Yesterday, instead of pressing work, I spent the entire afternoon and evening reading a book about Little League. This morning, after I took the boys to their schools, I again avoided my work, and watched Field of Dreams on TV.

The draft went just as the planners said, but FAR faster. Only one coach wasn’t prepared enough; everyone else knew who they wanted within 30 seconds of being called. We started at 6:30, and finished about 7:45!! Not 10:30 as I was warned of!

Much of the first round picked the obvious stars, but some of the best went late in the round because they’re prime pluckings for the Majors to elevate when they have their usual openings – typically about 3 per year. We picked a fine guy, who, we suspect, is lower in Major’s views, so we’re likely to be able to keep him all year. The very best players are likely to be plucked early, leaving the AAA team with the benefit of the star for only the first part of the season, and having to replace a now-Majors guy with a promotion from AA, a huge come-down for the team.

Then there was a 3-round feeding frenzy for pitchers of any age, then the rest of the draft was spent plugging gaps, or avoiding problems. AAA had 3 sets of brother-rule pairs this year, where, for the convenience of the parents, 2 brothers must be on the same team. The lower-quality brother dragged their draft position down very low; otherwise, the better brother would have been picked MUCH higher. Another pair of brothers was separated, just as my boys were last year, to their benefit.

We made out GREAT! The league is youth-heavy this year – few older kids, lots of younger ones. We managed to get several excellent players: 4 12-year-olds (who can’t pitch, under our rules, and therefore appeal less to other coaches), 2 of whom can play catcher. We got 3 or 4 likely pitchers, one likely dud who is known to be at least a nice guy, 2 unknowns, and nobody who’s likely to disrupt.

Of course there are always surprises; always somebody who does better than expected and somebody who does worse. But they’re likely to pay attention, and they have the physical attributes to do at least as well as others. Sure, there were lots of great players that other teams drafted. All of us could pick a dream team of all-stars. But no one other team seems to have gotten many stars, nor even many of the older players.

Nick Miguel, 12, manager’s son
Mason Sperling, 11, coach’s son
Tyler Liebelt, 12, Brewers last year too
Steve Barbi, 12
Chris Kallas, 12
Aidan O’Connor, 11, Brewers last year too
Rocky Crest, 10
Yoyo Barden, 9
Alex Juicy, 9
Julian Manzano, 9
Taran Poss, 9

While out on the field with Lumin’s PONY team, I spotted the Red Sox taking first practice! We haven’t even held our team meeting yet, and they’re already out practicing!

The Brewers meeting. Don and Nick came at 6 with way more fruit drink and cookies than the team could finish; he left the rest with us. Every family came!! Many brought siblings – our family room was full, but we did have enough seating for all adults. One kid was out sick, but his Mom was here. Introductions, standard list of topics.

At the end I went through the parent-enabled enhancements I’ve been thinking up:

Free Exercise! Join the Warmups!
Family members are encouraged to join in the stretching and exercises at the beginning of each practice and warmup. The exercises are good for the players and also others, who can join us for free though they’d have to pay to do the same thing in a health club. Players seeing their parents eagerly exercise should gain both positive family feelings and a more positive attitude toward the exercises, so it’s good for the team.

“Take Me Out to the Ballgame”
Lead the assembled players and fans in a group sing-along performing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. If the leader has a karaoke recording of the music, that would help.

“Casey at the Bat”
Coach a selected player to perform the classic poem “Casey at the Bat”. Players can dramatize the poem as it is recited. Encourage overacting and hamming it up. The poem takes 5-10 minutes to perform, depending on pacing and interruptions.

“Who's On First”
Coach 2 selected players to perform the classic skit “Who’s on First?”. This takes 5-10 minutes. Optional extra: Bring cloth banners with each player’s name, to unroll as the dialog gets to them. Use the starting player, at each position, and have him unroll his banner as the skit talks about each position. (No version I’ve seen tells the right fielder’s name. What do you think it should be?)

“Go to a High School, College, Minor or Major League Baseball Game”
Arrange a time (not school time, practice time or game time) and carpooling for the entire team to see a game. Open to everyone who wants to come – friends and relatives too. Everyone pays their own way.

A Real Pro
Find a local retired major leaguer of good character. Persuade him to drop by a Brewers practice to encourage the boys, give pointers, and spin yarns about playing in the Big Leagues. Can the team supply an honorarium? Can someone acquire old baseball cards of this player, for our players to pay for and get autographed?

Spin Your Baseball Yarns
If you have any baseball stories of your own — heroes, teams you rooted for as a kid, games you played, or whatever — tell them to the kids. We can include 5-minute tales at their “breather” — the 1-hour-in point of a practice session, after which kids change to a different drill. Somewhat longer tales fit at the end of a practice.

Photograph the team and its members
The formal, league-sponsored photos are good, but a parent with a zoom camera can take many more action shots in practice and games. Also, snap photos during the other morale-boosting events. eMail the photos to each family.

Make Scrapbooks for Team Members
Turn the photos, tickets, autographed cards, and other mementos into scrapbook pages. Players and families should love them as souvenirs.

What do YOU want from this season?
Is there anything relating to baseball that YOU – the parent – want, either for your son or for yourself? Tell Coach Norm.

Several parents are “considering” enhancing our team these ways, though none committed outright. I think some of these will happen. I put in repeated plugs for parental presence, especially in the stands during games.

The kids themselves picked their uniform numbers, behaved very well, and all went smoothly. I can’t think of anything to complain about, nor any excuses. As I told Don, that means that if anything does go wrong, it’s our fault.

Professionally, I’m an astronomer. These kids are baseball players. I tell them “The first man to walk on the Moon was Neil Armstrong”. They ask “Who was pitching?”

Planning for our first practice session. Missed catches are extremely expensive. Each miss can cost a base or 2 for each runner. To reduce the number of missed catches, I’ve developed a slogan and some variations on the most common drill, playing catch.

The throw that’s best is the throw that’s most catchable, not the fastest. Our best fielders can throw balls way harder than their weaker teammates can catch. If they throw too hard, the ball escapes, and runners take free bases on us. So I repeat as often as needed, “Throw it so your teammate can catch it.”

The hardest ball to catch is the one that comes at the feet. If asked, all our veteran coaches would confirm that that’s hard for our kids — this is scarcely a novel insight. But none seems to take the next step, to drill the kids at what they’re not very good at, because they get better if you do. So I take the pairs of teammates, and tell them to throw the ball at their teammate’s feet. I recommended this to Don a year ago. He tried it out, and found that it’s easy and works well. Some of the balls arrive knee-high, some bounce before arrival — just as in real games. The kids miss a whole lot of them the first couple sessions. But when we practice this way 5 or more times in a season, the kids improve remarkably. They catch all sorts of low hits and throws that other teams routinely flub. It doesn’t look dramatic — it’s not highlight-reel stuff, they’re simply catches — but it earns us a few outs per game, and that really holds down opponents’ scoring.

We tried those drills, and lots more, this afternoon at the best first-practice I’ve seen in an AAA team. In a league where the lowest players really drag a team down a lot, we have no duds at all. One guy, who wasn’t much good last year, has practiced a lot, caught several balls impressively (for him), and even hit a few plastic balls. 2 of our 9-year-olds need quite a bit of coaching, especially in hitting form, but that’s normal and they’re trainable. One of our 9s is magnificent, as Don saw in tryouts. All 4 of our 12s look solid, though only one is clearly Majors caliber — which means we can be hurt if he’s elevated to Majors, but others probably will go up before he does.

Don and I don’t think any kid plays Little League to get yelled at, so we never yell at them.

On several kinds of drills, our players did better catching than I’ve ever seen at a first-practice. So, on both the incoming abilities of players, and on acceptance of my biggest issues, I’m optimistic.

We got some more news. Alex’s mom, Darlene, who thought she could get us a pro, just confirmed. Shawon Dunston will come to our practice one week from now! A real all-star pro! He started in Little League, and was honored at a Little League World Series. Dunston played in the majors for 18 years, largely as shortstop with the Chicago Cubs, but 3 times for our local San Francisco Giants, and other teams. He was an All-Star in 1988 and 1990, and retired in 2002 after going to the World Series with the Giants.

The parents are very impressed. I’m looking good for having asked, and Darlene is looking fabulous for coming through in grand style. Of course we’re going to have caps and cards and other stuff ready for autographing.

You can always dream up a fantasy team with top All-Stars. You can always dream up the practice field from Paradise. You can always dream up the most perfect equipment.

But when you wake up, reality hands you the players you actually have, with the field and equipment you actually have. You could fritter a lot of energy in wistful regrets. Put that energy into making do.

At our level, games are lost more often than they are won. That is, defensive errors allow in decisive runs, more often than powerful offense earns them. The poorest players drag down the team enormously. It’s quite striking how much a poor player can demolish the accomplishments of an otherwise-good team.

So put a LOT of effort into raising the abilities of the worst players. If you can bring the duds and mice up to middling-quality, you’ll prevent a lot of disasters.

Fundamental drills in catching and throwing really help. A lot of the poorest players simply haven’t played much catch. Start them out with balls that arc gently down to their ideal glove position. The less the ball is coming AT them, and the more it is going toward the ground, the less afraid they are of it. After they gain a LOT of confidence with those throws, gradually vary the arrival place, so the fielder learns to reach, and then to move his whole body, there. Only after gaining confidence that way should you increase the velocity. With practice, the fielders will stop most, and catch many, of the balls that come their way. That’s their first responsibility.

Weak fielders in general should have stronger players on either side, so the stronger player can cover more of the territory, and back them up fast in case a ball gets past.

Very few organizations in adult life enjoy all the resources they’d like. Almost everyone is cash-limited, and many have other limits: personnel abilities, space, time, location, and so on. Most of the time, shaping your strengths into better-than-satisfactory modes, and shoring up your weaknesses into adequacy, allows ongoing functionality as well as some advantages that can be niche-marketed.

In baseball, teamwork means a lot. Teammates have to throw and catch to make most plays. As players grow and improve, they throw the ball harder and more accurately. That’s fine, but only up to the point where it’s no longer catchable. Often, teammates’ abilities don’t match well. A powerful throw can intimidate a less-adept catcher, making him flinch away, and miss the ball. Opponents gleefully romp around the bases scoring lots of runs on what should have been a simple out.

So, from the very first day, I chant one of my mantras: “Throw it so your teammate can catch it.”  The best throw is NOT the fastest, it’s the most-catchable.

To drill this, I deliberately switch players around in the warmup. Our teams always begin by playing catch, with 2 facing lines. As players arrive, they pair up, pick up a ball from the bucket, and add themselves to the end of the lines. Usually, players toss with their buddies. It’s great to have buddies, but teamwork requires interacting with every other teammate. So, once most of the team has arrived, I pause the throwing, and move one line, one person to the right; the leftover person on the end trots to fill in the gap at the other end. Then resume, with everyone therefore throwing to somebody new. This puts together new combinations, and they learn what each other can and can’t do. They talk to one another a little, and the better players often give tips to the weaker ones. Then I move the line another person to the right, and later, yet another. After several practices, every team member has played catch with every other team member a couple times, and has a good feel for how to “throw it so your teammate can catch it.”

A good drill that I saw another coach do the next year was to have all but one of the players in a long line, and the other player with the ball. He runs to a spot a manageable distance from the first teammate, and quickly throws him the ball. That player quickly throws it back. Run to the second player, throw him the ball, he throws it back, and so on all the way down the line. If the line is long enough you can have 2 players progressing down different sectors of it at once. I really like this drill if the team is coordinated enough to handle it, because it involves everyone all the time.

The first payoff, which a couple of rival coaches noticed but never understood, is that we made a lot fewer errors in catching. That cut way down on opponent runs, so we won a lot.

We experienced another payoff, too. Don remarked on it several times: everyone was willing to sit on the bench next to everyone. Sure, there are friendships, and that’s always great, but most teams cluster in cliques, especially age-sets. The 12s and the 9s aren’t in the same classes, or even the same schools, and don’t share many interests and experiences beyond baseball, so they tend to stick to their own age. On our team, everyone interacted a lot better with everyone else. Giving them deliberate experience in playing catch with one another must have fostered this: it gave the common experience and interaction that they wouldn’t get otherwise. That was enough of an ice-breaker.

Notice that this improvement took extremely little extra effort, and paid 2 different major benefits. The kids played the same amount of catch, just with different teammates instead of always their best buddy. And while they did, they heard me repeat my mantra, “Throw it so your teammate can catch it.”

While calling off practice because of all the rain, Don again praises me for landing Shawon Dunston. It’s apparently causing ripples through the league. My reaction: it was one idea of many, and it never hurts to ask. You never know who knows who. If we made no connection, we wouldn’t have lost anything. Now, we’ll gain a lot.

Dunston phoned Don the night before the practice: He’s taking his own son to T-Ball just then, so he has to put off his appearance with us for 2 weeks. No problem! I wanted this practice as a practice! And all the Dunston baseball cards around here have been bought up (I wonder why!). 2 guys I know each say they have a Dunston card but want it autographed for themselves, and won’t sell them to me. Lumin doesn’t have one, either. This gives me time to buy 3 for myself and my kids.

The coach of the Yankees approached me at the beginning of our practice: could I please teach his 2 scorekeeping volunteers how to keep score? Why me? My reputation! I sense more coming. So I tell him that I’ll teach one session, one time, for the Division. He’ll contact the AAA coordinator to send messages around the whole division.

The practice itself was a major eye-opener. We have no duds! It’s hard to believe — we drafted in the same 11 rounds as everybody else. Don’s eye for kids’ athleticism sure worked wonders. But while we have unskilled players, they improved dramatically once a coach showed them how to catch, or pitch, or bat. The guy who missed almost every ball at the beginning of practice ended catching about 40%, stopping about 40% in time to retrieve and throw, and letting only 20% get through him — not a dud at all, just a beginner who improves with coaching! Several kids, especially the younger ones, need a lot of coaching about their posture and mechanics, and there I’m helpless to help — Don and the volunteer fathers will have to do that.

But we have 3 or 4 decent pitchers and a few more who, with coaching, can pitch non-critical innings. We have hitters — one home run in practice already, and 2 other kids also pounded the ball deep into the outfield. And our fielders field pretty well already. One of the dads — the League president — started a crossfire drill that I consider a mid-season drill because this early I didn’t think the kids could keep up. Well, they sure did.

The absence of duds puts me in something of a quandary, because I thought maybe I could help the team by working with them.

Don is hugely enthusiastic, and I’m cautiously enthusiastic, from what we saw, and we both said so to the kids. This is the best set of AAA kids I’ve seen yet. Of course, games aren’t won by skill sets, they’re won by teamwork. This is a happy gang of kids and they’ll work together fine.

As each family dropped off their kid, I gave them 2 copies of the team game schedule that I’d run off on my computer. Every single family had a use for at least 2 copies. Don thinks that fewer than half of our kids come from families that are still all together, so many copies will go to daddy’s house and to mommy’s house.

One mother told me her husband died 3 years ago and there’s no man in the house for the kid ... who seems really good nevertheless. Her spare copy goes to a family friend who may attend games. All the support this kid can get is great. I’ll mention him to Don and we’ll make sure he gets adult male attention.

We have 3 or 4 dads pitching in, in addition to Don and me. I’ll think through some projects to occupy them fruitfully. We must not waste or fritter their support! They can help our kids, so we need to set things up so they will. “What matters is what you DO with what you’ve got” — we’ve got those dads. I’ve already shown a couple of them how to back up a throwing line with a spare ball in hand.

General philosophy: the manager is in charge, and has too many things to cope with. The more I can do, the less he has to. Any time I can fetch what he needs, or set up equipment, or run a simple drill station, the manager can devote more attention to actually coaching the kids, which is what they need.

If you know something about exercise, kinesiology, technical baseball, and so on, you’re way ahead of me. Talk with the coach beforehand to see how you can best help. But even when you don’t know any of those, just about anyone can help with some tasks, so tell the manager you’re eager to help.

First, a lot of equipment needs to be hauled from wherever it’s kept (shed? coach’s car?) to where it’s used, and then back again at the end of practice. Some stuff has to be unfurled, and then furled back up at the end. If you can haul, that’s a big help.

Second, most of our practices begin with stretches and calisthenics. Some kids don’t take these seriously. I do: I need exercise anyway, and by doing it along with the kids, I reinforce their value. If I do them, and I’m not even on the team, those exercises may indeed be worth doing. And I don’t have to pay a gym to do this.

Third, a lot of drills end up with baseballs scattered all over the place. I go fetch them and put them back in their bucket. Any time I do that, the kids and coaches get to actually practice instead of fetching. Sometimes, as with pitch-and-catch at the beginning, a lot of balls get by the players in one line. So I stand behind that line. At first I simply ran for the balls that get by them, but later I figured out that if I already had a ball with me, I could quickly toss it to the player who needed it, getting them right back into their practice, and then I’d fetch the missed ball, and get ready for the next. This means that the players get more actual practice time, and the ones who miss catches don’t miss practicing catching.

Fourth, a lot of drills don’t demand any more skill than I have, so I volunteer to help with those. Nobody expects me to be actually skillful, but when I am, it’s a bonus (or, sometimes, an astonishment). I can toss plastic balls for batting practice, for example.

9 of 11 Brewers showed up for practice. They did a base-to-base throwing drill with accuracy rarely achieved before mid-season! WOW. Several hitters blasted flies deep into the outfield, and sharp grounders up the middle. They’re terrific! Mason notes that they’re not playing their positions right, but that’s because 4 of them just came up from AA (or never were on a team at all) and the rest are rusty. They’re positively teachable and will learn what they don’t know so far. We even did double-play drills, with the second-baseman and shortstop alternately covering second base, and they did amazingly well; several plays would genuinely have earned 2 outs in real games! I remember about one double-play a year on previous teams, and those were considered remarkable achievements.

The 4 9-year-olds are remarkable. Yoyo, the son of the League president, clearly merits his high draft pick. He’ll go to Majors next year, so this is his only year in AAA, the fun division. Julian and Taran turn out to be quite good both in ball-handling and batting; how could the other teams let them get by to us? Alex is genuinely a beginner at this level, and quite small. But he seems like a gamer, and already makes notable catches, better throws, and a few hits. He wouldn’t be anybody’s all-star this year, but he’ll be a mid-range player, not a liability at all.

We have fewer problems than I remember on any previous AAA team.

I also had several positive conversations with parents; one is contacting his alma mater about going to one of their baseball games.

Some conventional baseball wisdom is blown out of proportion. While there is a kernel of truth, it is minor compared to surrounding circumstances. Other factors overwhelm it, so it should be ignored.

Handedness is a big hangup among baseball veterans. They think that lefties should not play catcher, shortstop, or third base, because the angle they have to throw from puts them at a disadvantage compared to righties. While this is slightly correct, the effect is tiny compared to the differences in qualities between players on a team. Not just on an AAA Little League team; the differences between players all the way up to the professional major leagues differ hugely. The difference between the All-Star, and the utility benchwarmer who fills in when he’s injured, is far greater than the difference between a lefty and a righty.

So if a lefty wants to play catcher, third base, or shortstop, I’m all for it. If they’re good, they’ll be better than a less-able righty. And that will remain true at every level they’re likely to play.

Exception: If something drives the coach batty, correct it because the way it distracts the coach is major, even if the team improvement is minor.

The same lack of sense of proportion afflicts decision-makers at all levels. When a cash-flow problem is thousands of dollars deep, scrimping on nickels and dimes doesn’t make any difference. When the public learns to distrust a company, tweaking the logo doesn’t help. In prosperous times, invest in infrastructure and polish everything, but when you can’t concentrate on everything, concentrate on factors that make the most difference.

Dunston Day! 9 Brewers were there, and Dunston arrived as promised, in a Hummer with all the trimmings. He was great!! He tutored and encouraged the kids, taught them some shortstop and second-base fielding, commented on their performances, and praised dads, moms, and baseball. He made big points that it’s OK to make an error, and it’s OK to strike out. He was entirely positive, extremely helpful, and splendidly courteous.

I don’t think most of our players had heard of Dunston before; he retired before they really got into baseball. But they could tell how big and important this is because they could see their parents — ALL the parents! — photographing every moment, with the family’s best camera, and acting like this was really big. The kids are on a high over this.

A splendid time was had by all. The weather was perfect too — high about 70, clear and warm at practice time. Dunston also tutored the Diamondbacks the same way. Then he autographed balls, gloves, hat brims, cards, whatever people asked of him. He even lingered a little afterward, and may even show up later simply for the pleasure of watching games.

Dunston made everybody feel that being on our team was really special! No one has heard of such a thing in our league.

After all that tremendously exciting event, Mason dove for a fly ball more than his knee could take, and re-hurt it. Dunston left, and we started a 3-inning scrimmage with the Diamondbacks. But just then Don had to leave, so I quickly made up a batting order and field positions. 1: Tyler, SS. 2: Yoyo, 2B. 3: Chris, 3B. 4: Steve, C. 5: Nick, 1B. 6: Mason, P. 7: Taran, LF. 8: Alex, CF. 9: Aidan, RF. This way fast runners won’t be held up by slowpokes on the base paths ahead of them.

I put Mason in to pitch, not knowing his knee was bad. He pitched fine anyway. The Diamondbacks’ moose homered off him, but he kept throwing strikes and therefore got outs. Success. Don returned with his 2 littlest kids in the second inning, and tried out Taran, then Yoyo as pitchers, neither of whom did very well – lots of walks, not many strikes. Taran’s father kept shouting encouragement, and everything he said was right, but I told him he was saying too many things to digest while pitching, so he slowed down. I didn’t keep perfect track, but I think we scored 2 or 3 more than the other team.

Don’s depressed about the pitching, but I think we still have options. First, Taran and Yoyo can improve — they’re good basic athletes. Second, there’s also Rocky and Julian and Aidan, who can reach the plate, with some accuracy — they need coaching too.

2 years ago, we played on a team with some kids who are good company, some kids who are good athletes (not always the same ones), and some kids who are neither. The next year, a couple of those were on our new team, and the rest scattered through the league. This year, everybody is reshuffled again. You never know who’s going to be your teammate. Old friends who are now on different teams are still friends!

Often there’s a team clown. There’s a team leader. There’s a jock or 3.

Because our division spans ages 9 to 12, every team has a moose (a big, All-Star type player who dominates the league), and every team has a mouse (a little guy who just isn’t big enough to dominate anything). The range is enormous; our moose is nearly twice the size of our mouse. For these Brewers, Steve is the moose, and Alex is the mouse. Kids who play more than one league at a time can be both at the same time: Alex was still the mouse on the following FallBall team, but at the same time he was also the most experienced and athletic member of his school’s 4th-grade team, and therefore played shortstop and pitcher and leader!

The Mooses move on to the next level: T-Ball to AA, AA to AAA, AAA to Majors, Little League to PONY and Babe Ruth; beyond to Colt, Palomino, American Legion, and a welter of schools and leagues. And coming up are kids who used to be the mice, and are now markedly improved.

Players expect to get re-positioned every season since the mix is different. In fact, they very often prefer to play positions different from their routine slot. In Lumin’s PONY League FallBall, players expressly voted to shuffle around, so everyone could play some time where they like best, instead of playing to win each game. The experience of a few innings at every position makes every one of these players more valuable on a competitive team, when they get reshuffled into who-knows-what position, and they play it better than a startled, raw beginner. And it means they all know how things look to every other player, and that can help how they handle their own positions: the teamwork of throwing the ball so you don’t pull your teammate off his base, for example.

Players get to experience the differing coaching styles of several different coaches (except coaches’ own kids, who have to put up with the same guy, year after year, both at home and on the diamond).

But everybody relates to everybody else on the team. If you make a real enemy, even on some other team, they’re likely to be a teammate sometime later — and that may hurt the team. If you have decent relations with everybody, nobody’s especially out to get you.

The same thing applies at work. Staff members come and go at companies and institutions. People move from one place to another within the field. Your rival last year is your boss this year. If you get along well enough with everybody, nobody’s out to get you. And if you conduct yourself well, people may help you out.

The first job is safety, the second is regulations, and the third is cosmetics. Anything unsafe, fix: fill in the holes, pick up the nails and broken glass, whatever. You never need anybody’s permission to do those, just do them.

Some of our fields are dragged smooth by pickup truck, and some by hand. That’s dusty work, so be careful not to breathe any more dust than absolutely necessary, and don’t force the dust on anybody else, either. Dragging by hand is pretty laborious — and therefore good exercise.

Marking the chalk lines requires learning how the equipment works, and being able to use it. If you mark the lines badly, you won’t be asked to do that ever again. But sharply drawn lines really dress up the field, helping the players and umpires, and making the field look better.

3 times I saw several coaches and parents spend fantastic amounts of time poking, sifting, and then groveling in the dirt after the field has been nicely dragged smooth. They’re hunting for the implanted pegs onto which to insert the bases. Almost always, they find them pretty quickly. When they don’t, it turns from awkward, to embarrassing, to a game-threatening situation, with more and more people rummaging through more and more dirt, wider and wider from the expected location, till there’s a vast swath of disrupted dirt amidst the smooth, dragged basepaths. I’ve seen searches of 5 minutes, 12 minutes, and 40 minutes! This is one of the most peculiar sights in Little League. Finally, someone finds the peg, appreciably far from first estimate, someone plops the waiting bag onto its peg, and the game starts right away, because the search held it up.

Fences and walls need more tending than they seem to get. Major plank replacements are often handled by the League, but small mending jobs can help a game proceed smoothly. When painting over graffiti, allow enough drying time before the audience is expected to show up.

Cosmetics can include anything from pulling weeds to trimming overgrowth to plucking leftover sign attachments from fencing. Anything you do to make the field safer or nicer is a big help.

Very hot, cooling off to pleasantness by the end of a long practice. Tyler wasn’t ready — miscommunication or something. Coach Don had to spend half an hour driving to pick him up — during which time I was left in charge.

This was mostly a pitching/hitting practice: all 5 pitchers threw. Mason did fine, though his knee still hurts. Taran and Yoyo didn’t do as well, in fact it would have been a walkathon. Rocky and Julian were actually somewhat better than Taran. And Aidan pitched a bit at the end and did remarkably accurately, though not fast.

Because most of the pitches were nowhere near the plate, there wasn’t much hitting. We’ll see what tomorrow’s practice game looks like, vs the Yankees. That game also includes 2 rookie 13-year-old umpires: Lumin, and his best friend! I told Lumin that as long as his calls are reactions, instead of thought-through, they shouldn’t shade for or against Mason. But it’s his first-ever game, so nothing will be conditioned reflex, everything will need to be thought through anew. Tomorrow might be rough.

At home, Mason and Lumin are both taking much more responsibility for their uniforms. They don’t actually do their own laundry, but they think ahead of time to find the pieces of it, and determine either that they’re ready for the next game, or say if they need washing, in time to wash it. They even carry their own laundry baskets, a novel accomplishment.

Once in a while, AAA and Majors teams get into Walkathons. Not the kind that raises money for a worthy cause. The kind in which batter after batter walks, forcing in run after run without benefit of hits.

The walks often result from pitchers who try to beat batters with speed, only to miss the strike zone. They result from pitchers who try to nibble the edges of home plate, but don’t quite make it. Not just once in a while, but most of the time.

By far, the most important pitcher’s skill is to throw strikes. Pitches don’t have to be fast and elusive — though that’s nice for the more advanced pitchers. They just have to be strikes.

A pitcher who throws strikes, even if they’re plain, straight and predictable, gives his team a chance. The opponent’s better hitters will probably hit them, but the fielders can still make outs if they do. Giving up a few hits may give up a run or 2, but doesn’t leave the bases loaded all the time and force in run after run.

The opponent’s weaker hitters will usually foul off the strikes, or pop them up, or miss them entirely and strike out. Again, pitching even the easiest of strikes gives the pitcher’s team a chance to get outs, whereas pitching balls all the time doesn’t.

Getting things wrong, fast, doesn’t help anything! Speed is the least-important quality here. So a pitcher who throws fast and clever balls that result in a string of walks may find himself lifted in favor of a weaker pitcher who throws dull, easy strikes that his team can make outs with.

(Exactly the same is still true all the way up in Major League Baseball, too, says Rick Peterson, pitching coach of the Oakland Athletics and then the New York Mets. “There are 4 elements to pitching: velocity, motion, changing speeds, and location. Location is the most important on the major league level because it does no good to have motion if you can’t get the ball over the plate. Changing speeds is the second most important because you have to keep hitters off balance; motion is the third and velocity is the least important.”) (in Glenn Dickey, Champions, p188).

Granted, there is an age — teenage — when the fastest pitchers can blow strikes past most hitters, and get outs mostly on speed — but only if they’re strikes, not balls!

Pitchers should work on their accuracy first. Only after they’re dependably accurate should they try to nudge up the speed and add a little deception.

The same principle works in learning many skills: typing, programming, driving, software packages, accounting — this list goes on forever! Get the basics down right, and only then speed up and add fancier stuff.

When I read Vincent Fortanasce’s superb book for coaches, Life Lessons from Little League, I saw in it the same principle I have long noticed in my teaching career. Schools and teams and clubs and scouts do all they can with their resources. Sure, there are differences among adults — some are better than others, a few have burned out — but mostly they do all they can. And there are huge differences among children, with different inherent abilities, and assorted skills developing at a rag-tag scatter of rates, some leading, some trailing. That scatter itself messes up a lot of things, especially in adolescence.

Most of the rest of kids’ huge differences is the doing of parents.

When I’m among fellow adults, reminiscing about our childhoods, hardly anyone blames their parents for not having more money. But a lot of them regret that their parents didn’t pay enough attention to them, or spend enough time with them.

When I was a classroom teacher, I rarely encountered a deep problem with a student that couldn’t have been corrected by changing the parents’ conduct.

Our society doesn’t let anyone meddle with parenting. Parents are sole rulers, within extremely wide legal limits. Teachers’ hands are tied: they feel that certain students would improve hugely if only their parents would change a certain something, but teachers aren’t permitted to make that happen, nor even say anything about it. Coaches and scout leaders see and feel the same.

Fortanasce made several excellent points about how much parent support improves player performance. In one study, kids whose parents came only part of the time made 62% of their hits when their parents were there, and only 38% when they weren’t. That’s an aspect of this principle: when parents spend time with their kids, the kids benefit. Little League affords exactly that situation, with good structure..

When I began helping, as a non-baseball-expert (never having gotten to play Little League myself), I was at a loss to help. I didn’t understand the drills, or how to help a kid bat or pitch or field. Even after several years, I’m still not good at those. On our own team of 11 kids, at least 7 kids’ parents know more technical baseball than I do.

But I quickly noticed that coaching time is precious (I later learned that private coaches are available for $65/hour and up — way, way up). And I noticed that some of what Little League coaches do is mindless drudgery: hauling out equipment, tossing plastic balls for hitting practice, retrieving scattered balls so the next kid can take his cuts. I can do that! So I did. Every time I saw a coach doing those things, I said “I’ll do that. You go coach the kids.” Initially the coaches were startled, but they soon found out that I would do that drudgery, and they would devote more attention to actual coaching. Every such team that my kids were on played well and scored a lot and finished first or second in its division. I think I helped by decreasing the diversion of coaches’ attention to drudgery, thereby increasing actual coaching. And I also showed my sons that I’m with them, support them, and care a lot about what they do.

So now that I’m coach, I made a BIG point of encouraging parent involvement. Once in a while a parent even joins in some of the team stretches. Several have taken on suggested enrichments, some with spectacular effect (bringing us a Major League star!), others just bringing a smile and team spirit (parents singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame). Every single one of those, and more, enhances the parent/child relationship. Every single time the parents show up, I greet them, chat briefly, and make it as positive an experience as I can. The more I can get our parents to do, the better the kids respond. I told our parent corps this quite blatantly at the beginning team meeting, and I’ve deliberately cultivated it at every opportunity since. I’m sure that this contributes to our unusually large, vocal, and positive grandstand gang at every game. And I’m sure that that contributes to our players’ success and enjoyment.

Mason watched other teams play one another. He noted how very different their parent corps was. No other team has as much family support and positive attention as I’ve cultivated for our team. No other team outplays us. The relationship is there to see.

In one Little League season we don’t have a chance to make a big change in anyone’s life. But I’m going to keep making the same point about the extreme value of parent involvement, and point out blatantly that it works the same for schoolwork, and life in general. These are good kids. Spending quality time with them is worth way, way more than spending time earning money to send to them.

Running the team requires administrivia. The less of that the coach gets distracted with, the more the coach can actually coach. The team parent jobs vary with league and team; just ask. For us, they include making sure every player gets a jersey and hat that fits, and every family gets and acknowledges their assignments for league volunteering, providing snacks, carpooling, etc. When the official photos and booster gear arrive, the team parent handles distribution and payments. If there are times when a player’s participation is uncertain, contact the family, find the kid a ride, or whatever the situation calls for.

We feed snacks to the players at 2 different times: in the third inning, and after the game. The third-inning snacks MUST be sugary; their purpose is to inject sugar into the blood stream, to prevent “Late-Inning Letdown” that loses so many games. On hot days, cold sugary drinks work fine (sports drinks, juices, fruit drinks, sodas, etc.), whereas chocolate would melt. On cold days, candy bars are fine. Variety is good. Fanciness hasn’t impressed the kids I work with — they just want their treat.

After-game snacks are simply mood-improvers. They can be anything the kids like. Again, variety is good. If the team lost, the players especially appreciate a nice treat.

A hectic, fulfilling, successful day! I taught my scorekeeping clinic. The only 2 parents who showed up were the ones from the Yankees whose request spurred the offer to the League. I taught them out of old score sheets in my book. I pleaded for clarity, and they could see that I could read 1- and 2-year-old scoresheets, and narrate from them what happened in those games. Later, in the score booth, they did indeed put it together. Success.

At warmup, 3 PM, Don told me that Alex was sick, Tyler was not certain to come, and Steve and Chris were in a basketball tournament game because their team had won the day before. We expected to be very shorthanded, so Don brought his big son Donnie to play left field. But Alex came anyway, feeling adequate and with medical clearance of non-infectivity. Tyler showed up and caught for the whole game. So we had just enough players, and didn’t need Donnie after all.

I drafted Darlene, Alex’s mom, the one who invited Dunston, and turned her into a scorekeeper in 20 minutes. Then, since we had enough volunteer dads in the dugout, I spent the whole game coaching the 3 new scorekeepers — 2 Yankee mothers and Darlene — how to record assorted events. As a ball was hit, I spoke the number of the position: “6 ... to 3” for a grounder to shortstop, thrown to first base for the out. By the middle of the game they were feeling pretty good about it, and by the end they were accustomed and almost confident.

If Darlene will keep our team’s book, I can be bench coach, which I think I can elevate into a significant help to the team and lessons in responsibility with chores for the team members. That’s carving out a niche in which I can really help, and where my ignorance of technicalities won’t hinder me. Again, like in real life organizations.

I also supported the home plate umpires: Lumin for the first 3 innings, then his friend. They did remarkably well. There was a close double play which they called correctly — scorekeepers in our division are lucky to see 2 double plays a year. There was a dead-ball play which they called correctly and persuaded the opposing manager about on a fine point of rules. I disagreed with a number of their balls and strikes, but they’re beginners — this was their very first game umpiring ever. Nobody gave them any difficulty.

Mason pitched the first 3 innings, in the game’s only dominating performance. He’s nearly spot-on, and has gained tremendous speed with his added height, weight, and especially the long-arm overhand motion he adopted last September when “Little League Elbow” killed his old short-arm throwing motion. Many of the weaker batters couldn’t get around on his fastball, just as my kids couldn’t when moving up to this division 3 or 4 years ago. Splendid! He also did a lot of smart (not fast) baserunning, scoring 3 runs, and was the only Brewer to get 2 hits. He’s played as a 9-year-old outfielder, and a 10-year-old shortstop, but to be a strong pitcher is a major distinction.

Tyler hit a homer, which really charged up our team. But Taran and Yoyo succeeded Mason with walkathons, tying the score 7-7 in the 4th. We won in the 5th inning, when the Yanks’ pitcher did very poorly. He hit both our smallest batters — Aidan and Alex — neither of whom has any natural padding. Rocky pitched very well for our half-inning. I’d guess that Don will make Mason and Rocky his regular pitchers.

The outfielders got very bored during the walkathon, and self-distracted. I recommended that Don swap their positions to reawaken them. That worked.

The fog never broke, the temperature never hit 60° all day, the wind was relentless, and we were cold the whole time. The new scorekeepers learned that in addition to 2 sharp pencils and an eraser, they need to bring a blanket, a sweater, an overcoat, and a parka ... and wear them all at the same time, like I do.

Having kept score for Lumin’s game, trained 3 new scorekeepers, helped 2 new umpires, and sporadically contributed to running the Brewers, I drove home with Mason, Lumin, and his friend, and felt kind of tired and wanted to unwind. All the kids felt the same way and we were all in very good moods from the day’s achievements.

All humans are good at some things and not so good at other things. Our players absolutely exemplify that. We also have to deal with parents who (to grossly understate it) don’t all think alike. And we have the least-experienced umpires, and league volunteers of widely differing abilities, attitudes, and knowledge.

Playing baseball includes dozens of skills, and real life demands hundreds of skills. Often a team can improve more by helping the worst players than by helping the best become even better. Ideally, each player can work on something. Praising everything good works wonders with every player at every level. Even bystanders want to earn the next praise, so they try to do whatever they see earns it.

The manager has to understand the technical skills each player needs to learn, plus how to teach them, plus how to handle the various adults. Without the people-skills, the baseball skills won’t accomplish enough.

Most of the volunteers and parents mean well. Treat them with humanity and clarity, and they’ll respond well. The manager and coach can set the tone so that positive things happen, but it’s also possible to “lead from the side”, even as a mere helper. Help things go well, and praise players, parents, and volunteers. The effect snowballs.

But it’s impossible to know how everybody takes what you say! Kids, and parents who didn’t play baseball themselves, often don’t know the jargon — even “outs” and “innings”. I can ask more knowledgeable parents to teach enough rudiments to the novice parents, so they can figure out what’s happening.

Languages and heritages pose other barriers to understanding. For many of our parents, and some of our players, English is not their first language, nor even their second. We played one summer with a nice kid for whom English was his fifth language! His Cantonese, Dutch, and Spanish were all better than his English. Coaching such players, with such parents, demands patience and creativity.

And then there are tougher personalities. I have no wisdom on how to handle everyone, and often seek suggestions from others. Many harsh and negative adults can be handled with a preplanned, calm conversation, with a respected neutral third person present, at a public place such as a coffee shop. A disruptor can be extremely damaging, so do whatever it takes to handle them.