Before shifting gears completely to football, there is the matter of fall ball of course. Yes, we are signed up for 8 more weeks of baseball, this time at a different location… this time, I’m the head coach. Let’s do this!
I was pumped up for it… that was before my first practice. It’s a 10U league, and we still have kids that have never played baseball before. Don’t get me wrong; I love teaching kids to play baseball. This is why I loved coaching my son when he was 5, 6, 7 years old. I guess I figured by this time, kids would have some experience, but… maybe “fall ball” presents a smaller time and money commitment which opens the door for more newbies. It’s just an adjustment of my expectations, that’s all… says the voice in my left ear. Meanwhile, the voice in my right ear says “what did I get myself into?”
The cool thing is that I will have 3 assistant coaches, which will help dramatically with practices; our first one was Friday. It was nice to be able to split up infield vs outfield, pitchers and catchers, while still getting everybody some swings all within 90 minutes; oh yeah, and we passed out jerseys and hats… not too bad. Speaking about pitchers and catchers… it’s a good news, bad news type thing. We have a handful of solid pitchers, which is really important at this age; that’s the good news. The bad news is that we have zero catchers. Now I’m hoping the couple kids that were out of town like to catch; that would be awesome. If not, we will have to figure something out. We had one volunteer already, which was a good thing.
The hitting was a challenge for some of the kids; my hope is that all of them will be able to make contact by the end of this shortened season. That’s one of the biggest things. When I asked my kids what was the most important thing, I received answers of “have fun” and “win” (of course my son was one of the kids who said win… haha). Have fun is definitely at the top of the list, along with getting better. Regardless of what level each kid is on today, in 8 weeks, the hope is, that each and every one of them will be better. The whole winning thing is a product of the first two items… winning is definitely a part of having fun, and will come as every player on our team improves… I hope it comes.
The last time I coached, it was my son’s first time in the 7-9 league. After dominating the 5-6 league, he and most of his teammates were on the other side of things that year; we went winless. The kids did have fun though, and they did get better, but… those wins never came; hey, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad! I was primed to get those Ws the following year, but then COVID hit… Now, 3 years later, I will continue the search for that third goal… getting a W. First game Sunday.
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