It's baseball season

“LMBO :D

hey they are all ROOT'in for the BELLY!”

“Don't get this thread deleted too...”

“Now that's a catcher. I don't know why they call them the tools of ignorance. The catcher is in on every play. He has to keep a lot in his head. He calls the game. Should be the tools of intelligence.

'Course, when you've got a freight train barreling down the third base line and you've got to make the play ... or get run over ...

The last thing you want to do in that case is think, Meat!”

“Yeah, Geo, it's been really fun for Cameron lately because one of our pitchers is now throwing three pitches (no curveballs, just mixing up speeds). So the manager gives the sign to Cam and he relays it to the pitcher - make them feel like real big leaguers!

Fortunately for Cameron, there's no bowling over the catcher allowed. He's pretty small - average height, but pretty thin. Forgot to mention that he threw out TWO runners trying to steal on Saturday. We're hoping that those endorsement contracts will raise us to an economic level to which we'd like to become accustomed - hee hee....”

“Ugh. The Li'l Tigers, well, pretty much sucked last night. They couldn't pick up or catch a ball to save their lives, and they couldn't hit, either. So a loss to the 9th place team, 2 days after beating the 1st place team. Sometimes in sports you just have to admit that you sucked, put it behind you, and move on. Another game this Saturday.”

“OK, the Li'l Tigers are back on track! They smoked the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon, 12-6, for their 5th win in the last 6 games. It would have been much more of a blowout, but the Jays made a couple of outstanding fielding plays in the 2nd and 3rd innings. In the 2nd, with the bases loaded and 2 outs, our best hitter hit an absolute rocket to the SS's right. But I'll be darned if the kid didn't dive all out and catch the thing - unbelievable! Then, in the 3rd, we again had bases loaded with 2 outs and our batter hit a medium deep fly ball to left-center. About half the time, this ball gets dropped or misplayed by these 8-9 year olds. Well, this time the kid caught it.

Other highlights included Cameron throwing out 2 runners trying to steal, one at second and one at third. Also, when playing first, he applied a tag (to the face - oops!) to catch another runner napping.

If we win against the Cubs tomorrow evening, we'll be tied for 4th place with the A's (top 4 teams make the playoffs). We play the A's on Saturday (cue the dramatic music...). Stay tuned!

BTW, Cameron was thrilled to see his name in the local paper's little league report TWICE this morning!”

“You gotta have respect for Rojah. He left Boston, out of shape and "in the twilight of his career" and goes on to become the leader in terms of total Cy Young awards. He even became the dreaded traitor and played for the Yankees. Then he retires last year.

But is talked out of retirement by his good friend, Andy Petite, and the Houston Astros. He doesn't have to go on road trips if he is not scheduled to pitch. A sweetheart of a deal.

I was cruising MLB.Com, and looking at the pitching stats. Guess who is at the top of all 3 of the major pitching stats. Wins, strikeouts and ERA. Rojah!

I gotta say, that is one impressive "Twilight".”

“Don't tell Geobeet that the Mets just swept a 3 game series against the Phillies. At least not until he's feeling better.”

“The Li'l Tigers did it again! They pounded out a couple dozen hits last night to with their 6th out of their last 7 to pull into a tie for 4th place (next game is Saturday against that team - winner gets to the playoffs!).

Our starting pitcher mowed 'em down, and we only had a couple of fielding miscues. One of our pitchers couldn't find the plate, but we're probably the only team in the league with five pitchers that are usually very dependable, so we just plugged another guy in there to get out of the jam.

We got two double plays in the game, although neither one was recorded. The first one happened when a ball was hit to our 2nd baseman; he tagged the runner who was just passing him, then threw to first. Unfortunately, the ump didn't see the tag, so we only got the one out. Later, our SS fielded a grounder near 2nd base, stepped on the base and threw on to first for the 4th out. The kids actually believed my coaching partner for a minute when he told them that that out would carry over into the next inning!

Cameron laid down two awesome bunts and beat them both out, and also calmly caught a pop fly from his catcher position.”

“Wow again.

The Li'l Tigers keep on rollin', and are now all alone in 4th place and likely to make the playoffs. We beat the (then) other 4th place team, the A's, 11-4. And it wasn't that close. It was 10-1 after 3 innings, and our pitchers were throwing strikes, and our fielders were eating up everything. Cameron threw out yet another runner trying to steal, and tagged a kid out at home, too (in the face - oops!). Our second basemen made some great plays - one actually dove after a grounder, then threw the batter out from his knees; and the other made a lunging stop of a wicked 3-hopper to his left in the final inning and threw out the batter.

Only two games left. One against the first place team on Wednesday, then against the last place team on Saturday. If we win both we would likely finish tied for 3rd; if we go 1-1, we would probably play a play-in game to get into the actual playoffs.

This has been a remarkable few weeks. We started the second half in 5th place with a 4-5 record. We're now 10-6, and have beaten all three of the four teams we've played that were ahead of us starting this half. Talk about fun!”

“yeahyeah, who cares!

HOGS WIN ! HOGS WIN!


bring on FLA ST.! ! ! ! !”

“Shhhhhhhh, not so loud Strat! You'll wake up Kevin Millwood, and we can't have that going on!”

“LMFAO GEO!”

“Wow, scored some great tickets for the Gigantes/Jays matchup next Thurs! BowlderSon's cousin will be in town, so he will play hooky and I will take them to the game. I had checked the Giants web site for tickets and all they had were nosebleed seats, so I tried hunting around the part of the site where season ticket holders can re-sell their tickets, but had little luck. So last night I just checked the main site again and BINGO!, 7th row left field bleachers (right behind Barry). BYOG!*




*Bring Yer Own Glove



Oh, and tonight the Li'l Tigers take on the mighty first place Twins, who are 15-1 on the season. Well, 15-2 after tonight.... Cam will be catching 5 of the 6 innings....”

“Took my kids to our local AA team's game last night. It was kind of a boring game until the ninth inning. The Stars had a come-from-behind-in-the-bottom-of-the-ninth win last night, so it was pretty exciting.

And on another interesting note, Tony Gwynn, Jr., and Prince Fielder (Cecil's son) play for our team.”

“Cool, bit! Those minor league games are fun. Whenever I am in MT visiting the folks, I insist on getting to a game there (rookie league, Reds org.).

I love listening to Tony Gwynn, Sr. whenever he does a TV broadcast - he knows so much about the game and delivers it in such a smooth way, not in an annoying way like Mr. Over-Analysis, Joe Morgan.”

“Oh geez, tell me about it. I've switched the sound off on a game when Morgan was calling it, then found the game on the radio and listened to that commentary. Joe Morgan may have been a great second baseman, but he's a disaster as a broadcaster.”

“Joe Morgan is the only broadcaster who can tell you what brand of shorts the players where when they hit home runs on high and tight fastballs just out of the strike zone.”

“Not only what brand, but why, where they bought them, how they were made, and why the particular properties of those shorts contribute to those specific kinds of home runs!”

“...and in the meantime, 2 innings have gone by!”

“My daughter was MVP of her 8th grade softball team. Her rec league team just won their tournament this past weekend.

Lost a close one Monday night. (First base coach--me--finally got a runner thrown out at second after trying all season to do it.)

Got another game tonight....”

“let's try to focus here people....

the subject is the HOGS...

last sunday, hogs vs witchita st, bottom of the 9th, 2 out, bases loaded, full count to brady toops, season on the line....TINK! GRAAAAAAND SLAM! hogs win and now we host FLA ST in a super regional. the stadium sold out in 10 minutes.

H

O

G

S

!”

“Don't tell Artex that. He strangles hogs.”

“while it is true that there is a picture of atrex ATTEMPTING to choke a hog, the outcome of said choking incident has yet to be determined.....”

“I got that from Artex's mouth. I would not advise saying that to a guy who even professes to have once choked a hog with his bare hands. But be my guest.”

“Okie, dokie. So the Li'l Tigers went up against the mighty Twins tonight. Tigers: 10 wins, 6 losses; Twins 15 wins, 1 loss.

If you've been paying attention, you can probably guess the outcome. That's right: Tigers 7, Twins 6! It was an incredible game. We got 4 in the first and 1 in the second, then pretty much held them at bay until they got 3 in the 4th to make it 5-4. Then they brought in their ace reliever, one of these kids who's a lot bigger than the other kids, and athletic, too. So he shut us down in the top of the 5th, and the Twins got 2 in the bottom to pull ahead 6-5 with Mr. Hot-shot in to finish us off in the 6th. Oops! But the Li'l Tigers struck for 2 runs to pull ahead! Cam knocked in one of the runs, although he was out on a controversial call (it's late - I'll explain tomorrow). Then we had to hold them. Got one out, then the ace reliever, also their best batter, got on with an infield hit. But then he made a major boo-boo and tried to advance to 2nd on a wild pitch. Why? Because Cam the Man was the catcher and threw his butt out at 2nd base! The last batter struck out to end the game. Wild celebration ensued!!

The Li'l Tigers are definitely in the playoffs now! They beat each of the 4 teams ahead of them at the start of the 2nd half - a remarkable accomplishment. I'm so excited for the kids I can hardly contain myself!!!!!! Woo-hoo!”

“that's cool BM. my boys are all playing. my 12 yr olds team is 12-0 and ust clinched the regular season title. he plays 1st and bats 5th. 2 more games till the playoffs.

the 10 yr old's team is in the middle of the pack. he plays 3rd and is the fastest dood on the team.

my 6 yr old is in coach pitch and they dont keep score but boy lemme tellya, he can tackle better than anyone!”

“The Phillies and White Sox pitchers must have agreed to pitch in-game batting practice for this series. Baseballs have been flying out of that ballpark like flies at a picnic. The fans have to keep yelling, "Duck, here comes another one!"”

“OK, so here's the poop on the "controversial" call last night. First, some background. Three games ago, one of our batters hit a grounder and when the first baseman planted himself on the base, our freight train of a batter plowed into him. The first baseman was laying on the ground crying for about 10 minutes until they scraped him off the diamond with a shovel. Well, that's a little exaggeration, but the kid was hurt pretty bad. So I started a discussion on our league's on-line board for umpiring issues. My question was: What if a kid wants to avoid such a collision and not injure another kid, so veers away from 1st base if the baseman is standing on it? There could have been two responses: A) Tough luck for the first baseman - he gets flattened and learns a hard lesson (this would be the case in major league baseball, certainly); or B) We want to give these 8 and 9 year-olds some leeway and avoid injuries, so the call should be obstruction by the fielder and the batter should be called safe. Well, the response I got - from a league board member, in fact - was (B). This makes sense to me - I like rules that provide for safety when possible.

So here we are last night in a nail-biter of a game, and Cameron is up to bat with a runner on third. He lays down a schwweeeeeet bunt, which the pitcher fields. As Cam races up the line, and the pitcher throws, I (and Cameron) see that the 1st baseman's leg is all the way across the bag, identical to the situation 3 games earlier. So Cam slows down to avoid injuring the baseman, and because of that, the throw beats him to the base.

I asked for time, and very calmly explained my thoughts on the matter to the 12-year-old umpire. He listens politely, then asks the (adult) home plate ump out for some help. We have a calm, reasonable discussion, and then the base ump reverses his call and calls Cameron safe because of obstruction. The manager of the other team, a very large, imposing man, comes out and starts yelling that he was out, there was no obstruction, blah blah blah. The base ump is now about to cry and after getting yelled at for a couple minutes by this guy (who is a league board member - hmmm, d'ya think that was a factor?) changes his call back to out.

Did I then start yelling at the umps? No, I quietly walked back to my coaching box and didn't say anything else to the umps about it for the rest of the game. I felt really bad for Cam because I think he did the right thing (for a 8/9-year-olds' league) and he got screwed for it. But, hey, he knocked in the winning run and threw out their star player trying to steal in the bottom of the inning, so I guess it all worked out OK....”

“Hey, strat! Sounds like your boys are havin' fun. I think baseball is a great sport for kids because there's a good amount of failure they have to accept even if they're really good. Cameron has had some difficulty with this concept but I think he's learning some good lessons through the experiences.”

“I am a pretty competitive person...but good grief, at that age, the ONLY things that matter are what the kids are learning about sportsmanship, about doing their best, yada yada yada. No adult--board member, coach, parent, ump--should be making a big deal out of any umpriring decision, at least not in front of the kids. The kids need to learn that sports aren't perfect and sometimes you catch a break from the ump, sometimes you get screwed, so what, deal with it with dignity, strive to be good enough that no bad calls will matter.

*sigh*

In our girls softball league, by the way, there are two first bases. A second bag, orange, is adjacent to the first but on the foul side of the line. On a play at first where the batter is arriving at first, the fielder covers the real bag, the runner goes to the orange bag. The orange bag not used at any other time.”

“I agree with you, Fritz. In that game, the base ump, who is usually one of the best in our league, made several terrible calls. We didn't say anything to either ump about those calls. One of our kids was in tears because the kid clearly dropped the ball, but the ump called him out. I had a talk with him, explaining that sometimes umps make bad calls and you just have to deal with it. The call last night was only the second one I've questioned (the first was on a call where I knew the base ump was screened from view and that the home plate ump saw the play, so asked him to ask the home ump for help) all season, and last night it was only because it is a serious safety issue, which was the focus of my very calm discussion on the field.”

“The lesson they teach the kids on that kind of mindless call is, "Spike the SOB!" Somebody needs to teach first basemen how to hold the bag when taking a throw! That's the problem!”

“BowlderMan I wasn't suggesting that you had handled it wrong, the other manager who came out yelling and arguing was not setting the right example.

It sounds like you have exactly the right mindset and approach. We need more coaches/parents like you.”

“The other team's coach had probably taken advantage of what had happened in the earlier game and told his first baseman to block the bag, knowing it would cause kids to slow down approaching the bag.

Maybe teaching your baserunners to step on the first baseman's toe would help in this case?

I think that most kids sports would be immeasurably better if the leagues adopted a "no-shouting" rule for parents and coaches.”

“No, no, I understood your post Fritz, I was just reiterating....

Geo, in our earliest practices this year, we worked a lot with our first basemen to make sure they knew how to take a throw safely - as a result, our kids never block the base. Seems like other coaches do not see the importance of that. And I don't think you can expect kids this age to do it right every time anyway, so it seems reasonable to be flexible with the rules in the interest of safety.”

“Duh! Keep your eye on the ball!”

“I am not a fan of inter-league play. I'd rather see more games against teams in our own league, with our own rules.”

“Yah, now that baseball has finally recovered from the '94 strike (gee, only took 10 years) can we cancel all the crap Bud put in to try and make the game more popular?”

“Just wanted to chime in here. In case you have not realized the earth is back on it's proper axis and the Yankees have the best record in baseball......

One more thing Nomar will be the Yankees second baseman next year
:-) How ya like Dem Big apples ??”

“Dang snafu, did they sign you on as GM or what?”

“When I was in the hospital six years ago, one of the cleaning guys kept wearing a Yankees cap. I kept teasing him, asking him how he could wear that thing in public.

He said, "They're going to go all the way!" I said, "In your dreams!"

Every year since, I've thought about that guy. During my recent visit, he popped into the room wearing a Navy cap. I kept my %^(#ing mouth shut. Army has enough problems with me jinxing them.”

“Make that without me jinxing them!”

“JINX!!!!

LOL



Yup I even stayed home with a broiken up back yesterday to watch the game... yes it was only the Rookies but what the hay it's basebal....

phillies are actually doing well :-)”

“i will "discuss" a bad call if i think we get one....but i also teach the kids that sometimes you get a bad call and that's part of life and you have to go on and not let it get to you.

my 8 yr old does get mad sometime when he strikes out, he's still learnin how to deal with that..

in other news.....

HOGS WIN GAME ONE AGAINST FLA ST!!!!

one more victory and we're off to omaha!”

“less than a mile from my house, i can still hear the crowd from here!


HOGS WIN!

HOGS WIN!!!!


HOGSSSSSS WINNNNNNNNNNN!

we play texas on fri in OMAHA, THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, strat.... :-)


The Li'l Tigers wrapped up the regular season with another win today, this time over the last place Cards. So we were 3-5 in our first 8 games and 9-1 in our final 10. Amazing! Playoffs on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on outcome of the game after ours today....”

“So the Li'l Tigers actually ended up in THIRD PLACE! We had the same record as another team, but the tiebreaker (since we each beat the other in our 2 meetings) is how we did against the other teams ahead of us. We split against both of those teams, while the Mariners were swept. So our playoff game is scheduled for Thursday against the Royals. Major problem: the manager of our team also coaches on his older son's team, and they have a playoff game at the same time. He is trying to get our game swapped with the other semifinal. If he can't, then I might have to be the manager - yikes!

Also, one of the parents took hundreds of photos during the year and put them in several slide shows on a DVD and gave copies to everyone. He also printed up the best photo of each kid. When he handed them out, he made some comment about each kid. For Cameron's he said, "Here's a photo of what runnes can expect if they try to score on the Tigers." The photo (which I will try to extract from the DVD and post somewhere) shows Cameron practically taking a kid's head off at the plate with a tag. He's going to autograph it with the comment "Here's what I do on my 'days off'" and give it to his dance teacher.....”

“Oops. "runnes" should have been "runners."”