We got our uniforms and had our first practice

Saturday was an incredible day. For me, at least, not sure how all the kids felt about it yet. The Red Sox had our first practice. It was one of the fastest 60 minutes in my life. The kids threw, caught, and swang (swung, swingged, err, something like that).

We did three stations:

• Throwing: taught the drill "thumb to the thigh, fingers to the sky" and show the apple to the giant. This gets players to hold the ball in the right position before throwing. Once they throw it (trying to hit either a coach or the fence), they need to do a chicken wing, but really, I just wanted to make sure the giant saw the apple.
• Fielding: worked on the ready and triangle positions. This gets them down and ready to field grounders. For now, if they can catch balls thrown right at them, we're in the lead.
• Hitting: just practice the swing. Get the stance right, keep their head still and all else will follow.

Then, the fun began, they got to run in and out to positions. Not all of these 5-6 year olds have been watching and playing baseball for 30+ years so they may not know where shortstop actually is or that it even exists. Spending 10 minutes in the first practice is time worth its weight in gold.

And, yes, we are now officially the Red Sox, you can see right there on the front of our shirts. Only 5 more days until the next practice!

Red Sox Team Picture

Until we get our team picture taken on March 12th, I think we should use this one:



In fact, somebody remind me to make sure we photoshop some black and white versions of the photo for future generations.

How to break in your mitt

Quick quiz, which of these two mitts is easier to squeeze:




It's not a hard quiz, the one on the top is obviously easier to squeeze. And the easier to squeeze, the less likely your 5 year old is going to drop the ball. Or complain about how hard it is to squeeze the mitt.

So, how to go about breaking in a mitt to be squeezably soft. It's easy, oil it and distress it. And use it. Here are the techniques I use.

• First, use a lot of glove oil on it, put a ball in it, and tie string or rubber bands around it. Then hit it repeatedly with a baseball bat. Maybe run over it with your car.
  
• Play catch.
  
• Please note that when you close your hand mimicking the glove squeezing action, your thumb does not touch your pinkie, it shouldn't on your glove either. Keep this in mind when tying the thing up. See the top image again.
  
• Play catch.
  
• After repeated beatings, the glove should be starting to get its shape, at this point, oil it again, don't put a ball in it and have your ballplayer jump up and down on it. This doesn't do much but is fun for all involved. Take a turn yourself.
• Play catch.
  
• Oil again, and place the mitt under your mattress. Do this every night until your back starts aching. Let your kids know how much you are willing to do for them and hand them the brochure for the really nice retirement home in Florida.
  
• Play catch.
• Rinse and repeat.

That's it. Doesn't take too long, requires only a few drops of oil per day and is fun. Breaking in your mitt is going to make it a lot easier to use and make the game a lot more fun.

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.

Understanding baseball

To understand how to play baseball, you first must understand a baseball. This isn't some fancy Northern California get in touch with your inner self philosophy, this is truth derived from years of playing and watching the game of baseball.

Plus I've always wanted to cut a baseball in half.

When Noah and I went down to Coach's Playfield to help determine how the 5 year old attention span reacts to "intense baseball drills", we got a bit sidetracked by the incredible number of baseballs littering the edges of the field. With a little bit of mountaineering and and derring-do, we were able to rescue about a half dozen baseballs from the field. These being hardballs, they are of little use to us other than demonstrating the difference between the Shetland Reduced Impact Ball (SRIB) and the Hurts When it Hits You Hardball (HWHYH).

We picked the most beatedest up of the beat up HWHYH's and pulled out a hacksaw (I'm not crazy nor talented enough to deploy powertools on round objects) then cut this thing in half and took an extra slice to see what happens.

I had always heard about the cork and rubber core but always assumed it was cork surrounded by rubber, but in fact it is a rubber ball with specks of cork inside it. The yarn was not white as I expected but blackish blue. It was also a thicker yarn than I realized. And it is wound as tightly as I imagined.

Next step is to cut a SRIB in half to see the difference. My guess is that the only difference will be that the yarn isn't wound as tight. On the slice that we took, the yarn quickly fluffified and became soft without anything to compress it. This leads me to believe that the top layer will be loosely wound yarn for additional softness. We will soon see when we have a beat up enough reduced impact ball to sacrifice to the hacksaw.

And only then we can truly understand the baseball.