Little League 2006
Our Little League season finally got underway after getting rained out for the entire month of March. Emmett's in Triple-A this year, which is a step up and another adjustment for him. I got roped into coaching again, which I will definitely not be doing next year. I do enjoy it, but it's a huge time commitment (particularly adding on to my commute since I have all these extra days I have to travel to the East Bay for games and practices). Also, Triple-A is advanced enough that you don't get the same upward curve in coaching you get with the younger kids. There's less opportunity to guide a player from gormless to great. They all have a notion how to play by now.
Emmett and his best friend, Preston, are the youngest guys on the team at age 9. The oldest is Joaquin who is 12. This is a huge difference in age to wrangle. Most of the kids are 10-11. Actually the best player on the team (perhaps the best in the league), Reed, is also 9 - though he's about to turn 10. Two weeks ago he hit a homerun at South Field - something no 9 y.o. had ever done before in the 40 odd years of Little League in Albany. Last week he hit back to back homeruns. Centerfield fence is about 200 feet away, so these are massive shots and really impressive at this level.
We have two players from our team last year on the Mets this year. Nathan and Albert. Nathan's a skinny little multi-skilled speedster. Maybe the fastest kid in Triple-A. Albert's a big, strong, easy going, easy-to-coach, slow slugger.
Emmett's gotten off to a slow start again this year, particularly with pitching. His first outing was his worst ever and he kept throwing pitch after pitch into the dirt. We'd spent most of the rainy month of March doing pitching sessions, so this was unexpected. It's not the physical act of throwing the ball - it's that he has to relearn how to pitch on a mound, in a game, pressure situation. It's about maintaining composure, breathing between pitches, pulling yourself together after a bad call, fighting back to find the strike zone.
Pitching's hard. Last year at Double-A they still had coach-pitch when the kid pitchers went to four balls. I wound up doing most of coach pitching last year and there were excruciating periods where I couldn't find the strike zone. Put me on a field warming up and I could throw a strike 95% of the time. In a game? Oy, the veil of self-consciousness comes down and your body and mind are at war.
Anyway, Emmett's gotten a bit better in his last couple outings, though nowhere near where he was a the end of last season or during the tournament season.
Emmett's been the leadoff hitter. First game he had two hits and two walks, scored four times. Then he got very passive at the plate - which was okay because he was getting a lot of walks. But then he started watching too many strikes go by and was striking out. Very unusual for him since he's really a contact hitter. Finally in the last game he took a more aggressive approach and drilled a pretty single into center.
It's almost like relearning the game for him every season. There are the physical skills, and then there's learning how to manage them in a game situaition.
On the plus side, the manager, Eliott and the other coach Chris (Reed's dad) both love Emmett as the catcher. He's very active back there and aggressive about stopping the opposing baserunners. At this level there's not much limit on the stealing, so if your catcher can't keep the ball in front of himself, you're going to give up a ton of runs.
Our last game was a heartbreaker. We played the Rockies - who have five players from my Double-A Team The Angels, last year. Eli's gotten so much better. He's now a superior shortstop and hit two line drives over our centerfielder's head. Anyway, we were down. We fought back. Finally took the lead on Reed's two homeruns. Went into the last inning (6th) just needing 3 outs to close the game out. And then we gave up 17 runs. There are two slaughter rules at this level, but they don't apply in the last inning. 1) no more than five runs in an inning; 2) if one team is up by more than 10 runs after 4 innings the game is over. 17 runs. It was a nightmare.
It was very disheartening. Poor Nathan (a sensitive kid to start with) was on the mound and walked and walked and walked baserunners. Then he started serving up soft batting practice pitches that were crushed to all corners of the outfield. We finally pulled him and he kept it together until he got to the dugout and started crying. He was still down at our practice the next day too.
So our record is at 1-3. Two of those games we should've won, but had meltdown innings. Oh well, our team has talent and I think we'll get back on track. I think Emmett will be pitching at least an inning today so I hope he can get into his groove.
Emmett and his best friend, Preston, are the youngest guys on the team at age 9. The oldest is Joaquin who is 12. This is a huge difference in age to wrangle. Most of the kids are 10-11. Actually the best player on the team (perhaps the best in the league), Reed, is also 9 - though he's about to turn 10. Two weeks ago he hit a homerun at South Field - something no 9 y.o. had ever done before in the 40 odd years of Little League in Albany. Last week he hit back to back homeruns. Centerfield fence is about 200 feet away, so these are massive shots and really impressive at this level.
We have two players from our team last year on the Mets this year. Nathan and Albert. Nathan's a skinny little multi-skilled speedster. Maybe the fastest kid in Triple-A. Albert's a big, strong, easy going, easy-to-coach, slow slugger.
Emmett's gotten off to a slow start again this year, particularly with pitching. His first outing was his worst ever and he kept throwing pitch after pitch into the dirt. We'd spent most of the rainy month of March doing pitching sessions, so this was unexpected. It's not the physical act of throwing the ball - it's that he has to relearn how to pitch on a mound, in a game, pressure situation. It's about maintaining composure, breathing between pitches, pulling yourself together after a bad call, fighting back to find the strike zone.
Pitching's hard. Last year at Double-A they still had coach-pitch when the kid pitchers went to four balls. I wound up doing most of coach pitching last year and there were excruciating periods where I couldn't find the strike zone. Put me on a field warming up and I could throw a strike 95% of the time. In a game? Oy, the veil of self-consciousness comes down and your body and mind are at war.
Anyway, Emmett's gotten a bit better in his last couple outings, though nowhere near where he was a the end of last season or during the tournament season.
Emmett's been the leadoff hitter. First game he had two hits and two walks, scored four times. Then he got very passive at the plate - which was okay because he was getting a lot of walks. But then he started watching too many strikes go by and was striking out. Very unusual for him since he's really a contact hitter. Finally in the last game he took a more aggressive approach and drilled a pretty single into center.
It's almost like relearning the game for him every season. There are the physical skills, and then there's learning how to manage them in a game situaition.
On the plus side, the manager, Eliott and the other coach Chris (Reed's dad) both love Emmett as the catcher. He's very active back there and aggressive about stopping the opposing baserunners. At this level there's not much limit on the stealing, so if your catcher can't keep the ball in front of himself, you're going to give up a ton of runs.
Our last game was a heartbreaker. We played the Rockies - who have five players from my Double-A Team The Angels, last year. Eli's gotten so much better. He's now a superior shortstop and hit two line drives over our centerfielder's head. Anyway, we were down. We fought back. Finally took the lead on Reed's two homeruns. Went into the last inning (6th) just needing 3 outs to close the game out. And then we gave up 17 runs. There are two slaughter rules at this level, but they don't apply in the last inning. 1) no more than five runs in an inning; 2) if one team is up by more than 10 runs after 4 innings the game is over. 17 runs. It was a nightmare.
It was very disheartening. Poor Nathan (a sensitive kid to start with) was on the mound and walked and walked and walked baserunners. Then he started serving up soft batting practice pitches that were crushed to all corners of the outfield. We finally pulled him and he kept it together until he got to the dugout and started crying. He was still down at our practice the next day too.
So our record is at 1-3. Two of those games we should've won, but had meltdown innings. Oh well, our team has talent and I think we'll get back on track. I think Emmett will be pitching at least an inning today so I hope he can get into his groove.