Did I Just See That?

Travel baseball can be a world of predictability.  The other 90% of the time, it is chaos with an umpire.

Last night, we opened our season.  The expectation was rain coming in during the game.  It was an overcast night, but very warm.  It closed in on 75 degrees and I spent the night in shirt sleeves.  Would have been nice to lay down a nice base burn on my arms and face.  Not happening this time.

We came out firing, scoring three runs in the first inning.  We got a couple more runs over the next two innings, and looked to be cruising.  It threatened to become a rout, and we still had two runners on base, one out.  A called third strike, a force out, and the strange things started to happen.

The last two hitters in their order produced a run on a single, steal, and long double.  We gave up two more in the fifth when we threw the ball around.  Made two errors, gave up a sharp single, mixed in a steal and the lead is 5-3.   We were still smiling.

We knew something our opponent didn't know.  We had a true closer.

We have a left hander who throws hard.  REALLY HARD.  Harder than Barry Zito.  Harder than Jamie Moyer.  A bunch of 14 year old boys shouldn't stand a chance.

My son, Robby, played first base.  The leadoff hitter hit the ball his way.  IN PLAY?  Off 88 MPH?  At age 14?   Pitcher covered a little late, second baseman a little slow covering, the ball just far enough off the bag, no one could cover it.  Leadoff runner scores 75% of the time...

Mr. 88 MPH missed the target.  Repeatedly.  Suddenly the bases are loaded, and one out.  Time for a mound visit.  Good thing I didn't go.  He found the corners on six of the next eight pitches and lowered our collective blood pressures.  The seventh was nine strikes on 14 pitches.  Thankfully.

Baseball can be variable, enough that major leaguers needed to play 162 games to make it fair.  Add in the joys of puberty, and major organs could be threatened.  It is joyful to see young men learn the skills that make the game possible.  Seeing the lights come on and find a new level of skills are why anyone coaches this age group.  To have a young man who throws in the upper 80's in the age group is special.  He threw a ball from the outfield that had so much movement, it almost hit the cutoff man in the back.  Very special.

So...am I off base?