Boys of Summer, Part II...

As some of you know, last summer I helped coach a Little League team in the local area to see what it was like. Helping coach youth baseball was something I've always wanted to try, and I had a blast. So this year, I decided to give it another go.

Once again, I went in with one of my coworkers to help coach his cousin's kid's team. He thought it would be fun to follow this group of boys up the chain from First Pitch to high school and watch them improve. So this year, we would be coaching the "Minors" League, the second year in which the kids pitch to each other.

In the First Pitch League, the coaches pitch the first three innings and then the kids pitch the last three. But this year, in the Minors League, the kids pitch the entire game. Of course, since they still have trouble throwing strikes sometimes, teams are limited to five runs per inning.

At this age, most of the kids are still learning the basics of how to catch and throw. And many of them are still learning the rules like force outs and tagging up. In just about every game, there is always something that happens that you don't expect.

It was a lot of fun teaching the kids the game of baseball this summer. But, unfortunately, they did not win a lot of games. When you don't win often, the kids start to lose their interest in the game. We had to get on them a few times about that. But I guess that towards the end of the hot summer season, nearly all of them were ready for the off-season.

This summer, I kind of fell into my groove as our pitching coach. I pitched a bit in Little League and high school, and I am a big student of pitching in general. So I tried to help the kids with their pitching skills. I think some of them made a lot of progress, though I wish we had more time for practices. There just isn't enough time during the games to work with them.

I had another unique opportunity late in the season. When our scheduled umpire didn't show up one game, I volunteered to umpire in a pinch. I stood behind the mound and called balls and strikes and I tried to call all the base plays as well. Let me just say that it's not easy umpiring a game by yourself! It was pretty hard to call balls and strikes from behind the mound. I'm sure that I missed some calls, and I know that I called a few high strikes in particular. But I tried to be as fair as I could. And it's difficult to call balls and strikes consistently when these young boys can't yet control their pitches very well. I made it through the game with only a few heckles, so I think I did ok.

In all, they were a good group of boys and I had a fun time getting to know them. We had a few funny stories from this season that I'll always carry with me. One in particular that I'd like to share. The coaching staff always told the boys that we don't get mad if they swing and strike out, but we don't want to see them strike out looking. So after one of the boys took a called third strike, the head coach asked him when he got back to the dugout why he didn't swing. The boy looked at the coach and said in all seriousness, "He just froze me Coach, I was afraid he was going to throw me the forkball."

Ahhh... I love it!