Fields of Screams: 2017 youth baseball/softball thread

There's a strange dynamic going on in the StarSis brood:

Sis B, currently wheelchair-bound in a thigh high cast with her broken leg, is all about softball/ baseball. She's keeping score for the games, asking questions about strategy, pitching rotations, the whole shot. She was giving me suggestions about the batting order last night at the 8U game.

Both twins are going down with StarBro to a big league game tomorrow (now, today) and she is fired up. They've got seats behind home plate.

Her identical twin Sis A, still healthy and in the lineup, hardly says a word to anybody. Her play is getting similarly listless too. She hasn't really connected with a pitch since her sister got hurt. On defense, she's whiffing on ground balls rolling under her glove she normally scoops up automatically.

She's still drawing walks and scoring runs, but she seems to be just going through the motions. She's always been the quieter one of the twins, and she seems really lost on her own.

It's almost like she doesn't want to "take advantage" of B's absence by taking a bigger role. (Although getting drilled by a pitch big time Monday night might have something to do with it too.)

I think being a twin, especially identical, is something nobody else can really understand.

Funny, when they were 3-4-5 and in the developmental speech stage, they literally never would refer to each other by name, only as "Sister." They'd also refer to themselves collectively.

After a year or so, StarSis started getting concerned as to whether they were having identity issues -- that they really realized they were individuals. She had always dressed them separately, etc etc, and made a point of relating to them individually.

Finally Sis talked to a behavioral psychologist in a twins study, and it turned out the problem was in outsider perception.

"Sure, we know our names," they said. "We know what we're talking about when we say 'sister.' We know when we're talking about each other, and not our other two sisters. It's all of you who can't figure it out."

It turned out they actually used a slightly different inflection on the word "sister" when referring to each other as opposed to the other two -- the psychologist got it on tape.

They understood each other with 100% accuracy. Their siblings got it about 80% of the time, parents about 2/3, and after that, people were just guessing.

StarSis said to the psychologist, "is this normal?"

"It's not normal for normal people, but it is for twins."

 

The league put out its tournament brackets as a July 4 gift.

The first gift: the tourney is single-elimination, not double.

So where previously we were looking at 3 games minimum to 6 max, now we're looking at 3 maximum -- possibly one and out.

But ... the second gift: we weren't included at all.

At first, I freaked, figuring it might be some double-secret suspension penalty resulting from our forfeit last week. Although we'd played three subsequent games without incident.

So I fired off a terse late-night email to the league commissioner asking for clarification.

8 a.m. sharp the next morning, I get an email from Ms Commissioner saying she thought we had elected not to play.

In our league all managers must confirm by the end of June whether or not they intend to play in the tournament. We sent an email on June 21 stating "we do intend to play."

I forwarded her an archive copy of the email.

"Oh, I thought you said you "do NOT intend to play."

No. I reassured her such was not the case. And I had email to prove it.

OK, no problem, her mistake, we're in.

Half hour later, she sends out the new improved brackets.

We're in Bracket B (or II or Silver, nobody really knows what to call it), as we expected.

We're the No. 2 seed in the 8-team field, although frankly it looks like the actual brackets were done by blind draw -- we have 3 losing teams in our half of the field.

We're 8-6 with 2 regular-season games left (against a 4-10 opponent). But Aliciana, our ace pitcher and main power hitter, will miss that doubleheader, leaving us only Alianna and Aly L, both of whom have been wildly erratic (ranging from decent for a couple innings to over the top disastrous), so I'm pretty much looking at a split as the miracle best-case scenario.


Aliciana will return for the tourney, but then there's a 3-inning per game pitcher limit, so we'll have to figure out how to survive 2-3 innings a game with our B pitchers.

 

Just in from PowerCats Central:

An hour or so ago as I was ruminating about Tuesday's kinda-meaningless doubleheader (the playoff seedings are already set) and brainstorming over how to deal with the absence of ace pitcher Aliciana, I get email from the mom of Aly L, our No. 3 pitcher -- she's been invited on some kind of vacation trip (I don't know or care about the details) and will probably not be available Tuesday (although apparently back by tourney time Saturday).

This has a couple of ramifications: first, it will leave us with one and only one game-usable pitcher, Alyanna (currently our #2) on Tuesday.

The regular season rules put a 6-inning max on pitchers per day.

So far this season, games have been going an average of 4-5 innings (usually cut by the time limit). So my preliminary plan WAS going to be to start Aly L in both these games Tuesday, have her go 2-3 innings, hope against hope she wouldn't get lit up too bad, then bring in Alyanna (who herself has been very mortal) for the final 3 innings of both games. But if Aly L is gone, that plan is down the chutes.

We have two other players, Aly V and Polly, who have pitched in practices, but haven't gotten in games yet. (Sis B and her broken leg is out of the picture.) I asked Aly V if she wanted to pitch in a game last week but she said she "wasn't ready." Polly has thrown in practice a few times but that's it; her control is light-years behind even Aly L (who got nuclearly-torched in our last game when I screwed up and pitched her in an 'uncapped inning').

I suppose one option would be to start Alyanna in the first game, hope the game doesn't go more than 6 innings due to time limit, and if not, let her go the distance, and if we somehow manage to win, just forfeit Game 2 rather than be stuck pitching two kids who have never thrown in games yet with nobody in reserve.

I'm probably leaning toward throwing both Aly V and Polly an inning or two in each game, with the full knowledge/assumption they very likely will give up the max six runs per inning, and hope we can save 3 innings of Alyanna for Game 2.

The team we're playing isn't very good; they're 4-10 and their only wins are over the two tail-end teams of the league.

Oh yeah, the second major ramification is that Aly L's absence will drop us to nine players total. Our "farm team," the KrazyKats 10U team coached by Basketball Mike, is in action the same night, so they can't send us any "emergency call-ups." So even discounting the pitching headaches, nobody better sprain a fingernail during these games.

Did Branch Rickey ever have to deal with all this shit?

 

Aieee. Now I get email from Mom Paula informing me Polly will be at Game 1 but not Game 2 tomorrow, leaving me with a roster of 8 players (and one pitcher, probably with no more than 2 innings remaining).

According to league rules, you can play with 8, but you must have an automatic out slotted in your batting order.

SIFUABS.

 

All proceeded as I had foreseen.

The Barnapple Blackhawks came in with a 4-10 record, nine players in uniform and two tattooed butchy (but certainly nice enough) coaches.

Behind the plate was umpire Motormouth Morty, a 60ish crewcut dude notorious across the whole league for carrying on nonstop high speed high volume commentary and analysis on every single play.

Morty is a by the book Softball guy. He knows every single rule in the rule book, he can recite them all to you, and does, along with the reasoning and justification behind every rule.

He wants players to hustle every step on and off the field, and tells you so. He wants batters drawing walks to sprint to first base Pete Rose style. In the average game at this level, there are about 20 walks.

At game time it's 87 degrees with 85 percent humidity.

With our #1 and 3 pitchers gone, I stick to my plan of throwing Aly V and Polly in Game 1.

I emailed both sets of parents the night before and explained the deal -- we were going to have to throw both kids into game action cold.

As I expected, both had awful times with control, and we give up max innings the first three innings.

As I did NOT expect, from out of nowhere Barnapple rolls out an absolutely smoking fireball pitcher -- the best pitcher we've seen all year. Rumor has it she plays travel ball and only plays about half their games (explaining their record).

All game long we can't even touch this girl. In the last inning we come to life a bit, but it ends up 20-4 in four semi merciful innings. Seeing the game turn into a fire drill early, I save Alyanna, our default "ace" for the second game, allowing Aly V and Polly to soak up the pounding. (Polly actually steadies a bit in the final inning, giving up only two runs).

We solve our 8-player lineup problem by drafting Sasshy's older sister Samma, who was originally supposed to be on our roster back in May but got called up to the 14U team. She plays uneventfully on offense but makes a couple eye popping grabs at SS.

Early in game 2 Alyanna hits a Blackhawk on the butt with a 25 mph fastball. There's about a 15 minute delay after which the victim decides she can't continue, so Barnapple will forge on with 8 players and an automatic out in the No. 9 slot.

After that, Alyanna is near flawless, hanging up two shutout innings.

For some reason I can't figure out, Barnapple keeps the fireball pitcher from Game 1 at third base, even though she has two pitching innings available.

Whatever; we ring up max innings in the first two and roll out 12-0.

Alyanna wavers a bit and we give up a run, then close it out 18-1 in four.

Our defense is actually very good. Aly V recovers from her brief disastrous pitching stint in game 1 with a great game at catcher, grabbing a foul fly, throwing out four kids on dropped third strikes and making a perfect play on a bunt right in front of the plate.

That closes out our regular season at 9-7, and clinches a winning record even if we go one and out in Saturday's tournament -- when we're supposed to
have everybody back in the lineup.

We should be in good shape for the tourney, in which there's a 3-inning per game pitching limit.

Because of time limit, few games actually go seven innings -- most are 4-5. So if Alyanna can do OK in innings 1-2, then we bring in ace Aliciana to shut down for 3 more, and if necessary, Alyanna can come back for the sixth.

 

Well, the PowerCats' season came to an abrupt end Saturday with a 5-4 loss in the tourney opener, in really the best-played game all year.

We played Haskell McKenzie, a team from an adjoining town to Starrville, who went 8-8 in the allegedly much tougher North Division (we went 9-7 in the supposedly fairly weak South). For comparison's sake, they played Kacee's Kats in a twinbill and lost to them 18-11 and 12-0. Kacee's Kats is the other Starrville team, made up of mostly 12-year-olds, who smoked us 19-0 and 13-9 in a preseason scrimmage. Kacee's Kats won the North Division with a final record of 14-1-1. At any rate, Haskell appeared to be a pretty even match for us.

I had the pitching all figured out (see above). My plan was to go with No. 2 Alyanna in innings 1-2, then if our time status made it look likely we'd end up playing seven, bringing in No. 3 Aly L. for the third.

But before the game, I ask Aly L., who hasn't pitched in three weeks and got torched for 20 runs the last time she did, how she felt about pitching, and she said, "I don't think I can." So my master scheme may be springing a leak.

Well, we'll see. McKenzie starts -- presumably -- their No. 2/3 pitcher -- and she walks/HBPs us to a 4-run first and a 4-0 lead. She keeps walking people, but only a couple at a time. We can't open up any more of a lead, and we're stuck on 4 runs. Alyanna does pretty well, giving up only three runs in the first two innings.

More importantly, the game is dragging behind time schedule -- i had each inning charted out by time for a regulation 7-inning game. If, as I hoped, we fell behind the time schedule, there wouldn't be time for 7 innings, and we could cover all our innings with Alyanna and our ace Aliciana, waiting in reserve.

After the second inning, we were 10 minutes behind the time schedule, so unless there was a lightning fast third, the game shouldn't last more than six. So, rather than bring in the reluctant Aly L for a sacrificial and highly perilous third inning, I stick with Alyanna. She gave up one more run in the third, perfectly acceptable, so now we could bring in ace Aliciana with the score tied 4-4.

Problem is, McKenzie has also been keeping their ace in the wings, and she's throwing smoke. Scoreless both sides through the fifth. With both teams' aces in the game, things start moving faster, and we start creepng into danger of having to play 7 full innings.

So I instruct the players to start stepping out, take two or three practice swings between every pitch. The game slows back down to a glacial pace, so we're back on our time schedule. Unfortunately, we don't get any runs.

So here we go into the sixth, essentially a one-inning game for the whole season. As the visiting team, McKenzie is up first.

There's a walk, the automatic stolen base, a couple strikeouts and a dropped third strike strikeout. McKenzie pulls a double steal, our catcher throws down to third. She's safe -- but then steps off the bag to talk to the coach and we put the tag on her!!

But no -- the umpire rules the ball was dead, time-out had been called. There's a minor rhubarb in which the ump says, "she wasn't trying to advance, she was just talking to the coach." I point out there was no time-out signal by anybody, player, coach or umpire, and we still put the tag on her. Argument's over, the runner is safe.

OK. Aliciana strikes out the next batter, her fourth of the inning. Another dropped third strike. Batter heads down to first. Ball rolls behind the catcher, and I bark out, "hold it." If she throws down to first and the throw is late, the runner on third can score the go-ahead run.

So now bases are loaded. The umpire gets a little squeezy on strike calls, and Aliciana walks in a run on (of course) a full count. Now we're down 5-4. She then strikes out her fifth batter of the inning, and this time we hold on and get the out.

Aliciana's three innings are done. We're over time limit, so the umpire says, "if you tie it up, we go to extra innings." (Our league plays with the extra inning tiebreaker with a runner at second, but if we do play any extra innings, we will have to go with Aly L who has already put it on record she doesn't want to pitch, or maybe Polly or Aly V who got annihilated last week, both giving up double-digit runs. Presumably McKenzie would also be going to their No. 3 pitcher as well, but that's too far off to worry about.)

So we go into the last of the sixth; we gotta win now. Aly L leads off and strikes out. Sasshy follows and she walks. Twin A scrapes out a single. Aly V strikes out as Sasshy and Twin A steal third and second. Aliciana, our cleanup hitter, walks to load the bases. Kaera, our chunky 1B/3B who has become pretty much our most consistent hitter, runs the count to full. Tying run on third, winning run on second. A base hit wins it.

Called strike three. Season over.


Well .... sort of. Ever heard of fall ball?


POSTSCRIPT: McKenzie went on to win the tourney with 13-4 and 12-7 wins in the semis and finals. So yeah, we coulda, uhmm... forget it.

 

As the smoke clears and the PowerCats recede into history, the Starrville Softball Association is busy putting its 'fall ball' teams together, which is becoming another soap opera/clusterfuck, and I don't have the energy to recap, and I'm sure nobody has the desire to read, all the political and behind-the-scenes skullduggery going into team organization and selection.

Bottom line is, there is going to be a team, made up about half and half of players from Kacee's Kats, which blitzed through the league season 14-1-1 before getting upset in the A Bracket tournament semis Saturday, and the PowerCats. Kacee herself (and her star pitcher daughter) is going to be in Europe until late August, so by default, 'head coaching' duties fall to me.

League Prez Larry, who had a daughter on the Kacee Kats, will serve as associate coach. He assures me the 5 players from the Kats are '5 of the top 8.'

Of the 7 players from the PowerCats, 6 are "key starters" and one is our No. 11 player.

I've got my ace pitche, top slugger and runaway MVP from the PowerCats, Aliciana, and No. 2 pitcher Alyanna, who straightened out and was pitching decently by late season, along with slugging 1B/3B Kaera, outfielder Ivy, quick little catcher Sasshy and big strong slugger Lucy.

And also Twin A, who seems somewhat less than wildly enthusiastic about the whole deal; she asked Twin B, now hobbling around on a walking cast and scheduled to move to an ankle boot in another week, if it was OK if she played, and Twin B said, "I don't care," and Twin A said "I don't care either."

A day or two later, it was decided Twin A would play (and Twin B would come along for assistant coaching duties.)

The entire StarSis brood is going to be on vacation in Tennessee for the first week of the season anyway.

Smells like Teen Spirit.

 

My championship pitcher is under the knife right now having a tumor removed from her spinal cord. It's why she was in so much pain this season.

 

Holy smokes, and I was bummed over Twin B's broken leg.

Hope things work out well. She sounds like a tough kid.

 

After a couple weeks off, a load of team-selection drama and a surprise controversy involving 7/9ths of the "fall ball" league being informed they'd be playing under U12 Upper Division rules as opposed to U12 Lower, the 12-game fall ball season gets under way for the Starrville StarrKats tomorrow (Wednesday) night.

I'll be the official head coach, while League Prez Larry (with a daughter /pitcher on the Kats) will serve as associate/ alternate coach.

We have 15 players on the roster, which is way too many, but due to vacations and other sports camps, we'll never have more than 11 in uniform on any given night. So the lineup and PT headaches will be manageable.

The StarrKats will be just about a 50-50 split between my PowerKats, who finished up 9-8, and Kacee's Kats, who ended up 15-3.

We've got the No. 1 and 2 pitchers from the PowerCats, the No. 2 and 4 pitchers from Kacee's Kats, and the No. 1 pitcher for the Kats (Kacee's daughter) will join us in time for the final week of the season. So we should be more than fine for pitching.

League Prez Larry assures me one of the Kacee Kats players, Naome, is a real deal starting catcher -- can fire it on the line to second -- and is also an ace shortstop.

That's good, because my own semi star catcher from the PowerCats, Aly V, will be off playing travel volleyball. We do have Sasshy, the gutty little 10 year old playing up, but she still bounces throws down to second.

Despite our bloated roster, we'll still have some temporary position pinches -- in week 2, Sasshy is off on vacation leaving us with only one "regular" catcher, so with two doubleheaders in three days we'll have to have an "emergency catcher" catch a couple innings.

So, off we go.

 

It's a 5-inch tumor about an inch around and has wrapped itself around her spinal cord. They can't surgically remove it so they must decide on chemo or radiation.

 

Good Lord ...