Finally, we’ve had a string of sunny and warm days around here. I suppose if my birthday weren’t in February, I’d hate the damn month as much as everyone else does. And I don’t even live in a cold climate.
Practice last Saturday was a bit limited, with only seven kids showing up as four others had conflicts. HISD’s spring break is next week, so attendance will continue to be spotty. On the plus side, two of my kids are travelling to spring training with their dads, so at least they’ll get some baseball by osmosis. Lucky stiffs.
(I hear from my dad that my cousin Joe will be attending the Seattle Mariners’ spring training camp as a guest of Terry Pollreisz, hitting coach for the San Antonio Missions and former head coach at the University of Portland. Hey, Dad, tell Joe to bring a diary.)
We ran through some infield drills first. I was reasonably happy with how they handled grounders, though throwing to first still needs work. I think I’ve identified a potential third baseman and shortstop, which is good. I’ll have to see some of the guys who weren’t there to know for sure.
After shagging grounders, I put everyone at a position and threw batting practice. While my infield-drill grounder-hitting has improved since the first practice, my batting-practice-pitching still needs work. When I pitch from the league mound, my pitches are coming in too high for the kids. I finally figured out to start from behind the mound and throw a bit harder, much like the pitching machine we used at the batting cage. Eventually, I’d like to have some of the kids throw a little batting practice, but not yet.
Today the guy who recruited me to coach sent out email to all league coaches reminding us that we need to have a corporate sponsor lined up for our team by Friday. After I stopped hyperventilating, I sent him a note saying “uh, I must have missed that part when you talked me into this”. Thankfully, there are some unaligned sponsors in the queue, so one of them will be assigned to us. Whew!
Next practice is tomorrow. We should have good weather again. I love springtime.