Griggs field was home to the highest population density in the state last night. There were two games (T-ball and 10U Baseball), our practice, and Isabel’s parent/child T-ball practice coinciding.
So the two games got the real fields and we were relegated to some outfield grass. This required some creative coaching. We just played catch for 10 minutes while I grasped for inspiration. Then I had an idea. Then, Ben and I discussed the merits of him crossing the street unsupervised to run home and grab a recycling bin. He conviced me he could, safely.
What I had in mind was something I remembered from the Tom Emanski’s Defensive Drills Video TV commercial. It showed a bunch of little leaguers making perfect throws from the outfield in to a trash can at home plate.
We had no backstop, so what we did is spread out in the mock field, and I threw 8 balls out at a time and had everyone throw at the blue recycling bin. I placed it up the third baseline so errant throws weren’t beaning the parents. One of the dad’s helped chase the throws that went pretty much everywhere except the bin. This was to be expected. None of these kids has ever seen or even heard of Tom Emanski’s Defensive Drills Video!
After about 15 minutes of this we took a water break, and I set up 6 stations about 40 feet apart like the dots of a #6 domino. I counted off numbers to the kids 1–6 and had them line up at each station. Keeping with the domino metaphor, imagine a blue recycling bin on the single dot. Now imagine this domino is Paul Bunyan size! We had two groups and I’d throw two balls to the far fielders to start the relay.
From this setup we practice relaying the ball in from the outfield to the blue bin. As they started to get it, I talked to them about lining up between the blue bin and the person throwing the ball, and eventually letting the throw go past you when it was strong enough to make it to the next person in the relay. After a while we started keeping score of which group would get the ball in the fastest. Then we added a bonus half point for hitting the bin. It got quite competitive and the kids had a lot of fun. We rotated stations so everyone got in on each part of the relay.
After a second water break, we mixed the teams up and played again until the hour was up.
Then I called them in to distribute the handout and made sure they knew we had a road game Tuesday and where it was. Most of them stayed around another 5 minutes while I went through the “How to play whiffle ball” instructions in this weeks handout.
Then Ben and I played a game of whiffle ball for most of an hour. He beat me 11–10.
Practice #5
We didn’t have our game on Tuesday, and we had a real field so we played two innings of an intra-squad scrimmage.
Practice #4
We had a small patch of grass between a big girls’ softball game and a T-ball practice. We worked on baserunning and fielding in some tiny baseball, then took some BP.
