Fields of Screams: 2017 youth baseball/softball thread

Maybe I won't worry that much about whether the catcher can throw to second.

 

Called her in the room and her spirits seem to be pretty good. Asked when we can start working on the drills she learned last month and she chuckled.

She loves cats and has been begging to get one but her mom is allergic so I called the gift shop and had a stuffed cat sent up to her room. She loved it.

Now, if I can only get her favorite band, twenty one pilots, to send out a tweet of encouragement or something ... (yes, I'm working on it).

 

Minimum 5 weeks (Monday thru Friday) of radiation and she has to stay in Boston the entire time. Crushing.

 

In matters somewhat less serious than life and death, the StarrKats opened the fall ball season Wednesday with a thudding doubleheader defeat, and one thing I can tell you is, it's going to be a wild season. We have five more doubleheaders in the next 20 days, then we're done.

From the events of day one, that will be just long -- and short -- enough.

There's a lot of off-field bullshit going on, to which I will probably refer in due time, and explain with hopefully decent brevity.

Anyway, we meet for the game, and we have 13 players in uniform, with three absentees, which we had known about in advance (including Twin A and ace pitcher Aliciana from the PowerKats).

On the way to the game I get an email from a Kacee Kats' team dad, Joby, who I have never really met before, offering to help base coach. Fine. All the help we can get.

Co-coach League Prez Larry had assured me we were fine on pitching, because we had his daughter, Stevie, who he said had been "dominant" during the Kaceee Kats' 14-3 season. She was good enough, he assured me, that she should have been up on the 14U team, where, he assured me, she would have been the top pitcher. OK, fine, sounds good.

We also had Marlia, the No. 3 pitcher from the Kats; Larry said she had gone "about .500." OK. From my own PowerCats, I had No. 2 pitcher Alyanna, who started disastrously but by the end of the season was doing decently. So between the three of them I figured we'd be fine or better than fine.

First inning is a snap, three ground balls, 1-2-3. But then in the second, Stevie goes off the rails, walking eight, giving up a 6-run max inning.

We can't hit a thing and get blanked. Stevie comes back in the third and gets lit up for another half dozen walks and another max inning. We're down 12-0.

OK, well, shit happens. I've been there before, I'm sure I'll be there again. "She hasn't been able to practice for two weeks," Larry mutters. Well, OK, whatever. This is Fall Ball, supposed to be lower pressure, etc etc.

Parents along the foul lines in folding chairs are getting pissed. Somebody snarks out behind my back, "On OUR team, we weren't used to losing games." Four or five Kacee Kat parents are free to offer extensive, and specific, coaching tips to players (not limited to their own kids).

Fourth inning, here we go again. Four more walks, bases loaded, a run in. Larry says, "Wanna pull her?" and I say, "we don't really have a lot of pitching alternatives." I don't want to burn up Alyanna's innings in a blowout loss, so I say, "let's see if she can finish this inning." Stevie gives up another run, then tells dad she wants to come out. OK, Alyanna goes in, allows a couple more runs to score, then gets out of the inning. A half inning later, the mercy rule kicks in and we lose 16-0.

As we start gathering for between games pizza, Coach Joby says to me, "I want to say something to the team." OK, I think, probably something like, "well, we got that out of our systems, let's play better." He calls the team over into left field behind third base.

HOLY SHIT!! He launches into a fucking Bobby Knight manifesto. "I saw no hustle out there, no execution, no pride!! No focus!! I saw people laughing after errors!! I saw dropped throws, missed catches!!"

Yes yes yes, you saw all that and I saw it too. As a matter of fact, I saw it all season, in games we won and games we lost. Keep in mind that half the players on the team (the half from the PowerKats) have never seen this guy before, they don't know him from a hole in the wall, and he's here delivering a big time bitch job. Who the fuck is he to be bitching them out?

He continues on for a few more minutes and one of the players, from the Kacee Kats thank god, giggles at something. Good god almighty, "So you think this is funny? Maybe it won't be so funny if you're all running laps."

All right, that's it. Nobody on my teams runs laps. Ever. That has been an ironclad rule in 30-plus years I have coached. If I want my teams to run, and at times I will, it will be in the process of doing something else, something skills-related: baserunning or outfield drills. Nobody on my team runs laps. Ever. And according to the official league registration sheet, *I* am the official head coach of the team.

I say, "All right, thank you coach. I think we all agree we need to play better. Let's go over and have pizza." Coach Joby is still smoldering as we walk to the dugout.

"Look dude, this whole fall ball season lasts 22 days, we have players coming and going every game. You wanna call a practice, guess what? Good fuckin' luck. With vacations and whatnot, we'd be lucky to get four people to show up for a practice. These kids don't have to be here and their parents don't either. You come at 'em with this balls-to-the walls Bobby Knight bullshit, they're gonna say 'fuck it' and go home."

With Joby off chewing down a piece of pizza in his car, the between games pizza break is loose, and we open game 2 with a 6-run max inning of our own. Alyanna does OK in three innings and she leaves with a 9-4 lead. Marlia of the Kacee Kats comes in and gives up a max inning, and we're down 10-9. We score a couple runs for an 11-9 lead and League Prez Larry wants to put Stevie back in for the "save opportunity."

Back to the same old shit, another 6-run inning, and now we're down 16-9. No lights at this field, and it's getting dark, and that's the final.

A couple Kacee Kats parents are snorting, "We're not used to losing mercy games."
I resist the urge to respond that 98% of the reason we lost was the alleged ace pitchers of the Kacee Kats got torched to the moon.

We'll see what happens Monday, when MY ace pitcher, Aliciana, is back.

 

Well, I got sidetracked on a few other things, and fell three doubleheaders behind on my diary installments, so I'll try to catch up in decently condensed capsule form.

OK, Monday arrived and Aliciana was back. We went up to Hawktown to play the Hawks, from various reports a summer travel team "slumming" by playing the fall-ball season in our rec league.

I start Stevie in Game 1 and again she gets racked. We fall way way behind, 14-1, and I decide to hold Aliciana off for Game 2. Again I bring in Alyanna and she is, actually, somewhat better. We end up getting ass-kicked 19-2. A lot more huffing and puffing from Kacee Kats parents about how they're not used to losing, etc etc.

In Game 2, I start Alyanna figuring she can go an inning or two, then I'll bring in Aliciana. Alyanna gives up two in the first inning. In the second, she gets drilled on the wrist by a smoking line drive, so she has to come out.

Aliciana is in and now SHE'S getting hit. Three innings go by and we're down 11-6. It's starting to get dark and League Prez Larry says "Let's bring in Stevie, shut em down, maybe we can get back in the game."

Great plan except for Stevie promptly gives up seven runs. We lose 18-6.

More later. It's late and I'm tired. Things did get interesting (last) Wednesday morning with an attempted coaching coup.

Which was dispatched with Starman Justice.

There is, eventually, a happy -- or at least happier -- ending.

A week later, everybody thinks I'm a genius.

 

OK, Back up in Hawkville, after Alyanna got smoked by the line drive, I took her out and put an ice bag on her wrist. That left us with 8 players in the lineup, and technically according to the rules we were supposed to take an automatic out when her slot in the order came up. That was fine with me, we were already getting ass kicked, I didn't care. The other team magnanimously offered to just skip her spot in the order, so I said OK.

She sat for an hour, two or three innings, then she was on the bench with no ice pack on, and I said, "how does it feel," and she said, "sore, but not that bad."

I checked with her mom, who said ok, so we sent her out to right field, giving us 9 on defense. She got a nice hand from the crowd. So that little road trip was over.

 

Drove to Boston on Tuesday to spend time with my pitcher. She has to stay there for radiation zaps, which will buy her 13 to 17 months. The unsuccessful surgery also numbed her somewhat on the left side so now she hobbles with a limp. But she's fighting so hard. So is her mom. I wish I could stay down there with them till the zaps are over.