Defenders--Game 5

Fresh off our heartbreaking loss to Hynes' Heroes, we embarked on a strenuous week of practice for two reasons: one, to get the squad focused on the upcoming games and work out their glaring shortcomings, and to also have a lot of time with them as the upcoming Saturday would see coach being absent so I wanted to imprint a few things in their impressionable minds. First on that list was aggressiveness at the plate. Apparently immune from my incessant yelling of "It's HITTING practice, not LOOKING practice", I instituted a new batting practice regiment.

Our new bp routine is to take 2-3 kids (depends on the number of kids at practice) and have them bat as if it were a game. I call strikes and they bat through the order 2-3 times, including running out hits, and then we switch out those batters for a couple of more kids. It also keeps the fielders more intent and it forces the kids to act as if it is game conditions. The only downside is when they try to make every play a rundown on the bases, so we keep a tight eye on that situation by penalizing offenders with loss of ab's. I also have a tactic for forcing them to comply with the 'look at the base, not the ball' rule of legging out a grounder. If the ball is hit to me and they start looking for the ball instead of running hard, I 'accidentally' plunk them with the ball in the back or legs. When they look over to complain they see the 'don't even think of saying something to me' look and they go back for another ab. Christian is our biggest offender of this rule (he will look even when I tell him I will hit him with the ball if he does look) followed closely by Kevin and Anthony. The rest of the crew does not want to test me on this rule.

On to the weeks gossip. Clayvon (the broom kid) made a surprise appearance and announced that he was back from suspension. He was a little vague when I asked if his mom actually rescinded the suspension (she is in the midst of moving the family and has been in Virginia the past couple weeks). Deciding not to push the cross-exam too far, I went with the 'I did not not hear that he wasn't allowed to play' defense and figured he was safe to play. Sonia accused me of using kid logic to come to that conclusion and I told her she was 100% correct. I figured that the biggest danger of his mom actually appearing and causing a scene would be game day and I was not going to be there so I saw no harm in approving Clayvon for the line-up. Clayvon did, however, forget his glasses for practice, and he can't see a thing without them. After 9 miserable whiffs in a row, I gave him notice that he would never see another bp pitch unless he had his glasses. He hasn't forgot them once since then.

Kenny called me late after the Heroes loss and wanted to know who I liked in the De La Hoya / Mayweather fight that night. I told him Mayweather. He wanted to bet me on the fight, but he wanted Mayweather. He wanted to bet $10. I told him I would bet him an ice cream cone.
"I ain't betting for ice cream." said the indignant Kenny.
"I'm not betting you money, Kenny."
"It's just money."
"How about ice cream with a dip?"
"And crunchies?"
"And crunchies."
"It's a bet! An ice cream with dip AND crunchies."
"Alright Kenny, it's a bet, but I have to go now."
Phone call the next morning:
"Coach, when am I going to get my ice cream?"
"After practice Monday."
Well, Kenny failed to appear for practice Monday, claiming some sort of request/requirement from his mom. Kenny then called Tuesday claiming he had to go to a birthday dinner with his sister. He was late to Wednesday's practice and Anthony busted on him by telling us Kenny had been bragging that he was with his girlfriend the past two days instead of practice. When confronted by this info, Kenny folded like a cheap suit and confessed to his crimes of passion. I told him I wasn't paying off the bet since he hosed the team on practice. He protested this decision and mounted enough of a defense to get me to reconsider my decision. Acknowledging it would be weasly to back out of the bet (I do feel that I have certain moral obligations to impart to these kids), I commuted the punishment to a two-week delay in paying off the bet, 1-week per day of kissy-kissy and blowing off practice. He meekly protested this decision, but I told him I was teaching him the value of blowing off commitments as well as how costly women can be in his life if he is not careful.

Quincy continued to appear at practice and we are grooming him to be an additional pitcher. His little brother showed up and he is the spittin' image of Q-man. Almost like a mini-me. I believe his name is Dwindell or something close to that arrangement of syllables. I thought I had his name figured out until I asked him to spell it, but that just confused me even more. he is 8 years old and completely fearless. He asked if he could practice and the kid will not shy away or back away from any ball hit at any speed. When he got nailed by a ball he looked over at me and said in all seriousness, "That didn't hurt, it tickled." and he refused to rub where it hit him. The second day of him showing up he told me he didn't need a glove to field and went out there and jostled with the rest of the crew for the loose balls. He keeps confronting me with when is he going to be on the team and when will he get his 'baseball suit'. Definitely a future Defender.

We decided to have a scrimmage on Thursday against the Giants. We used speed rules to quicken the pace of the game and too continue with the 'be aggressive at the plate' game plan. Coaches call strikes on their own batters and tell them the strike zone will be huge. Each batter starts with a 1-1 count and it does make the game go quick and the batters do swing away knowing they only have a couple of strikes to play with. The game went well and we may have won, but I was using a new pitcher every inning and I used pitchers that we never pitch in a game and I refused to take any one out in the middle of the inning. The final score was around 11-6 and I say around because there was some dispute over my ciphering by Josh and Kenny. The biggest issue of the day is the apparent rift between Taylor and Tytee. They both claim nothing is up, but both myself and Sonia have sensed a change in their relationship. This will be monitored. I gave the squad a pep talk and told them to swing away and run every chance they got and to make me proud in the upcoming game that I would be missing. For those who are curious, I have an annual baseball weekend pilgrimage that occurs every May with a group of close friends and family. I tell the team about it in the beginning of the year and then let them know for a week and a half before it occurs. Kenny called me Friday afternoon (Kenny calls a lot for many different reasons--I now see Sonia's wisdom in not wanting him to have her number) and wanted to know if the games were going to be played since it looked like it may rain. He wanted permission to go to Staten Island to make a rap video. Permission denied. We argued over it for a while and I used his team counting on him etc. arguments. He countered with the "You're not going to be there so why should I?" argument. Pretty impressive, but not convincing. I explained that my absence was planned and prepared for and that we were not prepared for him to be absent. He bought it and appeared for the game. And what a game it was. Sonia, Coach Lou and Coach Chris were all on hand. Leo, a former Defender who has been helping out at practices also was on hand. Leo, who is 14, is a good player with a huge ego who needs reined in every so often. He has a crush on Tytee so we use that to our advantage. His other weakness, other than Tytee, is milkshakes, so I bribed him with a milkshake if he got through the game without incident. We were playing Sunset Park, the defending champs who we had beat in our earlier meeting this season.

Anthony was on the mound and we only had 11 players as Joel had mysteriously disappeared. Kevin was on partial suspension for a rock throwing incident, so other than batting order, there was not much drama in regards to making out the line-up. We scored 1 in the top of the first and they scored 3, aided by shoddy fielding plays on our part. We scratched out another run after Josh got a hit and scored. King Anthony then blanked them in the second. We were down 3-2 after 2 innings. We put up 3 in the 3rd and 4 in the 4th and Anthony only faced 10 batters in the 2nd 3rd and 4th in shutting them out. We exploded for 8 runs in the 5th and won the game 17-3 with Anthony and Kenny each going 4-4 and Jeremy went 3-3 with a walk. We had 20 hits and Jeremy had 2 hr's, Kenny had 1 and they each hit a grand slam. Clayvon went 3-4 and no incidents of an irate mom appearing were mentioned. Anthony pitched a complete game with 11 k's and although Kenny was given the game ball, I felt they should have given one to Anthony as well. The post game wrap up by Sonia made me very happy even though I was told that the kids voted that I should travel somewhere every Saturday, I knew they weren't serious about that (I think).

All the scores that weekend were footballesque. The results:
Nick.com Defenders 17
Sunset Park 3

Gibbs' Giants 21
LICH 3

Southern Trucking 17
Hynes' Heroes 7

Defenders have a short week as we need to prepare for the Thursday game against LICH followed by Saturday's rematch with Southern Trucking. The standings after last Saturday's games were:

Gibbs' Giants 4-1
Southern Trucking 4-1
Nick.com Defenders 2-3
Sunset Park 1-2
Hynes' Heroes 1-3
LICH 0-2

As always, updates to follow.