18U Fall Baseball

After some back and forth with the "head coach", SoulSlam convinced (cajoled) our local fall baseball team to play 18U. Truth be known, OSSS is probably youngest kid on team, most of these boys (about 85%) will be seniors next year, so playing 16U is pretty stupid. So I basically told the head lineup writer and his trusty companion that it was 18U or we would go elsewhere. After some capitulation, that's what happened.

So let me 'splain a couple of things. Other that SoulSlam, the other coaches are a bit thick on the cabeza. I'm pretty sure nobody knows how to do a scorebook, so I do it. They also can't throw BP or hit fungoes, so I do that too. And when our catcher isn't ready to come out to warm up pitcher, I get in the crouch. They coach the bases (poorly), as a matter of fact, the two of them probably cost us the W yesterday.

So on to that. We didn't get the L either. We tied. In baseball. After 8 1/2 innings. So this game has a lot of stuff going on that doesn't make sense.

Let's pick it up in 6th. We end that inning with 4-3 lead. Took out SP. OSSS goes in for 7th. He gets two outs and then a couple of little flares fall, then a double by #3 hitter and we are looking at a loss. We go down 7-4. We come up with bottom of the order and tie the game. Sweet. Extras.

We lead off with #6 hitter (aka the Italian Stallion), who struggled mightily last season. He gets up and hits a little flare to LF...and the kid out there misplays a big hop. So IS takes off for 2B. Great. But then... I see the HC/HLW waving him to 3B. I yell NO from the dugout...but nobody listens. He's out by 10 feet. So instead of a runner on 2B w/ no outs we got nada. I have to explain what scoring position is to these coaches I guess. We did not score.

In top 8, the first two guys on opp get on, and a WP allows them to move to 2B and 3B. Yikes. But we put them away with some nifty fielding (including a nice scoop at 1B by OSSS). Our turn, top of the order coming up.

Then

THUNDER!. Now so you get all the info you need. It was Africa-Hot in North J, about 92-93. Players cramping up everywhere. So umps call a 30 minute delay after we've played about 3 hours. Our HC decides the TIE is fine and we line it up.

A late game in Jersey City today against a team that apparently doesn't have uniforms. I wonder if Smalls, Benny, Ham and Squints will be there. And OSSS is not feeling great so I may be going alone.