Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Baseball Tryouts

Tryouts began with warm ups. The players were paired off and they warmed up by throwing the ball back and forth to each other. They did real good with the throwing part but that catching part was a little more challenging. They chased more than they caught.

Tryouts were short and sweet. There were over thirty players so each player only had a few moments to show what they had. First up they were placed at shortstop. A coach hit two balls to them. They had to field the hit and throw it to first. Then, they were placed at first base and had to run to second base. At second, they could either stop or slide. My son chose to slide even though he has never, ever been taught how to slide into a base. That is not unlike my son. According to him there is nothing he doesn't know and nothing he can't do. After the running drill they got to bat. The balls were pitched from a machine. And, for first timers like us, that ball comes out of that machine like a bullet. We were told later they are pitched from that machine at forty three mph. Each player got four balls pitched to them. Most of the players that had played before, never even put a bat on the ball. But my boy, my boy, well... here I'll let you see what my boy did.

Out of four pitches, my boy who has never done this before, put a bat on two of them. One, was a foul ball, but the other one was in fair play. Now, many of you doubters and naysayers may call that luck. But, the coach in me, calls that POTENTIAL! Granted we need to work on his posture some. He was trying to hit the ball in his Kung Fu horse stance. I'm sure that will be remedied soon enough.

First practice is this Thursday. "Play ball!"

2 comments:

Nathan's Uncle said...

Wish I knew what we could do to boost Bubby's self-esteem. What time is practice? I might be able to come. Uncle Howie

Anonymous said...

Starting baseball season today too. Little League. And I hate all the stress of it....but the little guy LOVES it. So here I go again!!!