When We Got Good

As baseball players from age 4 to 44 get ready for the start of the 2015 season, I checked the calendar and realized that this spring marks a 10th anniversary in my own baseball history.

The spring 2005 youth baseball season marks the year that I describe so eloquently as the year “when we got good.” I’ll explain.

In the early years of my coaching – when all coaches were trying to keep players engaged so they didn’t make snow angels in the outfield or pick daisies or run from home plate to third base – the whole idea of wins and losses was not a consideration. And when we ‘graduated’ up to using the pitching machine, we were still stressing the fundamentals of the game.

But if you stick with the coaching, at the next level you get to “kid pitch” and that’s when things ramp up a bit. In no time at all, it becomes obvious that there are teams that win a lot of games and teams that don’t. For a variety of reasons, we were one of the teams who didn’t win a lot.

I know there is a school of thought that says it’s not about winning and I get that. There are more important considerations – teaching a love of the game, learning fundamentals, building camaraderie among your players and families, etc. But, let’s face it, at the end of the day, if you can do those things AND win ballgames, it’s a lot more fun than the alternative.

After a long season when the kids were 8 years old, I approached the father of one of our better players about returning the next season and he said no way. “Winning is more fun than losing,“ he quipped. "And, well, we didn’t win a lot.”

The next season, our reputation as lovable losers continued. The dad of one of the boys I drafted for the team responded that he had told his son, upon hearing where he’d be playing that season, “Well, at least you’ll have fun.” Translation = that team isn’t very serious and they won’t win very many games, but you’ll get some good post-game snacks.

And we DID want to have fun but he was right. We didn’t win much. In fact, we won only one game that season. Talk about a long 12 weeks.

In our defense, we did want to teach the youngsters the fundamentals of the game and do it all the right way. Still, wins are nice, too, and fortunately we were getting close.

The year we had nine-year-olds, 2004, we started to build a decent nucleus of base players. You could ‘protect’ six players at that age group and our core group was getting stronger and stronger. That translated into some success for our team that fall. And, by the spring of 2005 – 10 years ago – we were ready to make a splash.  

That was when we got good.

I’ll often remember that team with special fondness. We had the two Sams – Big Sam and Smiling Sam. Paul and Logan were on the team, of course, and Hayes – one of the best catchers we ever had – was behind home plate. We drafted another Paul – Paul K – and, with our last pick, we pulled the name ‘Josh’ out of the hat. He was a good ballplayer who played on a team with a yelling coach previously. He was thrilled to get out of that situation and land on his own two feet with our ballclub. And he was the final piece of that puzzle.

Lee, Ethan and Andrew (later a star 3B on the Choppers) rounded out the roster for our team – the Farragut Willie Mays (10Under) Braves. We had a wonderful Spring 2005 season.

Honestly, if we hadn’t turned the corner that year, I might’ve given up on the coaching thing; Paul might’ve hung up his spikes, too. The strong nucleus of base players, coupled with a strong rec league draft, set us up for success. The team chemistry was great. The coaches coached well; the boys played hard; the fans were supportive and cheered.

Our team won its first 10 games and so did one of our rival teams. That set up a key match-up between our two teams that May. They prevailed and won the league title but we finished a close second and felt good about ourselves and our progress. That June, we made our first foree into postseason and that went.

The Spring 2005 season set the stage for the next chapter in our baseball lives as the travel team, the Concord Choppers, with many of these same special young men as the core of our team.

And you know what? Those dads who kind of mocked us years earlier came around. Nothing sells like success, right? 

Anyway, I started thinking about our Braves this morning. That team has always held a special place in my heart.  They were a team for the ages. And they came together exactly 10 years ago this spring.

JG

Originally posted 3/3/2015