from the practice are EG and KS. Game time approaches and we are at exactly 9 players. Which means I will be figuring out positions as the game begins. I bring the team over beforehand and give them a speech which goes like this. “We are playing the team we play in the first round of the playoffs. And they aren’t giving you any respect. They really think we’re a bad team and that they can just roll right over us. And I know they’re wrong. We had a nice light practice before hand, but it’s game time now and we have to go out and play 100%. So we’re going to go out there and play hard and prove that that we’re the better team by winning today.” The team checks to make sure I was being serious about them trash talking us, and not just making it up, and I assure them that I am being serious. Both of the kids I know on the team, JR and GL, have both said something or made faces so while it was a slight exaggeration to say the team was doing it, it was certainly not an outright lie. The team is pretty motivated as we get ready for our first at bats. The Game So the game gets underway. With TG being there after all he is our leadoff batter. And our star player starts things off by flying out to center-right. The play was a routine play and it was fielded routinely which will be something typical throughout the game. FO then hits a rocket, unfortunately it is right at their 6 foot tall second basemen, JR, who makes a leaping catch. It was a very well hit ball, but perhaps an even better defensive play. JS walks, but AK grounds out to the pitcher to end the inning. 0-0 ES takes the mound against a favorite player of ours from last year, GL. We tell JM, who is behind the plate, to give a high strike zone and sure enough on the second pitch, after a first pitch strike, GL bites and grounds it back to the mound. Next batter rockets it on the ground to shortstop, but BS1 fields it like a pro and we get the next out. ES then hits the next batter. The following batter gets a single. Up comes JR, their star slugger. We tell JM to setup inside and on the first pitch JR hits a pitch that would have been a ball right at JF in left. She gets her glove on it, but the ball is hit so hard that it pops right out, which wasn’t really her fault. She gets the ball back in quickly, but unfortunately they score a run. ES then gets the next batter to ground back out to him and so we end the first down 1-0. PW leads off our next inning with a walk. ES follows this up with a single which gets PW to third. First pitch ES steals second base so now we have runners at second and third. JF draws a walk. BS1 singles into right field only because they had their right fielder playing ridiculously shallow. If he had been playing at a normal depth it’s likely an easy out as the ball went over his head and died. Anyhow BS1 drives in PW. JM strikes out. TG then hits a single driving in ES. FO steps up and hits a ball to the first baseman who throws it home to get JF out at the plate. What is of note is that they are already contesting the run by bringing the infield in, something I think is a strategic mistake in this league, though we never do take advantage of the fact during the game. With two outs JS is up. He hits a ball to the second baseman which he loses track of. BS1 scores easily. By the time TG gets to me, and he is sprinting I will add, the second baseman still doesn’t have the ball. With 2 outs and AK about to be up I decide to send TG. I figure three things can go right for us: 1. He beats the throw 2. He wouldn’t have beaten the throw but it will go wild or 3. He doesn’t beat the throw but they can’t get the tag on him. Well just after I send TG the second basemen finally locates the ball and gets it and throws it home, on a perfect throw. The catcher has plenty of time to get setup. TG slides in, pretty clearly under the throw, but is called out anyway. He thought he was safe. I thought he was safe. The parents sitting in the stands thought he was safe. Oh well. Good guys go up 3-1. ES is on the mound for another inning. The first two batters pop out, first to JF at second and then to TG at short. Next batter lines a double. He steals third, but we get GL to ground out, again, to our pitcher to end the inning. This is the first time where ES’s good pitching was rewarded in that he allowed only 1 run in two very solid innings of pitching, with only 25 total pitches thrown. Anyhow still 3-1 Marlins. AK starts of the inning by hitting it hard at the first basemen who makes an error. Unfortunately, AK did not hurry out of the box and so the right fielder throws him out by a step. If he hadn’t thought he was out when he hit the ball he’d have been safe. This is reinforced when PW hits almost the exact same ball and is safe by a couple of steps. PW steals second and third. However, he’s stranded there when PS hits one back to the pitcher and they look him back. JF comes up with two outs and draws a walk. I send her on the second pitch. But it’s all for naught as BS1 strikes out. PW is our new pitcher and does not start off so well, walking the first player. ES is now catching for us and they decide to run on him with that player stealing second on the first batter, who strikes out. The next batter also strikes out however the runner steals third after ES makes a bad throw. Normally our left fielder would have been right there to backup, but as the batter was a lefty he was shifted way over. So anyhow they score a run without having hit the ball. The second batter strikes out. Which is just as well that the bases are empty because up steps JR, their slugger. We are playing at the only field with a fence and we have our outfield practically playing on the fence, which proves to be the correct play when he hits a ball that nearly goes over but instead is a very long single. Now this guy is not a fast guy but they STILL managed to have him steal second and third before PW strikes out the next batter. 3-2 Marlins after 3. Now it should be said that this game is moving. We are about half way through the game and we are half way through the time limit. This means our plan to only play for 5 innings isn’t going to fly. Our pitching schedule has TG throwing next inning and AK closing out the game with the last two. Alternatively we could have PW throw 2 and have AK and TG each throw one. We decide to see how long this next half inning takes before making a decision. JM leads off with a walk. TG hits a ball to second base which gets JM out on a fielders choice. TG manages to steal second and third. FO pops up to second base. I give TG the green light to try and steal home, as I have more faith in JS leading off an inning then driving in a run. And sure enough JS hits the ball to second base. Something has happened to JM which diverts Steve’s attention and so I have to make a split second decision on what to do and decide to put AK up there as we’re still doing well on time. Unfortunately, I don’t have positions for this which proves to be a problem as I have ES catch again, not really thinking about how TG should have caught this inning as TG clearly cannot catch for himself and we didn’t really want to catch ES for three innings. I realize my mistake too late to change it. Anyhow AK takes the mound. AK starts off with 4 balls, though the batter swings at one in the dirt so it’s 3 and 1. We tell him to take a moment and concentrate, which makes a big difference for him. He takes his time and induces a grounder back to the pitcher for the first out. He then asks if it was a good pitch, which Steve and I assure him it was. Next play is a ball to TG who is at third base. TG who when I told him he was playing third rolled his eyes. Anyway TG comes up with it and fires it over to first to JM who completely misplays it. So now we have a runner on. Who then proceeds to steal second. He advances to third when the next batter hits a single. We give up the steal and now have runners at second and third. I tell TG to hold the runner at third on and sure enough we catch him walking back to the bag. ES makes the throw and we have a run down. A rundown which we execute perfectly, though the runner from second does advance to third. Two outs. GL comes up and knocks in a single to score the run. He then proceeds to steal second and third, on consecutive pitches though the call at third could have gone either way. Next batter hits a single to score GL. AK then strikes out the batter to end the inning. 4-3 BoSox. AK starts us off with a single. He steals second. PW then walks. ES then hits a ground rule double, under the fence, which is a shame as PW would have scored easily. JF strikes out. BS1 then pops it up and the first basemen makes the play though PW is able to score on a tag up and ES advances to third. JM then knocks ES home. JM is able to steal second before TG strikes out. We do get three runs though putting us up 6-4. TG comes up to pitch. As he’s doing so, JM is very upset about something which Steve is handling. I later learn that JR made a threatening comment to him. This appears to be in retaliation for a play made where JM missed a throw by ES and so JR ended up getting hit in the head. We are not sure, as the inning starts, if it is JR or a different tall kid who made the comment. TG does not start off well walking the first batter on four pitches. They are able to once again take advantage of ES getting the runner to third. JR steps up to bat. On the second or third pitch, TG makes a bad pitch which bounces in the ground in front of JR. JR then takes a step out towards the mound and makes a threatening comment to TG. The umpire warns him at that moment. Frankly, I think JR believed all his trash talk and thought we were a bad team that they could roll over and has been surprised that we have held him to singles, not homers, and that in fact his team is losing. The next pitch is a play back to the pitcher. TG looks at the runner, and the runner is clearly going home. So what does TG do? Throws to first for the easy out, conceding the run. Given the situation I am OK with it, but I hope TG realized that the point of looking at the runner is to make sure he doesn’t score, either by throwing it home or keeping him on third. Anyway we record the first out. ON the next player TG does indeed hit the batter, who promptly steals second. After going down 3-0 on the next batter TG fights his way back and records the strikeout. The inning ends on a grounder to short. They score 1 and it’s now 6-5. I point out to the team that if we score 7 runs, the max, then we don’t have to play the field as we win. Unfortunately, FO starts it off by striking out. This means 3 of our 4 kids with lowest strike out percentages, JM, TG, & FO (with the absent KS being the fourth) have struck out. JS then gets on first after hustling out a play where it once again bloops over the right fielders head. On the second pitch he takes off and steals third. AK then hits it back to the pitcher advancing JS. Unfortunately, PW strikes out to end the inning and our insurance run stranded at third. The bottom of the inning starts with a single. BS1 almost makes an incredible play, catching the ball on a hard hit line drive, but instead it just gets knocked down and unfortunately the other kid wins the foot race to the bag. Before there can be any steals GL hits a ball right at ES, who is at short. ES should have plenty of time to pick up the ball and so I yell for him to get the out at second, as I would like to get the lead runner out. Unfortunately, ES just can’t pick up the ball and both batters are safe. They steal third base, with JM throwing in plenty of time to get the runner, unfortunately the throw is just enough off the bag that we can’t get the tag in time. At this point Steve and I pull the infield in. And here’s where TG proves why he’s a great pitcher. On 7 pitches he strikes out the next to batters. This then brings JR up to bat. With two outs we now just need to get the out and so we set the infield and outfield deep. TG seems to have JR’s number as he hits a not particularly hard grounder to ES, who muffs the ball again. This scores the tying run. At the time I was just furious with him. However, in retrospect I am not nearly as upset. The kid had pitched for two innings and caught for three. He’s going to be dead tired. If I hadn’t been creating lineups on the fly we almost for sure do not put him at short there. Of course, if I hadn’t been creating lineups on the fly he’d have only caught for two innings. Anyway ES has not made one clutch play for us, either at bat or in the field, especially in the field, which is frustrating. Anyway we try and do a trick play to get the runner on third to go with a throw to the shortstop when JR attempts to steal second, but it’s no dice. But we needn’t have worried as TG takes three pitches to end the game with another strikeout. And we end up with a very hard fought tie. Looking Forward Steve and I are VERY upbeat after the game. The team is clearly exhausted but we tell them that we played excellent baseball. Were it not for either of ES’s errors, or for the bum call in the second on the play at the plate, we win this game. Looking at the scorebook I worry, however, that the game on Wednesday is not going to go nearly as well. If I had to pick three kids to miss the combination of BS2, EG, and KS would be pretty high up there as BS2 and EG aren’t great hitters and KS is not a very good fielder. Furthermore, not having to sit any kids was a major plus for us. I also think they were missing none of their bad kids and a couple of their good kids based on where good hitters were in their lineup in relation to others. So we’ll see. This tie, all things considered, was as good as a win for us psychologically. Once again the other team was mopey and we were upbeat at the end of the game, so that part is good. I think the parents would be hard pressed at this point to criticize us, as we have the team peaking at the right point in the season, just like we said we would. The game was a very well played game of baseball. The good news is that they made about 1 stupid play and we made 3. So even that augers well in our favor as I am not convinced that they are fundamentally a better team then we are. We also have the advantage of knowing they are going to run hard against us, so it’ll be something we focus on Tuesday. Speaking of Tuesday, we want to save TG, ES, and to a lesser extent, PW’s arm. JS and BS1 have both been told they’re pitching. Basically we’re going to talk about having fun with our last game. The less pitching we have our pitchers do here the more we can save them for the playoffs. Hopefully the other team will have the same philosophy. |
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06-07-2006, 08:21 AM
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#80 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Yesterday was our last regular season game. Despite the fact that entering the bottom of the 4th, and last, inning we were down by only 3 it was never really a close game. Of course the bottom of the 4th made the score slightly more lopsided. Which is fine, since we wanted it to be more relaxed and for some players to get a chance to do things they hadn’t gotten a chance to do before. Anyhow, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good PW’s Catching: Evidently he had asked to catch a couple of times. Did Steve or I ever really hear that? Not so much. Quite honestly he is a better catcher then BS2. I feel upset with myself for not having found this out earlier. It is also things like this which make me want to be able to keep all my 5th graders next year. PW is now very likely to see some real duty behind the plate in the playoffs. EG’s Flyball Catching: EG caught not just one or two but THREE flyballs in the outfield. He did drop the first one hit to him, but after that he was flawless. It was good stuff. I just wished Dad hadn’t been such a complete ass in helping him there. BS1’s Pitching: I worked with him before the game and had him throw about 20 pitches. We worked out a couple of kinks in his mechanics and he also toned down his velocity. These things together worked well as in the game he was able to get through an inning. Granted he threw a lot of pitches, in doing it, but as an emergency option in the playoffs he would be just fine. AK’s pitching: Pitching 1 and a third innings he did quite well. He was able to settle himself down after a few bad pitches. He saw a lot of batters but the end results were fine. Extra base hits: JS, JM, and ES all hit legitimate extra base hits. I thought ES had a legitimate shot at our first team homer, but he had to settle for a standup triple. Extra base hits have been something which have mostly eluded us and is a big reason we haven’t ever scored more then 3 runs in an inning. The Bad BS2’s catching: He caught PW and clearly struggled catching a pitcher with more velocity. With PW emerging as a viable catching candidate I think BS2 will see limited duty behind the plate in the playoffs and be strictly limited to catching AK and possibly BS1 if we ever use him for a full scheduled inning. TG’s hitting: TG is 2 for his last 11 over the last 4 games. AK’s fielding: He looked absolutely lost at 3rd base. He was out of position. He wasn’t concentrating on the game. I talked to him after the game, and as always it is a balancing act with him. He was ready to despair as I talked about things he needed to do better, until I explained that I was telling him since he was going to play 3rd base again and so that tonight was a learning experience. He clearly felt much better then. The Ugly PW’s pitching: Now in fairness the ump wasn’t being so consistent with his strike zone. We also had used him as a catcher before pitching him, a no-no. I wonder at this point how we did catching last year since I know our two primary catchers last year were also two of our primary pitchers and so clearly they had to have done some catching before pitching. Dunno. Anyway we had to pull PW when he started off by walking three, settled down, and then walked a fourth player 3 or 4 batters later. With the league agreeing to remove pitching limits for the playoffs we called TG in to finish it up. I told him, with a smile, he had 4 pitches to get the 3rd out. He took 6. JS’s pitching: We threw him in the first. He was terrible. He got his chances and so I don’t feel bad. The 3rd inning: We load the bases with no outs for the top of our order and get exactly 1 run. Very frustrating. Today We announced, as a sign of confidence, that PW would be our starting pitcher. I think we’re ready for the playoffs and am excited to win tonight. |
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06-20-2006, 06:48 AM
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#81 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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How'd the playoffs go?!
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06-30-2006, 10:35 PM
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#82 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Oh wow. With the end of the season, and the hubub after it, I guess I never updated this thread. I apologize. Thanks to wade for the threadjack. I'll get this updated either tomorrow or Sunday. There's a bunch to post, that's for sure.
Last edited by Barkeep49 : 06-30-2006 at 10:35 PM. |
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07-01-2006, 08:30 AM
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#83 | ||
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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Woohoo! I've started attending the games of a friend's 9 year old child, so it's interesting to compare what I see to what I read here... (main thing is, they don't have nearly as many restrictive rules about player use as you do).
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07-01-2006, 12:11 PM
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#84 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Again sorry for the delay. This is the first of several end of season/after season posts. I hope to do the rest tomorrow, though it might not formally conclude until Monday. I am doing this all from memory, so I don’t have tons of specifics, but you should get a pretty good feel for what happened.
Steve and I had announced the day before that PW would be our pitcher. This was after he had a terrible showing, as we wanted to express our support for him. After thinking it over, we decided that since games go 6 innings in the playoffs that we would go PW, AK, ES, ES, TG TG. The idea being get our weaker pitchers out of the way early and close out strong. When we played the BoSox the previous week, having TG available at the end of the game was crucial towards producing our tie (and moral victory). So it’s a Wednesday night and we are expecting the full team. Steve and I arrive to the field early, though not excruciatingly early. The team starts to arrive, but very very slowly. Enough that I start to get worried. I get more worried when somebody tells me PW had injured his foot at school. However, I know they’re super responsible about calling so they would call. Fortunately, the game before us runs late as we only have 9 players show up right at game time. KS, after being bitched out a couple of times about not calling us if he was going to be late, does call and say he’s going to be late. PW shows up and we are told he was doing dry heaves in the car on the way over. So injured and sick. What a combo. I believe, but am not sure, that all our players do end up showing up. EG might not have. Anyway, we give an extended pregame speech. About playing hard. Doing the little things. Relaxing out there and playing as well as we know that they can. I feel good as we go out there. We lose the flip so we’re up to bat first. And their pitcher, the kid who we had coached last year , basically blows right by us. We might have had a hit, but we get nothing going. So PW is sent up to the mound. And, well, it’s painful. He has no control just like he hadn’t the night before. He throws walks. He gets hit. He gets hit some more. And he throws some more pitches which are balls. After his third walk I go up there and basically say “I don’t care how you throw it, just throw it over the plate.” No dice. He walks the next batter and we’re forced to auto yank him. In comes BS1. He starts off poorly, but in the end gets us out of the inning, though after allowing three walks himself. After the third walk I went back to the mound and gave him a similar speech to PW, and said that I know if he takes something off of it he can get the ball over. So he did, and got us out of the inning. It was bad, because as I was walking away the other coach thought that was 4 walks and we had to switch again. But fortunately that was not the case and so the inning ends and we’re down 5 or 6 to nothing. Next inning we once again fail to get any offense going. Up comes AK, and they just rock him. We let up 7 runs and only get out of the inning because of the cap on how many runs a team can score in an inning. Through-out the game, it should be noted, our defense didn’t help things out. It wasn’t exactly that they were playing poorly, it’s just that that they weren’t playing well. So with the pitchers pitching so poorly, having a mediocre didn’t really help. Third inning new pitcher, new hope. Except that this guy is clearly their ace. Completely overpowering. In his two innings of pitching we had exactly two players make contact with the ball. Like even for foul balls. It was not good. So we don’t score in either of this innings. But at least we have some hope when ES comes in to pitch. At least our bad pitchers are over with. Except that ES isn’t throwing well. Fortunately they only manage a couple of runs before ES pulls it together and gets us out of the inning. As mentioned earlier, our second inning against their ace isn’t better then the first. The good thing is that we get to the top of the order for the new pitcher in the 5th. ES pitches very well in the bottom of the 4th and doesn’t let up any more runs. The bad thing is that when we enter the 5th is that we need to score runs. The game is currently 13-0. Which means that if we don’t score 6 or 7 runs the game is over as we would be mathematically incapable of catching up in the 6th. We get a little bit of a rally going, but can only scare up 2 runs and so the game is over: 13-2. We were crushed. Our team spirit was pretty good throughout the game, which was good. But our batting was not. Our pitching was not. Nor was our fielding anything to write home about. There were not really any positives I could take out of the game. The situation only gets worse. We already knew that EG wasn’t going to be there on Saturday. Then I learn that FO is not going to be there on Saturday. As we’re leaving the field TG and his father come up to me. TG had asked before the game started about when he was pitching. We explained we wanted to save him for the end since it was a six inning game and that he should pitch. I honestly didn’t anticipate being so far behind that we wouldn’t play either the 5th or the 6th. TG mopes away. TG’s father then lets me know that TG has front row tickets to the Cubs/Sox game on Saturday and since we lost that he will likely not be at the game. He says he will call me on Friday to confirm one way or the other, but that we should plan on not having TG. And so my despair only deepens. The next day I get a call from JS’s mother who is very concerned that we won’t have enough players for Saturday’s game. But our count we’re sitting exactly at 9. Anyhow she is very sweet and offers to have some of JS’s friends come if need be. It was very nice. She ended up talking to both Steve and I, and while I forget the details of it, she talked to Steve after she talked to me and Steve completely rocked the conversation. On Friday I get the phone call confirming that there will be no TG. Saturday morning I wake up ridiculously early, despite the fact that I had been up pretty late the night before with friends. I am NOT looking forward to this game. We are going to play the Angels, who if you recall beat us pretty soundly earlier in the season. And we’re going to do it without our star pitcher. But the good news is that when I wake up it’s raining oh so lightly. I like rain. As a pick me upper, I make one of the Cinnabuns I had in the freezer and it works some to cheer me up, not to mention letting me have enough calories and fat for the rest of the day. At 7:15 I call the weather hotline and get an update that the games are postponed, but picture day is on. A real decision will be made at 9 o’clock regarding the games. At 9 o’clock the games are canceled. I am secretly very happy. Steve and I can’t decode the message to figure out if they’re going to reschedule the games and squash them into Sunday or just cancel the playoffs. I head over to his house well before picture time anyway so we can make up team awards. It is his birthday and so I give him his present, a copy of Moneyball. At this point Steve’s mother insists on making him pancakes, just like she used to do when Steve and I had sleepovers. We go and make the awards and then I get to have my second breakfast of the morning. We eat, print out the awards, and head over to the rec center to have our team picture. At the rec center it’s an absolute mess. There are no Park District employees anywhere. There are teams everywhere. It’s nuts. We have about half the team show up for the photo. We hear that our game has been reschedule to the next day. This gives Steve mixed emotions. He’s glad we get to play again, but not as glad that it will limit his ability to go to bars that night. As we are walking out to the parking lot and talking about the team, Steve tells me that wants to do it again next year. This is a big relief. I honestly thought he had tuned out the team, with us doing so bad, and was sick of the commute down to the suburbs form the city three times a week. Anyhow, it’s a big relief to know that I will be able to do this again next spring with Steve. BS1 had suggested that we go out to breakfast and so 5 players plus me and Steve head over to breakfast. It was a great breakfast. AK makes me sad as he proves again how distrustful he is of everyone when he orders the French Toast, I tell him it’s good, and he doesn’t believe that I’ve ever had it before. Steve backs me up and he believes it, but it makes me sort of sad to see him go through life thinking so suspiciously of others. During breakfast, BS1 confides in us that we’re his favorite coaches ever since we’re the first coaches who haven’t just stuck him in the outfield all the time. Knowing what BS1’s athletic ability was when I was student teaching at his school, I can understand how that was true, but it was still a great thing to hear. Steve and I head back to his house and find out that when they rescheduled the games, they redid the brackets. Instead of playing the Angels, we’re playing the Braves We’re very excited about that. We make some phone calls and then head down into the city to hang out at his apartment for a while. After a depressing week with baseball, knowing that we’re going to have TG and we’re going to be playing a team that is very beatable, gives me a lot of hope. Coming soon: Game 2 versus the Braves. |
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07-03-2006, 08:11 PM
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#85 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Unlike the last update I am writing this with the benefit of the scorebook in front of me, so I have more firm and detailed information, besides my own memory.
Steve and I arrived to the field early. We thought the coaches of the Braves were good guys and so we were happy to be playing them. Our team was all reasonably prompt in arriving, except for Brandon. With the rescheduling, we had received confirmation that everyone was going to be there except for Kellen, so Steve and I made a lineup that had no Kellen. With Brandon not arriving, it meant some changes, as Brandon could play Centerfield, something Kellen isn’t as well suited for considering his lack of throwing power. So that is my curveball. Overall, the team is relaxed, which is good. We win the coin toss and get ready to go out in the field. We send TG to the mound first, deciding that we don’t want to mess around. The pitching lineup caused a lot of consternation for Steve and I. This was furthered by the fact that PW has truly come into his own as a catcher. However, we’ve learned that most fifth graders have problems pitching after they’ve caught so we want to avoid that situation. This sort of means that we want PW to pitch the third. Then the last choice becomes about how to use ES and AK. In the end, we decide to use AK in the sixth, despite his being a complete nutcase, and ES in the 4th and 5th. TG, after throwing a couple of pitches, reports a problem: he’s throwing uphill. With all of the rain from the previous day and a little overnight, the pitching rubber is so far back that it is a problem. The coaches from the other team, who again are very friendly, the ump, and Steve and I, have a discussion about whether to leave it, as it penalizes both teams equally, or move it forward. Steve and I advocate moving it forward so we decide to dig out the rubber and move it forward two feet, as there is no park district employee anywhere in sight to help us. TG reports this is a lot better. Things don’t get off to a good start though, when there is an error on the first play by whoever is playing short (I don’t have the fielding chart due to the BS1 situation) leading to a runner on second. TG is not overpowering this inning. The next batter goes deep in the count before he hits one pack to TG who, in a move that made me laugh, looks at the runner at second, who has started running immediately, and then throws it to first anyway. It’s good to see that he’s learned the mechanic of looking at the runner, even if he doesn’t then follow through on it. On the next play it is a legitimate sacrifice fly to XXX in right, scoring the first run. The next batter walks, a rarity for TG and showing how off he is, before the next batter strikes out to end the inning. We have JS bunt and while he lays down a fairly good bunt, it’s not good enough and he gets thrown out. BS1 walks to give us a base runner. JM continues his recent difficulties as he strikes out. These difficulties have coincided with his having private batting instruction. ES then singles BS1 over to third, but TG grounds back to the pitcher to end the inning. 1-0 Braves. And right as the first inning is about to end who shows up but BS2? This completely throws off my whole chart and it takes nearly 2 full innings for me to replan things. How aggravating. TG comes out looking a little better, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s facing the bottom of the lineup, and gets the first guy to ground out to him, followed by a strike out. TG allows yet another walk, truly remarkable considering that including the two in this game he only allowed 7 all season. He does strike out their last batter to retire the side allowing only 1 run on a day where he doesn’t have his best stuff. Their ace, back for another inning, strikes out the first two batters, PW and EG. FO then gets hit by a pitch and steals second during KS’s at bat. KS does one of his weakly hit balls for a hit, advancing FO to third. Alas AK hits one back to the pitcher to end the inning. Still 1-0 Braves Up comes PW to face the top of the lineup. And it looks like things might be rough again when after 8 pitches and a full count the first batter gets a single. The next batter gets out, which is good. However, it’s then walk, walk, to load the bases. However, our newly found outfield ace, EG, made the catch. With two outs, perhaps things won’t be so bad after all, I allowed myself to think. But no. Next batter doubles, driving in 2. PW hunkers down, however, and looks good striking out the next batter. I don’t have much hope, despite the new pitcher, when BS1 comes up. But he hits a single. JF then gets hit by a pitch (atta girl!) and things are looking good. JS1 hits a ground ball to the first basemen, which advances the runners. BS1 then walks to load the bases. Perfect! With the heart of the order up, JM hits a single and drives in one run. ES then hits a grounder to first, driving in another, and TG continues his slump grounding out to the pitcher, yet again. However, we score two making it a 3-2 game. ES comes to the mound and first pitch allows a single. The next two batters fly out, however, the runner has stolen third. The second fly out presented some consternation as EG was in center and AK in right. It’s hit to right-center and is clearly AK’s ball, but EG is on the ground “backing him up” but nearly causing a collision. Fortunately, AK comes up with it and collision is averted. The run does score, however. On the next play it is again hit to AK, but he can’t come up with it this time and the runner gets to second. ES manages to strike out the next batter, however, before any more damage is done. Once again our hitting can’t get anything going as EG represents our only base runner, with yet another hit by pitch. 4-2 Braves Things don’t start well in the top of the inning when ES allows a leadoff double to their #3 hitter. On a 1-2 count, just like the rest of the season, the next batter bloops a ball into short left center. The centerfielder makes a great throw into the plate to get the runner from second for the out. Steve and I both didn’t see who made the play and thought that it was BS1, playing SS, but no it turned out to actually be JF, coming through with a good fielding play just like I knew she could. ES strikes out the next batter for the second out. The inning ends when EG makes yet ANOTHER good catch in the outfield for out number 3. The next inning features the team’s second best pitcher, who pitched the last inning as well, and he shows why he’s good (even though it was AK, BS2, and JF) when he strikes out the side. So we’re heading into the sixth down by two with our mental case coming to the mound. Fortunately, it’s towards the bottom of the order. And he pitches what is by far his best inning of the year, allowing just one hit, but having seemingly ever ball be in the strike zone, with pretty good velocity for him. After the game, he was truly proud of how he pitched, and he should be. So, in the clutch, AK came through for us. And now we are down by 2. The favor that their pitcher did by striking out the side, means we have the top of our order up. And there is excitement in the air when JS hits a well hit ball into right for a single. He then steals second. This is followed by BS1 laying down a great bunt down the first base line. It caught everyone by surprise and ended up being a single. I truly hope he was bunting for a single there, as I was coaching third and had most definitely NOT given him the bunt sign of any sort, as we needed two runs. Anyhow, he easily takes second when they do not contest the base, with JS at third. This brings JM up to the plate. And JM strikes out, again. But that’s ok. ES is up. He hits a routine ball to second base, which scores JS and advances BS1, but now means there are two outs with TG up at bat. With our season on the line, we have our best batter (theoretically) at the plate. In fact things have been like a movie all game: the kid making some incredible plays in the outfield, the kid having his best pitching performance of the season, and now this. As TG comes out to the plate, knowing the situation, I call him over. I tell him the following: “No matter what happens now, I am so glad that you were on our team and will be proud of you. So go up there and smile.” He gave a simple nod and steps into the batters box. On the second pitch, he connects with a weakly hit ball towards the first base side, BS1 is running for all his worth, and I watch as he slides into home. I then shift my focus over to the play at first. It’s going to be close as the first basemen has mishandled the ball. He finally gains control of it and runs towards first. The play is very close, but TG clearly beats the first basement to the bag, but did the first basemen tag him? And the ump makes the call “OUT” and just like that the game is over. Several on our side thought that the game is over because we had won, but I know the truth. The other team celebrates for a moment and then we shake hands. I am near tears at this point myself, considering how much I wanted it for the team, and how well they played. Seeing TG bawling, actually helps me keep it together, and I put my arm around his shoulder and try and comfort him. And like that, our season is over. Coming tomorrow: team awards, end of year reflection, and the post season drama. |
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07-06-2006, 04:37 PM
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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When I last left you we had just shook the hands of the Braves at whose hands our season had ended. I am quite upset, and Steve is just stunned, as we get the team to get their stuff and go to a place near the diamond so we can do our end of season stuff.
Steve and I each make speeches. I know I babbled some with the kids, something I don’t do often owing to the fact that I’m a teacher and so have lots of practice at being concise at making my point. The basic theme of my talk was just how proud I was of the team, and proud was a word I think I must have used a bazillion times during the speech. But, despite everything, it was how I felt. We then handed out awards. This seems like as good of a place as any to do a wrap up of the team. For comparison’s sake I’m going to post what we said in presenting the award, what my final private take was (which sometimes matches up) and what I said at the start of the season by way of comparison (which I’m only looking at AFTER I give my Eval). Steve and I alternated awards. You’ll see that I remember more of what I said then what he said. JF Jackie Robinson Award (Me) Presentation There is one player on our team who exhibited all of the characteristics of this person. They showed great poise. They played second base and broke down barriers. To JF we give the Jackie Robinson Award My Eval JF never made the full transition from softball to baseball. She is a gamer, that’s for sure. But the hitting, despite a good start, never really came through for her. I know Dad put a lot of pressure on her, which is too bad as well. I know she’s have a good travel season from seeing mom at the library, which I’m happy to hear. Quote:
BS2 The Down and Dirty Award (Steve) Presentation I said that if a player that if a player isn’t messy at the end of a game they haven’t played baseball. This guy really showed the meaning of that and came a long way this season. To BS2 we give the Down and Dirty Award My Eval This kid is a great kid and a great guy to have on the team, as he’s a team player. I really do think the progress he’s made this year at catcher will help him tremendously next year. His batting was still clearly in need of improvement though as his pitch selection, more then mechanics, was poor. Quote:
FO Scott Rolen Award Presentation It isn’t every year that you find someone so perfectly suited for a position. We were lucky to have that this year. We knew that when this guy was playing we were in good hands and so to FO goes the Scott Rolen Award My Eval You’ll never have a good team without kids like FO. He wasn’t the best player, but he could come through in the clutch in both the field and at bat. Flyballs were definitely not his strong suit, but he could catch and throw nicely and had several good at bats, though he never did make it as a catcher for us. Quote:
AK Greg Maddox Award Presentation This guy might not have had overpowering stuff but he could get it over the plate consistently and get outs. To AK we give the Greg Maddox award My Eval It will be interesting to see how/if he pitches next year. Statistically, he comes off better then perhaps he deserves because fortunately he normally faced the ends of lineups. By the end of the season he was a definite part of the team (even if he wouldn’t win any popularity awards) which was great to see happen. The kid is a bit of a head case which effects his playing. Quote:
KS Ichiro Award Presentation Just like his namesake he might not hit home runs, but he certainly got on base a lot with some great speed. To KS we give the Ichiro Award My Eval I still don’t know how he got on base as much as he did. This kid saw perhaps the greatest improvement in his hitting mechanics on our team and they were still terrible. But he ran hard every play. Was a real struggle on where to place in the field as he lacked good skills in throwing, catching, or fielding groundballs or flyballs. I chuckle that he got so much time at firstbase considering he can’t catch the ball, but instead I was deceived because he never really missed a throw either, instead he’d get his glove on it and not really catch it. Gotta love the hustle though. Quote:
JS Love of the Game Award (Steve just in case you forgot) Presentation Baseball is a fun game and this kid was always enjoyed playing baseball. To JS we give the Love of the Game Award My Eval His bat came alive towards the end of the season, which was good to see. He certainly was a gamer, though his emotions could get the better of him. I hope the poor kid grows some as he will likely continue to suffer with what he (and his parents) perceive his skill to be and what the skill actually is, especially in terms of pitching. Quote:
EG Most Improved Award Presentation I don’t remember what Steve said but it focused on his improved fielding My Eval His batting never came alive, despite seeing flashes of great potential. If we would have had another month, he easily could have been an all star, as I am sure his batting would finally have started to click again, just as his fielding did. Heck with more time he could have even been a usable pitcher, who knows. Frankly, more could have been done, but soccer was his priority so considering the situation we had, I feel pretty good about what we accomplished. Quote:
BS1 Team Spirit Award Presentation Steve and I always stress how important the idea of a team is and there was always one guy who could be counted on to be out there encouraging his team mates. A guy who would start a cheer on the bench. Or who would say his now famous words “C’mon, why isn’t anyone talking to the pitcher?” To BS1 we give the Team Spirit Award My Eval BS1 turned into an above average player for us. I was very pleased at where his pitching ended up, after a lot of hard work. He was a guy we could plug comfortably into any position and he would do a good job. Perhaps our best player mentally as I can’t think of him ever making more then an insignificant lapse in the field, at bat, or on the basepaths. As I said before he told us it was his best season, so I’m happy to have been a part of it. Quote:
ES Mark Burhle Award PresentationEvery team needs to have a jokester and ES certainly was ours. To ES we give the Mark Burhle Award[/b] I piped in here and said “And he was a darn good pitcher too My Eval This kid will be one of the stars of the league next year. He did a lot of innings for us behind the plate as well. After a great start his hitting went into a bit of a slump. His pitching was great stuff even if the numbers didn’t always show it. His decision making in the field could be suspect which is the only weakness in this five tool player. Quote:
PW Cal Ripken Award Presentation There was only one player who was there for every minute of every game and every practice. This was a player who did everything we asked of him without complaint. Even when feel sick and injured, he gutted through to play for us in the first game of the playoffs. To PW we give the Cal Ripken Award. My Eval We loved PW. Another gamer. I wish we had known how good of a catcher he was earlier on. This is another kid who should do very well for any team he’s on next year. Quote:
JM Carelton Fisk Award Presentation Something about how he was a great hitter and a terrific catcher. My Eval What a kid. A great hitter. One of the best catchers in the league. Not a whole lot to say, but he was one of our favorites this year. Quote:
TG Roger Clemens Award Presentation Statistically this was our best pitcher we’ve had in the two years we’ve done this. This was someone who was averaging 2 strike outs an inning. Here’s someone who I was glad was on our team. To TG we give the Roger Clemens Award My Eval I wish he hadn’t gotten into such a batting slump. His father is an interesting character. I’m glad we didn’t play on that Saturday as I now have a very good final memory of him rather then a bitter one. Hopefully one day he won’t put so much pressure on himself, but there’s no doubt that this kid can play. Quote:
After the awards ceremony the parents presented Steve and I with a gift card to Lettuce Entertain You restaurants, a group of restaurants that all different but nicer, and a Starbucks card. It was really nice of them. And with that people went on their way. We got several more thank yous, but the season was over. So I think there are two more posts left to write about, with the next one being some post season drama. |
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07-07-2006, 07:11 AM
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#87 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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I didn't get the chance to reply to the season end cause something came up just as I finished reading it..
Anyway, this has been a great write-up and I hope you do it again next year... And I'm anxious for the drama  .
__________________
Text Sports Network - Bringing you statistical information for several FOF MP leagues in one convenient site Quote:
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07-11-2006, 04:53 PM
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#88 |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Troy, NY
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Update? Very much looking forward to the drama.
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Quis custodiets ipsos custodes? |
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07-24-2006, 08:03 PM
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#89 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Long overdue update should be up tomorrow. I wrote must of it up today, but didn't quite get done with it. I appreciate the patience. The last post should either be up tomorrow or by the end of the week, I promise.
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07-25-2006, 11:04 PM
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#90 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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So when we last left the narrative I am slinking away from the field, feeling, well, defeated. We have given out the awards, which I know were meaningful for the team, something I’m not sure I was fully able to convey here.
The good news is that Steve has committed to doing this again next year. And so I start thinking about next year. So on Monday morning, first thing I do is send off an email to Libby. In this email I do two things. First, I suggest a schedule of practices and games that is somewhat between last season’s all games and this season’s 2 and 1. The schedule I suggest is: Week 1 - Practices (Like this year) Weeks 2-5 Two games and one practice (Like this year) Weeks 6-9 Switch to practicing once every other week (Creating two extra games) Week 10 - Games Week 11 - Playoffs The idea being that additionally in Weeks 10 or 11 there could be a rain makeup day as well. This schedule would actually create 3 extra games as it would eliminate a second practice that came in Week 2. Further the idea of doing a rain make up day in Week 10 or 11, and if there are no rainouts using that as a practice day instead, seems like something that would be nice. We had more rainouts this year then last, but it seems like acknowledging that games will be canceled in the schedule seems like a wise move. Now while that’s the bulk of the email, the second line (after thanking her for her work) read “As an FYI, I am planning on sending letters to the Park District Commissioners, which while touching on a couple of other areas, is focused on the idea of keeping kids from the same grade together for the two years they are in Triple A, Majors, or Pony" Now, I’m not sure if I had mentioned this before, or not, but Libby has an “auto response” which sends you an email saying that she got your email and will get back to you with-in 24 hours. If you recall she basically ignored several emails from Steve and I so that was a complete joke. However, out of courtesy, I did wait 24 hours before sending off my letter to the Park District Commissioners, with a CC to the Executive Director of the Park District. That email reads as follows: Quote:
Now if you remember, this email came about because of a conversation I had [url=http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showpost.php?p=1135436&postcount=62]one night[/color] with Kevin, a park district employee. He had told me about the idea of keeping kids on the same team, I liked it, and he told me it was the Park District Commissioners who vetoed the idea. Now I didn’t really know what to expect after sending this letter. I am very familiar with how a local school district operates, and letters such as mine are generally sent to the circular file. I sent this letter at around 7:30 AM, before I left for work. By 12 o’clock I had received 3 replies. By 4:30, 4 of the 5 Commissioners, plus the Executive Director, had sent me replied. What was interesting was that the Commissioners, in a 900+ word letter I spent 56 words on lack of response from Libby which so irked me and Steve. But yet that was the point that all of the board members latched onto in their responses. It was very interesting. Of the responses, I liked the Executive Director’s the best as he was the only one to address the letter in a holistic sense. He promised that he would get back to me soon with a longer reply and that the email would be passed on to the staff. Overall I am quite pleased with the response I’m getting. And then I get the phone call. I’m driving in my car so I don’t see the caller id before picking it up and so I am a little surprised when I hear the voice of Libby’s boss, Michael. The email has been forwarded to him and he would like to have a meeting along with “Dave”. I have no clue who “Dave” is so I ask Michael and he asks someone what Dave’s title is before telling me that he doesn’t know Dave’s title but Dave is his boss. OOOOOOOOK then. So thinking this over, I ponder what this meeting is going to be. I feel confident heading into it, but have no clue what they’re going after. Someone suggests that perhaps they’re building up a case against Libby to try and fire her. That thought makes me uncomfortable. Someone else suggests that they’re going to be very annoyed with me. I partially think this too, and so I print out all the correspondence Steve and I had with Libby this year and focus on what I feel the strongest points of the proposed system of keeping teams together are. The day of the meeting comes. I go to the Park District Head Quarters not really knowing what to expect. When I get to the center no one really knows where Dave is, and since Michael’s office is in a different building, it’s very unclear where the meeting is. So I sort of loiter around in the sports wing hoping it’s the right place to be. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal as I would just whip out my phone and play some Tetris, but my phone’s battery is nearly dead and I don’t want to risk it dying on me. A few minutes after the time we were supposed to meet, Michael comes out and escorts me into a conference room. It’s the moment of truth. Dave, will be joining us shortly, but Michael kicks off the meeting without him. I can see in front of him a little sheet with Pro and Con written and things written beneath it. Sure enough he kicks off the meeting discussing the idea of keeping kids on the same team. I can tell right off the bat that he’s not going for it. Now mind you, this means I was a bit misled as I was informed by Kevin that the staff was behind it but it was the commissioners who put the kibosh on it. Now either Michael is worn down or he’s not my greatest fan. I’m choosing option B. However, a few minutes into the meeting, Dave comes in and the whole tenor changes. When it was just Michael and I it was polite but there wasn’t any real excitement. Dave makes it clear right off the bat that he was just blown away by the fact that Steve and I volunteer our time. While Michael was just talking about the idea because he had to, Dave was more interested in discussing the idea. And in the end their opinion didn’t change. Their essential argument was this: it would cause nearly as many problems as it would create. What I failed to take into account in my initial email was pushy parents. Basically their argument was that if a team was bad in the first year, they would demand to have their child moved in the second year. And if they didn’t like the coach they would demand to be moved in the second year. This being the city that it is, the Park District would basically have to accede to the request, as well. They also said, at first, that it wouldn’t make for “fairer” teams in terms of talent allocation, but I think I won them over on that point. While most of the meeting was spent on the idea of keeping the players on the same team, we did touch the area of communication. Basically Michael said that he wished he had been made aware of the issue. In retrospect I wish we had done this and conceded that this was a fair point and agreed to do this in the future. The reason we didn’t is the comments we’ve heard about Michael not really caring about the things that go on. However, that’s not really an excuse and was a definite mistake on our part. However, this was not a huge focus of the meeting, which is just as well. What was a big focus was the main thrust of my letter, and Dave’s love fest for me and Steve. So in the end, the meeting didn’t accomplish what I had hoped. Sure they claim that they would discuss it again in the spring, but I don’t really think that they’ll do anything. But I’m very happy with it anyway. Very happy. First, regardless of how they put together the teams for next year, I have a feeling that Steve and I will not have a crappy team. Frankly, though, that’s the least of it. My biggest problem this season was feeling marginalized. Perhaps, this wasn’t entirely fair as Libby was more dropping the ball universally. But from the start of the season when up until 10 days before the first practice, Steve and I weren’t even sure if we were going to have a team to a coach, to the way Libby ignored us all season, to the fact that we couldn’t get the same weather updates and mailings, was all very frustrating. And I think that this whole affair will ensure that Steve and I won’t be casually pushed aside. Short of some kind of major safety issue, I also can’t see the need to ever contact the board again, which is a good thing. And so thus ended the little post season excitement (a better word then drama). In my wrap up post I am going to take a sort of look at the season as a whole and judging my own performance. Thanks for the patience you’ve had, both in general, and for reading through this post. |
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07-26-2006, 06:59 AM
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#91 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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Fun drama.... I hope you do the dynasty again next year!
__________________
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07-26-2006, 10:11 PM
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#92 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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So I’ve given a wrap-up for the players, for the league, and now it’s time to turn inward. I am going to mostly talk about me here and pretty much ignore Steve. This isn’t to demean his contributions, or to suggest he was perfect or awful, but mostly because I feel like I am in no position to evaluate my co-coach. So if I use I or me, I’m talking exclusively about me, and if I use we or our, I’m talking about the collective effort of me and Steve.
Looking back on the season, I’m not really sure what to think. I admit that I feel a certain amount of insecurity about my baseball coaching skills. And so the fact that we lost so much? That didn’t help. There are certain aspects of my performance that I’m very pleased about. I’ve played on winning teams, but I’ve played on more losing teams then winning teams. And I’ve seen a team give up and stop caring. And I’ve seen teams that continued to fight all the way despite losing. So I’m proud of the way our team played this season. Considering that this was a bunch of 9-12 year olds they very clearly could have given up and packed it in. Now, I won’t lie. After that Red Sox playoff game I know several players did pack it in. And there were bits of defeatism at other points in the season. However, with the time off by the time Sunday came around they were ready to fight again. And I know Steve and I deserve credit for that. Further, I know that we made a difference, at least for a time, in the lives of several of our players: AK, BS1, and TG. Before this week I wouldn’t have put TG on that list, but he happened to be riding his bike by my house as I was reading and so he stopped and talked. And in his own way, simply because this kid will never be a fountain of emotions, it was clear that TG had a lot of respect for me. So that was cool. AK and BS1 I’ve talked about before. You hear a common refrain in teaching how they hope to really just impact one kid and that’s good enough. Well that’s never been good enough for me. However, I do give us credit for the way we handled the social aspect of the team. But then again, what we did is my minimum expectation. I don’t know how to write this without sounding like a braggart, but it’s important in understanding where I’m coming from here. I have been told by many people who have years of experience in the area that I have a “gift” for dealing with kids. I think I often get more credit then I deserve, but it does mean that I have a certain expectation for my performance in this area. So, I would say that I all I did was meet those expectations. Also in the plus column is our devotion to fairness. We are scrupulous about following the rules and even go above and beyond them during the regular season, for the most part. This sort of dovetails with the point above, but I feel good about how we conducted ourselves. Even in games with unexpected no shows, I worked hard to follow the rules, and our unofficial rules, to the letter and always succeeded. This is very important to me and so again I have a very high minimum expectation and I feel like that was met, though not really exceeded. On the field managing, I feel once again got stronger as the season went on. I haven’t grown as much here as I’d like, simply because I’ve had no one to push me here or to learn from, as this simply isn’t one of Steve’s strengths. I still have a bit to go to reach the level of where I want to be, but give me a passing grade for the area. I’m continuing to make progress, simply not at the rate at which I’d like. But that brings me to the area of player development. And this is where I just don’t know what to say. I simply don’t have the experience or background to say how good of a job I did. And so looking at the results it would suggest that I did none too hot. Of course, the team was bad to start with, so maybe Steve and I just got bum luck this year. All I have to compare is our team last year and our team this year. And looking at the base talent of the two years we’re not even in the same ballpark. The team I had last year was more gifted then this year’s team. But that still doesn’t let me off the hook. And that’s because we didn’t have a player “breakout” this year. Last year there were a couple who made significant and noticeable strides in all parts of play. And we simply didn’t have that this year. And so I can’t help but think that perhaps the extra coach last year was the difference. I mean I know this guy was a great hitting coach and so perhaps holding myself to that standard isn’t fair. But it’s the only comparison I have to make. The two areas where we really focused our energies this year were fielding and pitching. In fielding, there is no doubt that we got significantly better as the season went on. However, all teams get better. So, did we make more progress then the average team? I just don’t know. I do know that we didn’t do enough with hitting this year. I have some ideas of things we can do better next year. For instance, we should be doing soft toss before every game. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the game for which we did soft toss beforehand was also the game we played the best. As for pitching? Well, I think I did an OK job here. Was I great? No. But I don’t think I gave “bad” coaching to any of our players though again I wonder how much help I really was. But, I “first do no harm” is a pretty good philosophy for a coach in a house league environment and on that level I guess I was fine as a pitching coach. What this all means is that I am going to continue to seek ways to improve myself. I did a lot of self study and work to be a better coach this year then last year and I will continue to try and find opportunities to improve myself. I just found a website which offers online courses in coaching youth baseball and I plan on completing that. I don’t know how worthwhile it’ll be, but they also certify coaches for high school coaching (though not online) so I figure it’ll be worth the time and money. If I find other ways to improve my skills I’ll do it as well and hopefully it’ll be enough. All of this introspection does obscure something important. I do this to have fun. And while all the losing was VERY rough on me, I did have fun. The kids I was working with mostly had fun as well. And so on those levels? This season was an unqualified success. Except for all the qualifications listed above And with that I finish this dynasty. I really appreciate each and every person who took the time to read this all. It was a very worthwhile experience for me and hopefully you enjoyed it as well. Thanks again. |
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07-27-2006, 04:07 AM
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#93 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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It may have been a heartbreaking way to end the season, but from what I've read here, you did a fine job with this team.
There will always be things that you believe you could've done better in hindsight and occasional doubts about one's own coaching and player development abilities is something that afflicts every youth coach, I think. I know for darned sure I felt it when I coached soccer. You may think your player development wasn't as good this season as last, but I would argue differently. There may not have been a breakout player, but several players showing significant improvement shows that you're better at developing than you yourself realize. I also believe that impacting the lives of your players in a positive way as you've described is a key attribute. At this level of play, it's not just about the skill development, the statistics, the record, etc. It's about developing confidence in your players and teaching them life lessons, sometimes without your being aware of it until years later. I think on that score you've done admirably. That you're looking to improve yourself attests to your potential. Having the drive to become better will only make you an even greater coach as the years go by. So continue to strive for higher goals. In the meantime though, enjoy the memories of the season and know that at least from one youth coach to another, even if our sports are different, that you had a splendid season all-in-all and you should be as proud of yourself as you are the kids.
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2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) |
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10-28-2006, 07:07 PM
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#94 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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An update of sorts:
I ran into AK at the library today, when I was working. And it just made me sad. First because he so clearly wanted to talk but didn't really know how, so he would find little reasons to come up to the desk to talk. The simple intricacies of a conversation were beyond him. Also making me sad was the fact that this kid is seriously depressed. I mean there was just so little life to him. He was never exactly a ball of energy, but there was absolutely no spark of happiness or enjoyment about him. And it was clear, as I knew at the time, that the connection Steve and I had made was important. I found this out because one of the times he came up to the desk he and I talked about the restaurant we had gone to on Picture Day/Playoffs being rained out day. He asked me if I ever went there any more and I said I did, not really understanding where he was going with it. Then I understood when he said, "How come I never see you there?" I feel bad for him. As long as I am providing an update I'll give a TG update too which is far funnier. We offer this service called tutor.com and did a raffle one month to encourage people to use it. One of the winners was TG. When I called to speak to TG, he absolutely would not and could not believe he'd really won something. He kept suggesting that I was lying to him or pulling his leg. He only believed me when I said, "You're right TG. I went to the effort of calling you up, in October, to tell you that you'd won a prize you hadn't really won." Anyhow, thought that those of you who had followed along here might enjoy the vignettes on a couple of players. |
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01-19-2007, 04:13 PM
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#95 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Since October, when I saw her at the Basketball meeting, it seems as though Libby has been replaced at the Park District. Hopefully the baseball season will be less bush league this year. Libby's replacement is Kevin, who was the field supervisor the last couple of years and whom I have a particularly good relationship with. While this doesn't state whether he's organized, it does mean that I likely won't feel double crossed like I did with Libby.
Last edited by Barkeep49 : 01-19-2007 at 04:15 PM. |
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