Catcher and a Lost Tooth!!

For the life of me I dont understand coaches that do not teach their kids to leave the mask on. When we take infield in practice before games anytime we have it all on. How can a kid block a throw to the plate without his gear on or work on it properly without all his gear on? I saw a kid recently do this. Batter goes to lay down a bunt. Ball bounces high in front of the plate. Catcher throws off the mask and steps out to grab the ball. Batter breaks late for first and swings his bat back to get rid of it. Bat hits kid in the mouth and takes out one tooth and chips two more. Leave the mask on and play. We only take it off when we are feilding a pop fly. Heres another one. Runner at second passed ball. Runner breaks for third. Catcher throws off the mask and runs back for the ball at the backstop which is pretty short. Catcher comes up throwing to third and it gets away from third. Runner breaks home and ss backs up third and picks up the ball and throws a seed to the dish that one hops. Now the mask is laying behind the dish because he threw it off to go get the passed ball. Catcher goes down to block the ball and it comes up and hits him in the nose. Breaks his nose and its ugly. Leave the mask on guys.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine why a C would take off his mask on a play at the plate. To me, it is a no brainer.

It has amazed me how many kids do take it off. At my summer camp last year I checked the 22 players in the older group, ages 13-17. 9 of the players felt the correct play was to take off the mask. They were not told they should, they were just never told they should not.

CC,

You would have liked seeing my catcher last year at AAU Nationals. Single to CF, runner rounds 3rd, throw beats him by 4 steps...runner lowers shoulder and barrels into my catcher. (He crushed him) My catcher "folded" away from the contact and pops up with mask on, teeth in tact, ball in hand, hand in mitt...runner out & ejected.

Redbird5,

Outstanding!!! Give your catch a pat on the back from me!!!

What age and what site were you at last summer???

I was at D-2 U14 at Disney

My favorite all time plate collision:

12U all-star tournament, semifinals. Our team down by 3 runs, other team is rallying.

Their pitcher is on base, gets to third, 2 out. Kid sees that our pitcher turns his back to the plate after receiving the ball from my son the catcher. I see him point it out to the 3rd base coach, coach nods.

Next pitch, my son throws the ball back to the pitcher, who turns his back, and the runner breaks for home.

My kid shouts, pitcher wheels and throws, ball beats the runner (remember - it's their pitcher) by about 10 feet.

Kid comes in hard. My son is several feet up the line, in full battle gear, and the runner slides late as my son dishes back what the runner was trying to give. They meet helmet to helmet, end up with both laid out, my son on top.

Pitcher gets up real slow, nose bleeding. Took them about 5 minutes to shove cotton up his nose to get the bleeding stopped... and to the kid's credit, he toughed it out, came back out and pitched.

But he was so rattled, gave up 5 runs that inning and we won.

WHAT WAS THE COACH THINKING? Sends his pitcher in to steal home?

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
...WHAT WAS THE COACH THINKING? Sends his pitcher in to steal home?

Explain what is wrong with this.

D1 10U in Concord last year

Will be D1 11U in Disney this year

Rob Kremer,

I would send him too if I thought your catcher or pitcher was sleeping.

RedBird and Teacherman:

So you'd send your pitcher, whose been shutting the team down, to home for a likely hard play at the plate in the middle of a rally?

Sounds like a rally killer/game momentum changer to me. Which is precisely what happened.

Risk/reward isn't even close, in my view. To make it work the pitcher has to be doing more than just turning his back. Pitchers who are "sleeping" can be woken up quickly by a shout from the catcher, then an easy throw gets the runner by 10 feet.

And of course the collision, which darn near put the pitcher out of the game, and clearly rattled him.

You guys really think that's a good decision?

Rob,

While I wasn't there, I would still send him if I thought we could make it. It depends on the personnel (pitcher, catcher & runner).

I don't look at it as a rally killer but a chance to steal a run.

My teams are very aggressive in the way that we play.

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
...WHAT WAS THE COACH THINKING? Sends his pitcher in to steal home?

I get a much different meaning out of what you posted before and what you're posting now.

Before it came across as "the pitcher" being the problem. Now it comes across as "the runner had little chance".

Much different meaning to me.

I find myself taking it off due to the fact it comes off after every hit or some type of contact especially on pop flys to the backstop.