Jump to content

2023 Youth Baseball Thread - Fungo, BP & Bullpens!


BrazilHorn
 Share

Recommended Posts

Figured I would start a new thread for the new calendar year vs rolling over last year's.

Baseball season is here! My kids have aged out of LL but are still playing.

Here's to all the coaches, parents and kids playing the best game out there!

My oldest son pitched two innings in a scrimmage Tuesday and struck out five so he is picking off where he left off as a Freshman.

Youngest son had a scrimmage Saturday and went 2-5 with a HBP in there as well. First year playing on the big field and wearing metal spikes so he is pretty pumped.

I had dinner with the dad I had coached LL with the last couple of years and we both agree it is bittersweet not being in LL anymore. For those of you that still are, enjoy it, such a fun time.

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of my older son's teammates took a line drive to the face while throwing BP earlier this week. Had net up but I guess came off mound and somehow his face peeked out. Has to have surgery as line drive resulted in numerous broken facial bones. Really sucks for him as he will miss rest of season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

One of my older son's teammates took a line drive to the face while throwing BP earlier this week. Had net up but I guess came off mound and somehow his face peeked out. Has to have surgery as line drive resulted in numerous broken facial bones. Really sucks for him as he will miss rest of season.

Pro tip: It’s much safer to drill the batter until they lose interest in BP

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bummer, @BrazilHorn.  I took a ricochet in the face when I was in HS throwing BP in a cage.  No fun.  Can't imagine a line drive from 30' away.

My son is officially done with LL and spring select.  On to HS baseball as a freshman.  He pitched an intersquad game this week against JV and said he went 2 IPs with a walk and 4 Ks.  Getting lots of reps at 1B and in the OF as well.  A few more scrimmages, then first tourney next weekend. 

It's bittersweet.  I do miss coaching LL and select ball was fun, but holy crap it's nice to not have to take your kid to practice twice a week or have every weekend booked solid until June.  We can actually fish this spring!  Just pick him up from the HS after practice, and show up to watch games.  Not to mention saving $$$.  He's been playing with / against this group in LL and select since he was in tee ball.  It's pretty awesome that they're all finally on the same team now.  Good bunch of kids, and I think they'll be pretty solid this year.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

So our 13U select team should 100% be AAA. 
Welp all the AAA slots were full for this weekend’s tournament so we were slotted in AA. 
Went 5-0 and scored 81 runs while allowing 1. 
Had two games today (including championship) called in bottom of 1st with our team still batting. 
Glad boys won, glad no one got hurt but I look forward to playing AAA/Majors teams. The team is good, but not 81-1 good. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

So our 13U select team should 100% be AAA. 
Welp all the AAA slots were full for this weekend’s tournament so we were slotted in AA. 
Went 5-0 and scored 81 runs while allowing 1. 
Had two games today (including championship) called in bottom of 1st with our team still batting. 
Glad boys won, glad no one got hurt but I look forward to playing AAA/Majors teams. The team is good, but not 81-1 good. 

That sounds like a huge waste of time and money for all involved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, DalTxHornFan said:

That sounds like a huge waste of time and money for all involved.

100% agree. Was really boring weekend. 
Coach said AAA spots full so we played AA. Was team’s first tournament together so hopefully going forward we are put where we should be. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Played our first aaa 10u tournament. Kids went 4-1 all 4 wins by 1 run and come from behind wins. Lilshep went 5 for 10. 1 single, 3 doubles, 1 triple. Got robbed of 2 extra hits by some really great defense. Pitched 3 scoreless innings also. Beyond proud of stepping up and delivering in several clutch situations 9ce28cad3419770c67c8c38266e8e0bc.jpg

  • Hook 'Em 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/26/2023 at 10:43 PM, BrazilHorn said:

So our 13U select team should 100% be AAA. 
Welp all the AAA slots were full for this weekend’s tournament so we were slotted in AA. 
Went 5-0 and scored 81 runs while allowing 1. 
Had two games today (including championship) called in bottom of 1st with our team still batting. 
Glad boys won, glad no one got hurt but I look forward to playing AAA/Majors teams. The team is good, but not 81-1 good. 

Looks like our boys are playing each other on Saturday.  Let’s hope we go more than 1 inning….tell ‘em to go easy on us!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, FigurelliPwC said:

Looks like our boys are playing each other on Saturday.  Let’s hope we go more than 1 inning….tell ‘em to go easy on us!

I saw that. Last weekend was a one time deal. Couldn’t believe how diluted AA was. Looking forward to this weekend as win or lose will be competitive. Also there’s a good coffee shop down Pecan st that has good breakfast sandwich. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BrazilHorn said:

I saw that. Last weekend was a one time deal. Couldn’t believe how diluted AA was. Looking forward to this weekend as win or lose will be competitive. Also there’s a good coffee shop down Pecan st that has good breakfast sandwich. 

The Pflugerville fields are pretty terrible, especially for the catchers.  They’ll adapt.  We hit Brotherton’s BBQ between games last weekend, good spot.  I’ll have to try the coffee shop out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Went with this team in the fall. Slowly I’ve been realizing the coach has some issues.

9U, my kid thought he saw the bunt sign with a runner on 2nd. Laid down a great bunt, almost beat it out but was called out. Kid from 2nd scored. After the inning coach told me he didn’t give bunt sign. Bunt is bill of cap. He touched his cap. 9 yr old got confused. After the game he calls me to tell me how big a deal it was because “he took the bat out of our best hitters hands.” I told him what my kid said - he thought he got the sign. Let’s move on. Missed signs happen at all levels.

So this morning I have a text saying “checked the video, didn’t give the sign. Also, after he told me he didn’t get bunt sign”. (I don’t believe the second part. I spoke with my kid about it. He’s a smart kid and doesn’t miss much.)

Game is over. We have kids miss signs all day long. I replied to this last one with “ok”. We play at 3 today.

Am I crazy thinking he’s crazy? I know he hasn’t mentioned missed signs to any other parent. It’s pissing me off.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, kmac30 said:

Went with this team in the fall. Slowly I’ve been realizing the coach has some issues.

9U, my kid thought he saw the bunt sign with a runner on 2nd. Laid down a great bunt, almost beat it out but was called out. Kid from 2nd scored. After the inning coach told me he didn’t give bunt sign. Bunt is bill of cap. He touched his cap. 9 yr old got confused. After the game he calls me to tell me how big a deal it was because “he took the bat out of our best hitters hands.” I told him what my kid said - he thought he got the sign. Let’s move on. Missed signs happen at all levels.

So this morning I have a text saying “checked the video, didn’t give the sign. Also, after he told me he didn’t get bunt sign”. (I don’t believe the second part. I spoke with my kid about it. He’s a smart kid and doesn’t miss much.)

Game is over. We have kids miss signs all day long. I replied to this last one with “ok”. We play at 3 today.

Am I crazy thinking he’s crazy? I know he hasn’t mentioned missed signs to any other parent. It’s pissing me off.

You should tell him teaching kids at 9U to bunt is bitchass baseball anyway. 
Have them learn to be hitters.  When they’re older and base paths longer and runs lower there’s plenty of time for small-ball. 
Fuck bunting at 9.

Also tell him you watched the video and he still looks like a sensitive penis tip arguing over a simple mistake. 

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, kmac30 said:

Went with this team in the fall. Slowly I’ve been realizing the coach has some issues.

9U, my kid thought he saw the bunt sign with a runner on 2nd. Laid down a great bunt, almost beat it out but was called out. Kid from 2nd scored. After the inning coach told me he didn’t give bunt sign. Bunt is bill of cap. He touched his cap. 9 yr old got confused. After the game he calls me to tell me how big a deal it was because “he took the bat out of our best hitters hands.” I told him what my kid said - he thought he got the sign. Let’s move on. Missed signs happen at all levels.

So this morning I have a text saying “checked the video, didn’t give the sign. Also, after he told me he didn’t get bunt sign”. (I don’t believe the second part. I spoke with my kid about it. He’s a smart kid and doesn’t miss much.)

Game is over. We have kids miss signs all day long. I replied to this last one with “ok”. We play at 3 today.

Am I crazy thinking he’s crazy? I know he hasn’t mentioned missed signs to any other parent. It’s pissing me off.

This would have garnered a laughing emoji along with the "ok"

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are quite a few select coaches that are over the top win at all costs type.  Don’t understand how the parents let them scream at their kids and shout them down in front of everyone over minor mistakes, rather than teaching them the right way in a positive manner.  Played a Canes team yesterday where the coach was like that - overly intense, mistakes made were life & death…trips to the mound he would be pointing demonstrably at a kid the entire walk, then chewing them out once he got there.  Same coach  had the game called 8 minutes early to help their seed (our team was up 3, but we had the bases loaded with no outs, so he had it called to prevent more runs from scoring.  He could have tried to get out of the inning quickly and we had time for another inning.)

We’ve been lucky to have very good, positive coaches for all but one season.  The season that went awry the coach was not retained but it was too late - all but 2 of the kids changed teams.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another tournament weekend in the books. Team moved to AAA after the AA Championship last week. Promptly went 0-2 on Saturday (both games lost by 1 run). Good close, winnable games that could have gone either way. Congrats to @FigurelliPwC and his son's team for beating my kiddo's team yesterday.

So team was put in Consolation bracket and won both games today fairly easily. One of the teams had a super obnoxious dad that was yelling at our kids pretty much all game and just basically acting the fool. Beating that team in the first game was pretty sweet.

For today my son had 2 Doubles, 2 Singles & 5 RBIs.

All in all good day at the office. Went 2-2 in their first AA tournament scoring 31 runs and allowing 24.

Think they will be good, solid, middle of the pack AAA team that plays some good, competitive baseball games.

Have break until 25th. Will be in Park City enjoying some snow.

Hope all had good baseball weekend!!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This guy was a good coach until he got paranoid thinking parents who were trying to help him were trying to run things. Could not have been farther from the truth. So coach has started a private chat with 3 or 4 sets of parents and created a divide in our team so bad, after the first tournament we already have families talking of bailing.

We will definitely be looking for a new team after spring. Sad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, kmac30 said:

This guy was a good coach until he got paranoid thinking parents who were trying to help him were trying to run things.

So you’re telling us the parents were trying to run things. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So you’re telling us the parents were trying to run things. 

No. He had a group of parents trying to help him (keeping track of $, raise $, set up separate bank account - he’s using his personal account). He thought they were trying to take things over. No one wanted to take anything over from him. He was on board for all of it. Then a parent who he trusts didn’t understand why any of this was a good idea.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, kmac30 said:


No. He had a group of parents trying to help him (keeping track of $, raise $, set up separate bank account - he’s using his personal account). He thought they were trying to take things over. No one wanted to take anything over from him. He was on board for all of it. Then a parent who he trusts didn’t understand why any of this was a good idea.

Just when I start thinking maybe we should get The Boy to try out for the local select team, I see it can be funky over there too, huh?

Our coach in little league (majors) this year has maybe one year experience. Drafted blind 'cos he doesn't really know any of the kids 'cos he's been out of town for a couple of years. Already had his staff picked out before talking to any of the parents who might have wanted to help, except for one. The other two assistants don't have kids on the team, and after two practices I've only seen one of them, for the last 20 minutes of the first practice. This guy has like four boys between him and his wife's kids who could play on the team, but apparently all four were not greatful enough for the things they have so they're teaching them a lesson. They're at practice and available to run bases etc... or whatever, but like, it's still really weird. 

Then the coach's son is not really good, but there's another kid on the team who is actually worse, who honestly looks like he's never played baseball before. Like EVER. Kid runs around with his glove and hand sticking out, hunched over, like he's going to shovel up the ball up from 15 feet away. Can't throw. I feel terrible for this kid, like I almost want to pull him to the side and work with him solo, because he's too far behind to really learn with where all of the other boys are at, and it's not fair to the whole team to slow down practice that much for him. I wonder if his parents really thought this through. He's probably at coach-pitch level. He at least needs to be with the minors kids. 

Then to top it all off, in the group text this week the coach says he wants us wearing the long pants because -and I'm not making this up- "we're going to be sliding!"

Luckily there's a strong group of dads here. We can help a lot. But I dunno, it's kinda scary right now. 

Edited by UncleBuck
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...