Fields of Screams: 2017 youth baseball/softball thread

Did you have the infield in? If the SS was deep, runner should definitely score. Pretty cool to turn a DP like that.

 

More time limit shenanigans. First of all, the head coach of the previously discussed team notifying the ump of the time limit expiring even though the ump was willing to let them play pretty much admitted in casual conversation with me he thought it was a sportsmanship thing. We were the visitors and would obviously bat first in the inning so he thought we were getting an extra at bat. I read that to believe he didn't realize once the inning was started the whole inning had to be played meaning the home team would bat too. I told you he doesn't know what he's doing! Just ugh.

But two other time-limit situations with two teams this week, one with my oldest -- a 7th grade team -- and the other with previously mentioned team. Oldest is in a tight game, time limit approaching, home plate ump gives a 10-minute warning (first time I think I've seen one do that). We are the visitors. Hold off other team to cling to a 1-run lead. Still six or seven minutes left. Game over. Not much argument, although other team's score keeper visibly upset. I asked the ump after the game what is the damn rule with time limits. He said they aren't allowed to start an inning under 10 minutes left but admitted it is a stupid rule. Also, it's not consistently enforced so it just adds to the madness as you can tell. That's plenty of time to play another inning but whatever.

Then in my 4th grader's game last night they were beating the top team in the league. We are home team and there is no way, unless the other team gets three outs on three pitches, that we could start another inning. And that's not even considering the whole no inning under 10 minutes crap, which I am not even sure is really the rule. So we're going to win but the ump lets them start the last half although he said once time hits if it isn't going well for the visitors he's going to call it. I don't really understand that philosophy either. Play it or don't. We get a few hits, still probably three or four minutes to time, ump calls them off the field. Other team is dicey at best for sportsmanship anyway and I heard lots of comments. One parent said, we were going to get them and they ended the game 15 minutes early! Not even close to the case on the time, but it just shows all the mass confusion with this.

I really wish the league would figure out a way to make this clear. It's been two years of this nonsense and it's just made a lot of people mad.

 

Yeah, most of the time I play my infield up. They're that capable.

Lefty shortstop scooped the grounder and whipped it to first.

Runner on third broke a smidgen too late and my first baseman made a strong throw and my catcher caught it and turned and applied the tag to the sliding runner.

Bang-Bang and Awesome.

 

That said, other teams are defending us to bunt much better. Yesterday's catcher is a ... big girl but impressively agile. She got up on 2 bunts and threw both out.

Need to get my girls to bunt a little further out.

 

There is: If there's a time limit rule, make it a bright red-line standard.

"The umpire shall announce the time of first pitch immediately prior to the start of play.

No inning may begin more than 90 minutes following the official first pitch."

And leave it at that. No other editorial comments about 10-minute innings, etc etc.

Does that mean you can start an inning at 89:45? Yes.

Does that mean if you start an inning at 89:45 and both teams have 20-minute walkathon innings, you can still be playing at 129:00? Yes.

Does that mean maybe your league has to consider making the time limit a straight-up drop-dead time standard: "The game shall end at a time limitation of 90:00, regardless of score or batting situations. At 90:01, the umpire shall order the teams off the field; the final score at that moment will stand" ? Maybe.

But if so, maybe the league needs to reassess whether their main priority is to get the games played, or get them over with.

 

Their priority, I am almost certain, is to get games over with. I don't know if head coaches have complained, but it's driving me nuts. Seems like almost every game my oldest two are in have had some sort of time limit implication.

The league went under new leadership two years ago. Before that it was a flat 90 minute time limit and there was even one extra inning if tied. I can't remember one issue with that. New leadership, which overall runs the league much better, comes in and changes it to 80 minutes, which is too short for the older kids, and there is nothing but confusion. That ump that told me about the 10-minute warning? First time I had heard about it ever. There is just no standard. I am with you. If it is 80 minutes, it's 80 minutes. If an inning starts at 79:45 then it starts.

The other thing this league did with the new management is take games that were a standard 6 p.m. start across the board, one game per field, to mostly 5 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. double headers on a field. The only explanation for this in my my mind is they are saving a ton on field fees, more or less getting a bunch of two for ones. But it makes the time limit even more important because if that 5 p.m. game starts an inning at 6:18 and that inning takes half an hour they are already behind on game 2 and daylight also is an issue.

It's just a mess. There needs to be clear standardization. If there's a 10-minute warning then follow that across the board. If it's straight 80 minutes, make it you can start an inning any time before 80 minutes (also need to define when an inning starts because no one knows that either -- first pitch or team on the field).

Oldest son's game tonight started an inning with just minutes left, so no 10-minute warning there, and they were the home team and getting killed. It was the 6:45 game so it got over with little light left and it took probably an hour 45 total. And the league director was at the game. So who the heck knows. I don't know that the kids care other than many wanting to play as much as they can, but it definitely impacts games in ways it shouldn't. Not like no other leagues have time limits.

 

I'll get it together for a recap post for the PowerCats first four games later this morning, but we ran into time limit/ darkness problems Wednesday night. We were trailing a pretty weak team 14-2, we put on a rally, closed to 14-9, but got shut down by darkness.

I could see for about 3 innings we were running into darkness, so I was telling our kids, "hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, cut down on between innings warmups, get back in the batters box," etc etc, but we just ran out of time.

The other team seemed to be taking their sweet time. Every other throwback to the pitcher was dropped and had to be chased around the infield by 3 players. And at bat they were stepping out between each pitch.

I don't think they were doing it on purpose -- at this age all that stuff is normal -- but I was still muttering, "come on, come on, come on."

But I learned my lesson about starting Pitcher B (soon to be Pitcher C) in the second game. If you fall behind you may not have enough time/ innings to catch up.

 

Family drama -- and restraining orders -- 24 hours before the championship tournament. Joy.

 

We opened the tournament with a 13-9 win against the red team. Real dogfight with 6 lead changes before we scored 5 in top-5 to secure the win. We play 90 minute games till the championship.

This was a rematch of last year's title game when the red team beat us 18-5 -- the 6th time they beat us last year. We're 4-0 against them this year.

We were really shaky on defense in the first inning but settled in.

Next up at 2 o'clock is the team that has given us our only 2 losses. They saved their speed pitcher for us.

Whoever wins will be the top seed tomorrow.

More to come.

 

We lost the second game 8-7. It was intense to final pitch. It was also hot and humid.

We fell behind 6-0 and their speedy pitcher was dropping us like flies with strikeouts -- 8 out of the first 11 batters and 14 overall. She brought the sauce.

But we cut her in the 4th and she bled and we started to gain momentum, 6-3, then 6-4. Our defense made plays ... 3-year third baseman snagging a liner 2 inches off the ground ... first-year left-fielder snagging a liner in left ... lefty shortstop and second baseman and first baseman making the routine plays look simple. Catcher holding the fort. My 3-year pitcher fighting. They made plays too. It was an intense game.

Then they scored 2 in top-6 to make it 8-4. We had 9 minutes to make something happen in the bottom half. Our leadoff girl, a real slugger, whacked the shit out of the ball but their 4-foot-3 second baseman, dropped to a knee and snagged it. Serious hit. Serious catch. Very loud ovation by parents of both teams and at that point I thought we were cooked. But we worked the speedy girl, who was all but spent, and made things happen and got runners on base and created havoc on the basepaths and they threw it around and we pushed 3 across to make it 8-7.

Only a minute or so remained. Two outs. We put runners at second and third. Racing racing racing against the clock. I told every batter to swing at the first pitch if it was anywhere close to the plate. Speed pitcher struck out my deer hunter. Their catcher couldn't handle strike 3. My deer hunter broke for first. Their catcher broke for the ball. The game ended on a bang-bang play -- out by half a cleat -- or else we would have tied it. It was an intense finish to an intense game.

So they're the top seed. We're the 2-seed and play the 3-seed, which we've beaten 4 times this year.

One more win against them pushes us into the championship for the second year in a row. We're 9-3.

 

OK, Week 1 of the Starrville Regional Baseball/Softball Association season is now in the books, and the Starrville PowerCats are 2-2. We opened with the 45-mile road trip to Oak Valley on Monday night.

We arrived at the field, set things up, and got going. Oak Valley looked small and scrawny in warmups.
We were up first and Oak Valley's pitcher was throwing strikes. We watched three third strikes.
Off the results of our scrimmage against the Kaycee Kats, I started Alyiana, technically our No. 2 pitcher.
Oh my god. She immediately launched into a sequence in which she walked three batters in a row, managed to drop across a third strike, walked a couple more, struck out another. Seven batters in, we were behind 4-0 and nobody had swung the bat yet. Now they did swing the bat, and rolled a squibbling single to the outfield. Our whole defense was in a coma, so we start throwing the ball around. Two runs score, and that's the six-run max. Thank god.
We go down again 1-2-3 in the second, the OV pitcher is still throwing smoke, and we still haven't swung the bat. Alyiana strikes out a couple, but the walkathon continues. Five runs in and it's 11-0.
Oak Valley switches pitchers and all of a sudden THEY'RE throwing the balls. We draw a couple walks and actually load the bases. A couple ground ball errors and we push a couple runs across, a couple more, and holy crap, we post a max inning of our own.
Alyiana settles down in the third and only gives up three (but still ends up with 15 walks). We score a couple more to narrow it to 14-8, and time limit shuts us down. After stepping into the 11-0 hole off the bat, 14-8 is passable. There are only four hits in the game, all by OV.
Some of the parents spring for between-games pizza, and it's yummy. With our modest comeback, the mood is good.
Game 2 opens with Aliciana on the mound for us. She strikes out five in the opening inning. (Dropped third strikes.)
Oak Valley is walking everybody again, and we put up five runs, and suddenly we're up 5-0.
Second inning, Aliciana again strikes out the side. Finally we start swinging as burly Kaera cracks a legit line shot single and Sis B follows with a shot through the gap. A few more walks added in and we max out with 6 and an 11-0 lead. What the hell!
Aliciana walks a couple, they beat out an infield squibber, and the dropped strike bugaboo hits again and Oak Valley is on the board. We pull off a nifty double play on a popup and catch the runner off base. But still we're up 11-2. We add another couple runs and end up with a 14-4 win in four as the time limit hits. Aliciana finishes with 12 strikeouts in four innings (but four of those safe on dropped strikes) and gives up only one hit.
Wednesday it was right back in action, with a 15-mile trip to the rural burg of Williesville for another doubleheader.
Shooting the breeze before the first game, the Willies' coach says they are very small and very young. From all appearances, he's not sandbagging. There's a slight delay when the umps show up, a couple of HS baseball players. They seem like semi-OK guys, but for some reason they decide they are going to call all batters out on third strikes, whether they're caught or not.
This is contrary to our league rules, but it's fine with me since dropped third strikes had been a big problem for us.
I start Aliciana, whose only problem in game 1 was having third strikes dropped. We start scoring early, picking up a bunch of walks as Williesville can't hit the plate. Ivy, our awkward first-time player smacks a double to the outfield (curiously and conspicuously drawn way in) and we post max innings in 1 and 2. With third strike strikeouts now instant outs, Aliciana is a machine, and mows the Willies down. They finally score on a walk and an error in the third and it's 12-1.
I bring in Aly Loud, supposedly the No. 3 pitcher and she picks things right up, striking out six in two hitless innings. Mercy rule kicks in and we win 14-1 on a 14-strikeout no-hitter.
More between games pizza fun, and we're ready for Game 2. Time to see if Alyiana can get her control problems straightened out.
She can't. Two water-torture max-run walkarama innings and we're down 12-2.
We go into the third and the walk fest continues. Bases are loaded. I lean over to Mom Paula, our former D-1 pitcher, and say, "I've been waiting for her to settle down, but it's just not happening." She nods. Alyiana now has 16 walks in the game.
With Aliciana and Aly Loud both available for additional innings (6-inning max per pitcher per day), I decide the trial and error session is over. I bring in Aliciana, who strikes out two immediately, but then proves mortal with a walk. An error lets in another run and then Aliciana strikes out the side.
Leading off the fourth, Aliciana steps into a high pitch and sends a drive far, far over the weirdly drawn-way-in outfield, and it rolls and rolls. She sprints full tilt around second, and can still jog it in as they finally chase the ball down about 300 feet from the plate. A real live legitimate home run.
That makes it 14-3, and ignites our offense, and we start scoring, and put up six, but it's 14-9 and getting dark fast. Another inning and we probably could have got them, but the sun goes down.

We get Oak Valley again Tuesday night at our place. I have little doubt they'll go with the main pitcher who shut us down last week, so we'll counter with our big two, Aliciana and Aly Loud. I think the experiment of Aliyanna as starting pitcher may be done. But somehow or other, in the next month (which includes a 13 day break) we've got to find -- or develop -- another adequate pitcher, because Aliciana's family is on vacation the week of our tournament, and league rules set a max of 3 innings per game for pitchers in tourney games. So even if Aly Loud is cruising along, we've got to have a No. 2 pitcher who can at least keep things somewhat under control. So far that hasn't been Aliyanna.

 

Early morning email from Aliciana's mom: she WILL be in town for the tournament.



So I'll be fine with my 1-2 pitchers and only need a 3-4 for a couple innings every couple games.