Baseball 2010
**Continuing my attempts to catch up with the Summer. You might want to read my last post to know what I’m talking about.**
Both Aiden and Aly played baseball this season. It was Aly’s first year. Aiden’s third. He moved up to an older league this year – one with live pitchers and stolen bases. It’s definitely a different world from the pitching machine league. The role of catcher is much, much more important (although I still argue it’s much more important in the pitching machine leagues than most coaches give it credit).
Aly’s RockHounds had a great season. They didn’t win many games, but they had fun while they were playing. And they learned some important fundamentals about the game. They still managed to peak at the right time – similar to the way Aiden’s team did last year. In both instances, they made some noise in the playoffs. The final game ended in extra innings and had a bit of controversy. But then again, what game doesn’t end in controversy when you have overzealous parents and even a coach or two who forgets the purpose of an instructional league? I’m not going into details, but I just want to say the series of events reaffirms my belief that the youngest league probably should not have a playoff. It just gets too intense for the kids – usually because of the coaches and the parents.
In spite of that, the kids had a great time. Aly has said she wants to play ball again next year. In this League, however, she’ll be switching over to softball. She’s already asked me to be a coach. We’ll see.
Aiden was on the TimberRattlers again. We had the same coaching staff and a lot of the same kids from last year’s team. Aiden struggled a bit with hitting, since it was a pitcher with called balls and strikes. But he did discover that he loves playing catcher. He’s even asked for catcher’s equipment for his birthday!
The Rattlers were in a small league – just four teams. One word to describe this league was parity. In any given game, you could beat a team by 10, squeak out a close win, or lose by 15. They were all evenly matched.
Something clicked, however, in the playoffs. The Rattlers were on fire. Even though they only had 7 players on the field, they won their first two games by a combined total of 29-7. That’s right. 29-7. It was complete domination.
This put them into the championship game. Which the Rattlers lost. Big-time.
Fortunately, it was double-elimination. We came back a few hours later for the final game of the season. The Rattlers wanted this one. Bad. They were focused. They were determined.
They won. 9-2.
Aiden’s TimberRattlers are the Boys 10U 2010 champions!
Final combined score in the playoffs? 45-24.
Yeah. Domination.
Fun times.
(Yes- the scoreboard is wrong. Final score was 9-2. They inadvertently scored the last run to the wrong team. Fortunately, the scoreboard isn’t the official scorekeeper.)
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