Baseball & Mother's Day

It's a wonderful thing I enjoy baseball, it consumes most of the summer for us. Ty had a game Tues night, last night, tonight, 2 tomorrow and again possibly on Sunday. In the chance we don't make it to the championship; we'll celebrate Mother's Day with a Royals game!

I truly enjoy our baseball team, The LS Bulldogs. We have a great group of players and parents alike. We are a AA team so we can be competitive but yet still have fun.

We started comp play in 05, while it was fun it was A LOT of work. That the was the start of the LS Bulldogs, nothing can compare to that first summer - it was the best! We had a couple different players and coaches back then. At the end of the season, we saw players and parents take different directions. This would be our last year for machine pitch and there were a few boys that were young enough they could stay play for one more year. Coach T. Vance took those boys and started a younger team. At that time our coaches felt like try outs were the way to go for next seasons team. I was under the impression tryouts were only for the vacant positions - not true. Each boy had to earn his spot. To make a sad story short - Ty wasn't picked up. His heart was broken, as I was consoling him Brian was telling the head coach that was a poor choice on his part. And the coach understood and said he knew he was taking a chance. I knew the coaches were VERY competitive and wanted nothing but the best of boys. What we didn't see at the time was the big picture...

We now had the job of finding a new comp team to play on. (Once you play comp - you really don't want to turn back to rec) We went and tried out for a handful of teams. How do you know to pick the right team? In 06 we found ourselves on the Mudcats team. A new team comprised of all ages (8-11). We went with this team because they needed a pitcher and Ty was their man. Little did I know Ty had a good pitching arm. He was their main man! :) This too was a summer I'll never forget - would like to - but wont. This kids were fun but the parents were awful. And the coach, I think this was his first year and his buddies were assistant coaches (when they were there). This coach tried to be aggressive but often had a softer side. Not something we were used to on the playing field. Bri would get upset with him. Parents yelling at Ty to throw good pitches. For Heaven's sake he's only 9 years old. A couple of moms would forever voice there opinion out loud in the stands. It was awful... On the other field, I talked with the bulldog parents I knew when we'd see them at the park. They too were handed something they weren't ready for. The parents of these new players - apparently they were just as foul mouthed, rude, unfriendly as the ones on our team. Bulldogs were not having an awesome year as they expected.

Neither team lasted for a second year. The Bulldogs split yet again. They split into AAA and AA team although not all players returned. Coach Singer took the AAA and named them something new and Coach Overton took on the AA Bulldogs. We were asked if we were interesting in coming back to play. Coach explained to Bri - we're here to have fun. So here it is 07 - Ty's excited to see some old team mates and make new friends. We had a good year. Not great but good as this was the first year for the boys to play together. Here's the awesome part (in my opinion) had Ty stayed with the bulldogs, I know he would have never had the opportunity to pitch. But because Ty played with another, he had a whole season to perfect his pitch. And guess who's one of the main pitchers?! ; )

Our 08 season is fresh. We've played one tourney - came in 4th place. Our league record right now is 2-1 (and the 1 shouldn't even be that). It was a rained out game - we only finished 3 innings. But league officials decided to call is a game. (Err!!!) I've scouted out the teams we're playing this weekend. Looks like we have a good chance. Boys looked solid last night, hope they come ready to play tonight!

One last quick comment - we play a 11-12 yr old league. The boys found this out last night as we played some pretty tall 12 yr olds. We ran spread them 11-3!!! Ty thought that was sad for the other team. I just hope is doesn't go to their heads!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!