Baseballin' Brock

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This summer was Brock's first foray into organized baseball. He wasn't completely sold on the idea until he did a week long baseball camp early in the summer. Luckily for us, Oz Park's summer league starts late and we were still able to nab a spot. I signed up to be an assistant coach, and a week before the first game, they emailed the assistant coaches and said they needed two of us to step up and head coach or the league would not run. And that is how I got my first foray into head coaching! 


It was a fantastic season of 8 games with no playoffs. The summer league is "sandlot style" with no uniforms and is somewhat lower key. As a head coach, I was way too busy to take any pictures, and when Holly came to games she was usually wrangling Alice, so you'll have to excuse the lack of pictures here.  

Grandma and Alice heading to the playground. 


Here's Brock pitching! The league was a kid/coach pitch blend. Kids always started on the mound, but if the batter took four balls, instead of taking a walk, his coach would come in to finish pitching the at bat with three more pitches maximum. I'm pretty sure this is a strikeout. 


The baseball season couldn't have gone better in my opinion. Brock (like all the kids) got to play every position. He learned that first base is his favorite, and he hates catching even more than the outfield. It'd be hard to overstate the improvements Brock had in hitting and throwing this year. You always love it when you hear the other kids in the dugout say stuff like, "it's ok, Brock is up next!" He got some amazing clutch hits to drive in runs. He made some great defensive plays all over the infield. He struck out a lot of batters. But he also learned what it feels like to be standing on the mound feeling all alone when you give up a big hit and and the lead, or to strike out with a runner on third and two outs to end the game, or even just the physical pain of a bad hop hitting him in the chest. There's a lot of failure in baseball (especially baseball played by 8 yr olds), and he handled it all with great aplomb. I couldn't be prouder. 



 

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