Tidbits from West Carleton 5-pitch

Coaching 6 to 8 year olds can be challenging, but can also be lots of fun. Watching the softball skills develop over the course of a six week season is very gratifying. Most nights you have good and bad moments. For instance at a recent game with Fitzroy Junior.......

Pop flies: With kids of all ages, of course, practice makes perfect. At the beginning of a recent game, we had a warm up with the kids shagging flies. Now normally this means me hitting a bunch of balls that get dropped, completely missed, make kids cower with fright or overran. GOOD: On this night, the warm up plan seemed to work, and work well. During the game we caught a total of four pop flies in the game, which is pretty much unheard of in this league. Fitzroy Junior caught his first ever pop fly. The look on his face was priceless when he realized he had hung on for the out - he looked directly at me, did a little jump for joy, and pointed to the ball. BAD: Unfortunately during the warm up I hit a liner a bit too hard and bonked one of the girls right in the melon. She was not pleased. Her dad who is my assistant coach and a very good friend of mine, game her a hug and reminded her to pay attention, but I think he may have been a little ticked off at me too. Whoops. Good thing her mom wasn't there. Oh well, she had a wee cry and got back out there.

Batting practice: Since the kids were there early we also did a little batting practice, giving the kids a chance to take some cuts. At the 5pitch level, it's the coach that throws them in so I was out on the slab, chucking a little BP. GOOD: You could really tell the difference a little batting practice made. The kids were crushing the ball; even the weaker players were putting the ball in play with authority during the game. BAD: One of the girls who is normally a really good hitter was having a bit of a problem connecting after a few pitches. The game was about to start and there a few kids that had to go yet, so I moved up and gave her a nice soft lob... and she promptly drove it back at me, no time to react, BAM right off the left eye. Ouch that hurt. To quote her: "Coach, I don't want to hit anymore, I don't want to hurt you."