May 26, 2019: Levels

There’s still not enough time. At least with baseball, we get a practice day; that’s more than I can say for the other sports. Yet, there’s not enough practice time; there’s levels to this stuff you know?

Even though it is a 7-9 league, there are still kids who are beginners; they haven’t been playing for the last couple years. For some of them, this is the first time they’ve played baseball. Being a couple years older, they definitely listen better. Still, it takes time, it takes practice to get decent…even more of both to get good. You start with the basics: playing catch. This is the most important skill to learn. We progress into ground balls, although that really could be considered the first level. I’m glad to say we look pretty good in that area; the whole team can catch grounders. I just don’t know how fast they’ll be coming in real live action. As far as catching a thrown ball, we’ve got work to do. Half the battle is throwing it accurately; ditto for that area. I’m not even worrying about pop ups…

Base running sounds easy enough. In the last couple years, we only had to worry about going station to station. This year, we can go multi bases; we also need to learn how to run through first base. Getting to first base is more important than any other base; without it, we don’t get to touch any others. We’re going to have to be fast too. With most of our hits on the ground, we’re going to have to keep the pressure on the defense by hustling out every grounder. Too much thinking at this level?

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Well, let’s move on to hitting. Making contact during coach pitch is the appetizer. Making contact, knowing when not to swing during kids pitch, that’s anybody’s guess. We did both this last practice. I have to see which of my kids will be able to get the ball over the plate; like I said, not enough time. There’s that whole other part of the battery; not one kid has been in catching equipment yet. Nice thing is, when I brought it up at the end of practice, many kids were interested; that’s promising.

The new lesson of the day was force outs. You see, there are many levels of strategy, basic and advanced. This would fall into the basic category; we’ll have to cover off on these. Getting a force out will save us a lot on defense. Making that throw across the infield in time is a risky proposition; stepping on 2nd or 3rd, much more likely to happen in time. We practiced with runners on 1st and 2nd; but what about all the other possibilities. More practice…and in game coaching of course.

Yet the most important lesson of all, what I have been preaching since day one, and all through every single practice, is to keep your eye on the ball. The last thing I want to see is a kid get hurt out there. Again, don’t know how fast the ball will be coming out there, but we need to be prepared. It all starts next Saturday. We’ll be as ready as we can.