Fields of Screams: 2017 youth baseball/softball thread

[Songbird]

forking Vermont rain.

 

[Starman]

View attachment 778 forking Vermont rain.

Sounds like a good punk song title.

 

[apeman33]

Damn, that's a strict time limit. We had time limits when I umped but the kids were at least allowed to finish out the half-inning they were playing.

 

[Songbird]

Rematch with the team that beat us 14-13. This time they got us 11-5. We were out of sorts -- badly so -- for the first 3 innings but played well the final 3. Both teams lagged because neither of us had played or practiced since Saturday. 2 new players showed up today, both newbies, so that had an effect on us. And our 7th-grade slugger had a middle school game before ours and showed up after our game began which meant she had to hit at the bottom of the lineup -- which hurt us in the inning we loaded the bases but didn't score. Our home opener is tomorrow.

On a cool note, we got to play on the field that sits in the shadow of the Monument.

 

[Starman]

Sis-15's JV team returned to action yesterday after 10 days off due to rainouts, and got shut out twice by the reigning softball-factory school in the conference.
The whole team only totaled three hits in the twinbill, but S15, who's been moved up to second in the order, made four good plays in CF, including a Willie Mays-ish (well, kinda) over the shoulder catch. Since it was defense where she was really struggling, mom StarSis says it was a pretty good day.

Meanwhile the Starrville HS varsity has continued to bungle along at .500, splitting twinbill after twinbill, but the lineup has started to hit.

They have one fairly decent pitcher but nobody else can throw a strike to save their lives, so their typical doubleheader result is an 8-3 win in game 1 and a 19-7 loss in game 2. With the lineup hitting decently, the likelihood of S15 being called back up to varsity may be dimming a bit.

Twins SisA and SisB started practice for their U12 team and Sis-6 has gotten her team assignment for tee ball. Going to put a lot of mileage on the StarSis vehicles this summer.

 

[Songbird]

gosh darn forking Rain.

 

[Starman]

gosh darn forking Rain.

You ain't kidding. Sis15 had a DH scheduled today against one of the real sad sack teams in the league, but as of last report a half hour ago it was probably going to get flushed.

They'd already had two DHs rescheduled and if they push this one back too, they'll have like 10 games scheduled in the next 18 days.

And they're getting to the point in the season, especially in JV, if they have any more postponed, they'll just be canceled outright.

They only had 18 games (2 singles and 8 DHs) scheduled in the first place; at this level you need every at-bat and defensive inning played you can get.

 

[Songbird]

Yeah, we get to play a sad sack team -- which was a good team last year that whipped my team -- so I was looking forward to the game tonight.

We'll make it up Tuesday but I want to forking play today. And it's not even rain. It's drippity drip shirt shirt -- but just enough to make a difference.

But I also don't think it's fair to make parents and grandparents and siblings sit in that shirt for 2 hours.

 

[Starman]

For S15's group, the weather forecast next week calls for rain on TWTF, so with rescheduled games already packing the schedule, they're in real danger of having 4 or 6 or 8 of their 18 games wiped out completely.

I think their conference has a rule that JV games cannot be made up after the state tournament begins in 3 more weeks.

They used to allow varsity games to be made up until the end of school if they made a difference in final league standings. But with JV, basically, if they get canceled, they're off the boards.

Which leads to the final aggravation: when the schedule gets super tight late in the season and games cannot be postponed any more, coaches and umps often agree to play in utter monsoons, which lead to stupid slip-and-fall injuries, a zillion errors, pitchers can't grip a slippery ball, Etc etc ..,, a complete cluster.

 

[Songbird]

We won our home opener 20-10. Hit 4 homers, including 2 by our 7th-grader (who also smacked a triple), while two others hit their first two dingers ever -- grand slams -- including a girl who hadn't played before this season and has already improved leaps and bounds. All 11 girls scored at least once. Made a lot of plays in the field, including a 5-2-6 out at third, and got through one bumpy inning where the pitcher walked in the max 5 runs with 8 straight walks. She's a decent pitcher who loses her focus sometimes, which happened yesterday. She was on the verge of tears after the inning but she then was part of the 5-2-6 putout at third, which boosted her emotions.

We're a hitting team with 51 runs thru 4 games, but unlike last year we've cut down on allowing the max 5-run innings -- only 5 times in 20 innings.

2-2 with another game tonight against the team we beat on Opening Day. Their coach wants to beat no one more than us.

 

[Starman]

Sis-15's express road to the Starrville HS varsity seems to be roadblocked for the moment, because the outfielders on the varsity have all started to hit and they're averaging about 12 runs a game.

They're not winning very much, because as mentioned before, they have one decent pitcher and nobody else who can hit the plate for love or money, so their typical doubleheader is a 12-8 win and a 19-13 loss.

But S15 is doing fine on the JV team; she's settled in as the regular CF and moved up to 2/3 in the order.

StarSis says "they don't exactly keep StatsInc stats on JV softball," but she says S15 is leading the team in hits, runs, stolen bases and outfield putouts (she's starting to get the idea of being the CF and calling other fielders off the ball).

The varsity coach did tell Sis that S15 will likely be called up for the district tourney that starts in two weeks. So not too bad for a kid who wasn't even going to play until about three days before the start of practice.

Meanwhile, StarSis had to truck the other three girls to practices yesterday as well; the twins for U12 and S6 for coed tee-ball. S6 already reported, rather dismissively, "most of the boys on the team can't hit."

 

[Starman]

S15 did tell me one of my long-distance coaching tips has paid off: reaching back 25 years or more to my own coaching days of yore, I told her as the CF to always play about five (or 10) steps deeper than she thinks she ought to.

I put it in these terms:

1) What's a fly ball that drops in front of you?
a) a single

2) What's a fly ball that goes over your head?
a) probably a triple or home run

... so all else being equal you're better having the ball drop in front of you.

Also, if you are going to make a running catch, it's easier to do so coming in than going back.

And in addition, if you want to make a throw after fielding the ball, if you're going back you have to stop, do a complete 180, gather yourself, wind up and throw; if you're coming in, you're already heading into your throwing motion so you can get a lot more on the throw.

Anyway S15 says it's made a huge difference; "every ball seems to be in front" of her now. Earlier in the season when she was having defensive problems, she said every ball seemed to be going over her head and she spent half of every game chasing triples and home runs to the fence.

Her JV coach is a former pitcher and never gave much thought to playing the outfield.

Her advice for OF positioning is to go out about 50 feet off the infield dirt, and "if they start hitting it over your head, go back."

I said, "go out about 50 feet, then go back about 30 feet more, and if they start dropping in front of you, come in."