My Baseball Blog

Hurricane Ike is scheduled for landfall tomorrow night or early Saturday morning. We are boarded up, but do not plan to leave unless our area looks like it's going to take a direct hit (we're right on Galveston Bay, neah Kemah). A lot of our neighbors have decided the same thing.

During Hurricane Rita, there was mass panic, stoked by the news channels and local authorities. One and a half millions residents took to the roads under mandatory evacuations and faced horrendous conditions for 36 hours on gridlocked freeways. We waited until the last minute to leave after boarding up our house and moving everything up to the second floor (that nasty storm surge, you see). And it turned out to be a big non-event for the Houston area, as Rita turned sharply north on the day before landfall.

Not so for the Beaumont area, where Elizabeth and her family were displaced for a month due to a ton of wind damage and lack of utilities. They headed up to stay with family in Wisconsin, and and on their way again now ahead of Ike.

We have family on the west side of Houston, and will head out about 12 hours ahead of Ike if it looks like we'll take a direct hit. If Ike jogs north, like Rita did, then we'll stay put.

Needless to say...baseball practice was cancelled for tonight and Saturday. Bummer, huh?

Here are some photos of Jonathan helping his dad board up the house. It sure is convenient having two full-grown men in the house to do the heavy lfiting - now I don't have to do it. During Rita Jonathan was still a little too young to be of much help, but today he can do everything his dad can do. Very helpful!

 

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Hurricane Ike is scheduled for landfall tomorrow night or early Saturday morning.  We are boarded up, but do not plan to leave unless our area looks like it's going to take a direct hit (we're right on Galveston Bay, neah Kemah).  A lot of our neighbors have decided the same thing.

During Hurricane Rita, there was mass panic, stoked by the news channels and local authorities.  One and a half

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From an AP news story this morning:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player — too good, it turns out.

The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.

Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho's team, redistributing its players among other squads, and offered to refund $50 sign-up fees to anyone who asks for it. They say Jericho's coach, Wilfred Vidro, has resigned.

But Vidro says he didn't quit and the team refuses to disband. Players and parents held a protest at the league's field on Saturday urging the league to let Jericho pitch.

"He's never hurt any one," Vidro said. "He's on target all the time. How can you punish a kid for being too good?"

The controversy bothers Jericho, who says he misses pitching.

Read the rest of the story...

 

Hmmmm...I think I'll forward this article to a few select coaches in the Connecticut area. I'm sure they would be interested in picking up another pitcher.

Frankly, this article indicates to me a level of FAIL for every single adult involved - coaches, league officials, and parents.

The best players have left league play (because the competition level has declined) and are now playing for USSSA, Super Series, AAU, Nations Baseball, etc. And in fact, this kid would fit right in, because 40 mph would be about normal if he played Select - perhaps a little slow even.

My son’s pitching coach has a ten year old son (almost 11) who pitches 69 mph. My son and his contemporaries are 13 and pitching 80. Select is much more competitive and that’s where the best players go. A nine year old pitching at 40 mph is not exactly scary-good at the Select level.

The fact that the boy is still in a “developmental” league indicates to me that he’s a ringer. So what? We've ALL seen that - the coach wants the very best player for his team and the parents want their son to be a SUPERSTAR. But what good does it do for Jericho's development as a player if he's the most dominant player of a bunch of beginners? I say "Big whoop."

How many of us have seen reputed league superstars come to Select and just get creamed? Uh-huh, we all have. His parents should quit acting like they are victims and let him play amongst kids who are just as good - perhaps better - than he is. But wait... in Select there are try-outs and the kid will have to make it on his own merit. There's no reason for them to avoid that, is there?

Maybe there is. I can see one reason already why a Select team might pass over young Jericho Scott - his mother! Plenty of Select coaches audition the parents as well, and will pass over a decent player because the parents are notoriously difficult. And Jericho's mom sounds overly obnoxious. She called the police when the other team forfeited?! C'mon, lady! Get a grip and get some perspective. The police have better things to do than answer a call from a hysterical baseball mom! Pitiful.

As for the other teams who forfeit rather than play him, they are doing a huge disservice to their beginner athletes. HUGE. Any player should want to be challenged to play his best - to play up. The coaches and parents of the opposing teams are teaching those kids to be victims and losers. Pitiful.

As I said above, this situation is an all-around FAIL for every single adult involved - coaches, league officials, and parents. Only the kid is a winner here.

 

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How will the best team in Little League stack up against the best team in Select? I'm looking forward to finding out! I've always held an opinion that Select baseball was more competitive and therefore produced better ballplayers. I felt like my son should make it on his own merit as an athlete, and not on whose dad was coaching the team. I also liked that in Select, my son was playing open bases, with longer baselines and greater pitching distances. I felt like Jonathan was more challenged and that could only make him better.

So just to test my homegrown theory, I went and watched a few Little League and Pony games. My intent was to try and honestly gauge whether my son was better off staying in Select or perhaps we should consider returning to Pony. After all, everyone (and I do mean everyone) was telling us that Pony was the place to be in the years before high school. I watched and weighed and considered...

And all things considered, we decided that Select would be best for our son - and we never looked back. Now this weekend, thanks to the first ever inter-association National Championship, we will have a chance to observe Little Leaguers, Pony players, and various Select organizations in direct compeition with each other. Which truly produces the more disciplined, competitve, and skilled ballplayers? I don't know, but I'm excited to find out!

 

Here's the NYBC Preview video. I've got all the pertinent info, such as schedules and results, posted up in the main menu under Big Events. It all starts today. Check it out!

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One of my son's coaches was cruising around the site the other day and liked the image of the combat pitcher on the front page. I told him that was an ad for the actual pitching program taught by the Elite Pitcher's Boot Camp that Jonathan goes to six times a year. Jonathan has got a poster-size version in his bedroom with his pitching goal for this year scrawled across the top in black Sharpie. I love the concept - it kind of goes with our whole mentality about baseball.

So today his coach happened across this photo of ummm...Combat Baseball? Only American boys would come up with a way to combine two things they love most: baseball and explode-y things.

Now there's one way to increase your fastball!

 

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I've started a listing for reviews of the Elite 24 World Series (my own review is quite extensive), but I wanted to make an unofficial list of my biggest pet peeves concerning this experience. I'd love to hear your own thoughts on this.

PEEVE: There is very little consolidated information available - anywhere - for the USSSA Elite World Series. This event is the crowning tournament of the season, and you'd think there would be a little better organization and promotion. This lone WS page was next to worthless, with "Disney" links that lead back to the USSSA main page. Pointless.

SOLUTION: One way to organize and promote is to host a single website dedicated to the qualifying teams, game schedules, brackets, and results for all six divisions. Furthermore, the website should include all info related to travel, discount event tickets, parking, maps, entry fees, rules, guidelines and restrictions. We tried to consolidate as much as we could find here at BaseballNation.US so that people didn't have to hunt and peck through the USSSA tournament search page. But try finding any information at all about the facility itself - that's nowhere to be found. (We didn't find out 'til the second day that we could bring in our own coolers. Big personal pet peeve right there!)

PEEVE: Sporadic game announcers. Some games had them, most didn't.

SOLUTION: Organize game announcers ahead of time. It can't be that hard to do - even to accept volunteers. Of course, a single website would go a long way to making the need known and recruiting volunteers. But each game should have a game announcer.

PEEVE: No ESPN sports coverage. Last year, the Elite WS had a few games televised and that turned out to be enormously popular. This year, no games were televised, much to everyone's disappointment.

SOLUTION: We heard that USSSA is in talks with ESPN for sports coverage in 2009. Great idea!

PEEVE: Every World Series should have competitions after the Opening Ceremony: Home Run Derby, Base Running, Banner Judging, etc.

SOLUTION: Schedule it. The boys love it, and it's a chance for them to trade pins. Speaking of which - how come there was no get-together scheduled for the boys to trade pins? Pins end up being a pretty big expense for any World Series, and most boys are too busy during tournament play to exchange pins.

{mos_fb_discuss:16}

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Well, we lost our second bracket game. It was a tough game, too. Our pitcher valiantly pitched 6 1/3 innings - 129 pitches - before he was replaced. We were ahead by one when he was replaced and we ended up losing by one before the next two outs.

It was a heart breaker. A really tough one to lose. Sometimes, I think it's almost a little easier to lose a blow-out, when you've obviously been out-classed, but to lose such a close and hard-fought game is the hardest way to go out.

We'll stick around for another day to recoup before heading home. No one's looking forward to the 14 hour drive back to the real world.

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The soon-to-be-filled infield of the stadium at Disney's Wide World of Sports.

The boys walked onto the infield. I would've preferred a nice, athletic trot. But that's me. It took quite awhile to introduce 144 teams, but the music was loud, the colors were bright, the weather was beautiful, so who minded?

Here's our boys. Three teams from Bullet Baseball, 9U/13U/14U, entered the field together and in a tidy formation. Very nice! (I was going to crop the top half of this photo to make it more proportional but I was mesmerized by the gorgeous emerald green outfield. I just had to leave it because to crop it out would hurt.)

The infield is finally full. Let's see, that's 24 teams in six age brackets...144 teams of about 12 players each...over 1,728 players and their coaches! Give or take a few. ;)

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It's all about pure excitement here in Orlando, FL at the Elite 24 world Series...

Would you look at the tension gripping these kids on their way to the Opening Ceremony?

Can you feel it?

 

Let me tell ya - the fun never stops around here!

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I've got my mobile phone set up with Twitter and can now easily update the site from my phone while at the World Series. Handy! So I've placed a little green module on the front page (right sidebar) that will display any game texts I send from my phone. You can also find a Twitter Update on each page of the Community section.

What's a Twitter, you ask?

It's like a text message to the website: small messages in real time that contain updates from whatever baseball event we are at. A mini-liveblog, if you will. In this case, we are covering the USSSA Elite 24 World Series at Disney's Wide World of Sports.

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