There will be coaching

The only thing that tells me that I can coach baseball is that my son can hit a ball and doesn't make the scared face when I throw it at him. As a kid, I wasn't all that good, never even having a chance at making my high school team. By the time college rolled around, I hit my stride with intramural softball, hitting over .600 one year. But since then, not much, a few casual softball games and outings to the batting cages.

Luckily, the Piedmont Baseball Foundation organizes coaching clinics for us volunteers. This is probably going to be a lot more helpful than the copy of Science of Hitting I picked up.

There are three clinics:

• "Get up and Go" (now called All Pro Baseball Group). This clinic is run by Erik Johnson, Joe Millette and Ron Wotus, all former professional players while Ron Wotus is the bench coach for the World Champion San Francisco Giants.
• Shetland Coach training session with Ben Mangan (an excellent local baseball trainer)at his facility. This session looks like it might be more hands on given the presence of a batting cage. More on Future Star Baseball.
• Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) clinic, required for all Coaches. This session is about how to work with kids and parents in a positive manner. I did something like this just to be a soccer parent and learned about "compliment sandwiches", truly a seminal moment in my adulthood.

These sessions are for ALL of the coaching volunteers of the Red Sox. So even if you are only thinking about volunteering, let me know and we'll sign you up for them.

We have a team!

Since I got the team roster this morning, I keep thinking of the classic Frankenstein line, "it's alive, it's aliiiiivvvvveeee!!!" What isn't widely known is the original version had him ending with, "The Piedmont Red Sox are allliiivvvveee!" That line ended up on the cutting room floor due to it making absolutely no sense. But regardless, the Piedmont Red Sox are ALIVE!

We have a team consisting of probably the twelve best 5 and 6 year old baseball players on the planet. We have a practice schedule, a date for opening day and only a month left to wait for it to spring into action.

Luckily, during that wait, we have meetings. We have three coaching clinics coming up:

• Get up and Go coaching clinic at the Piedmont Middle School multi-purpose room (2/10 6-8PM)
• Shetland Coach Training at the Future Star Baseball facility (2/13 9:30-11AM)
• Positive Coaching Alliance clinic at the Piedmont Middle School multi-purpose room (2/23 7-9PM).

If you are considering assistant coaching, let me know so I can sign you up for these clinics. The more we all know about baseball, the more we can teach the kids.

Mid February will also see a parents' meeting where I will ruthlessly assign volunteer "opportunities" to anybody who doesn't show up. And all the parents will get to know each other. And we'll probably have cookies.

Just remember that there is no better sport in the world than baseball. Your kids learn to avoid getting hit by fast moving objects, get to run in circles and have the unique opportunity in life to swing a big metal club without getting in trouble. If we do this right and get them hooked, you may never have to sit through a boring soccer game again.

Go Red Sox.

How baseballs are made

Following up on our award winning post about deconstructing baseballs, it seems useful to know how they are made. Luckily, the Discovery Channel can help out.