A Coach's Diary- Year One

A HS game on a portable mound?  No way, why does the school even have a team if they can't put in a mound.  kids hear stopped playing on them after 12U.

Thrown' it is a municipal athletic association that they play their games at. They have no permanent mounds on any of their fields so they can also be used for softball

If this isn't a conference / league / must play team - never schedule them again.  I understand that not every school can have a home field on campus.  The school I was at in Kentucky was at a public complex but we had real mounds.  Surely for one field they can actually bring dirt in for at least the HS season.

Coach2709 unfortunately it is a conference game. This complex only has I believe 4 fields and they are the only high school that uses it. Apparently we are the first people to voice concern over it this year. I understand the complex's need to have the field available for their in house slow and fastpitch programs as that brings in more money than one high school team. Also last year the complex tried to enforce a time limit on a JV conference game which was also balked at by our program.  It seems like the complex doesn't really care to have high school baseball at it but there really isn't any other place for them to play at a price that is reasonable for them and they have no room on campus to build a field.

Those types of mounds are not that old.  How long have they done this at this school?  There had to be a day in the recent past, last 10 years) where they didn't have that type of mound.  I'm not understanding this. 

Not all that uncommon in my area for them to play on portable mounds.  Usually early in the season, when they have to use the park district turf facilities.  It's the same for both teams, so just play. 

I've seen / used portable mounds before but it was for inside practice.  Never seen them used for a game except for youth league.  Didn't think it was truly possible to be honest.  I guess I've been lucky all the fields I've ever been on had dirt mounds.

CoachB when I played them, back in 1999, we played at the same complex but they built a mound on the field that had 60/90 baseball on it. I think it is more of a money thing from the complex's standpoint.

2 Steps Forward... 12 Back... 2 More Forward

 

So it has been an eventful few weeks. But I will focus on the past few days. So on 5-2 we played a conference game against a school who we lost to earlier in this season 2-1 on a throwing error by our 3rd basemen in the bottom of the 7th with 2 outs. It was a payback type of game because we all felt that we should have won the first game. Our starting pitcher had himself a pretty good day going 7 and giving up 7 hits, 2 walks, and 2 earned in a pretty intense 4-3 win. We fought back from 2 down in the 6th to score 4 in the bottom half. We showed tons of heart, fire, and fight. We had a big crowd and everyone was feeling good. I thought we had begun to hit our stride...

 

Then came Monday 5-5... and things couldn't have been more opposite from Friday night. A team that showed so much heart, fire, and fight on Friday night was totally lifeless on Monday afternoon. We had a kid forget his spikes at school and another one forget his belt. As soon as I found that out I knew we were in for a long day and a long day it was. We got taken to the woodshed 16-4 and I decided that it was time for a "Come to Jesus" talk with the team with districts being a little over a week away. I let them know that what they showed on Friday was the makings of a team that could do somethings in the post season. What they showed me on Monday was a team that would be one and done in districts and that it was up to them to find what they had on Friday night, every night. I told them that every team remaining on the schedule could either be beat or could beat us like we were beaten on Monday. I finished the speech with this,"The outcome of these upcoming games will be determined not by what happens between these white lines but the attitude that you bring to the park everyday. They will be determined by your head and your heart. Friday night you showed the heart that is needed to take this program to the next level and do something special. Today you rolled over and died before you even took the field. Gentlemen, you have two choices. Either roll over and die and continue to be the laughing stock of our conference or you can wake up, get pissed off, and shove it up the collective asses of everyone who thinks you can't do it. The choice is yours and I'll be waiting for your answer tomorrow." Then I walked away with the team in silence. 

 

Then comes today, Tuesday 5-6... and I got my answer in the form of a 12-1 short game victory in another conference game. The victory takes us to 3-3 in the conference, 5-12 overall, with one conference game left on the schedule on Wednesday 5-7. A win in that game puts us in 2nd place in our conference to end the year and might secure us a top half of the bracket seed in our district. 

 

We have 4 games remaining this regular season with a chance to end it at 9-12... which is more wins than the program has had in the past 2 years combined. I honestly believe that the kids are getting it and starting to buy into what we've been selling them all year. The mental game is now what we need to work on. 

It would not have been the same for both teams. You are allowed to wear molded cleats on their mounds. Our pitchers did not have molded cleats, so their pitchers would have had cleats and ours would not have had cleats on.

Year one has come to an end... and after about three days off it is time for the preparation for year two.

I, along with the head coach, have decided to put together a off season weight, throwing, and agility program for the kids. We realized that the only way to get better is to get the kids bigger,  faster, and stronger.

We ended the year with 7 wins, which is more wins than the previous two years combined. If the gloves were a little more steady it could have easily been a 12 win year.

I feel like after the shock of being pushed in baseball for the first time in their high school career, the boys finally realized that it was making them better.

We had a kid miss the school record for single season average by 1 hit after hitting under .200 last year. Finishing with a .556 average and 33 stolen bases. The average puts him at 5th in the Bi-State area.

I can't wait until we get to do it again... now only if I could have found a summer ball job. Ha.