Fall Ball

With the calendar's turn to September. #CoachJeff's nostalgic mind turned to the days when our boys played fall ball.

In many ways, the truncated fall youth baseball season was a favorite of mine. The air was crisp, the sky was blue, the trees were full of autumn hues. And the pace of our coaching and playing was dialed down.

As designed, the fall baseball season was instructional in nature. And some of our regular players were off enjoying other sports. So, we got to temporarily add some new kids to our team for fall.

Occasionally, some of those players continued on with us to the next spring season. But in either case, it was a fun mix.

Clad in unique fall ball unies, the players seemed to enjoy the novelty of our second season.

The fall league also gave our club a chance to work on some specific plays and shift players to different positions for fun and additional experience. It also gave our pitchers a chance to work on their grips, add some new pitches and get a few more reps.

Of course, the players did compete. These weren't exhibition games, per se, and could be intense at times.

I remember the last game of one fall season. We were playing one of our rival teams. We had the bases loaded and our batter took a called third strike to end the game--and the season--amidst the dark late autumn eve.

On another occasion, playing a different rival, one of their former players from the spring season was the hero. He had joined our ballclub for that fall season after leaving their roster. In one of his finest moments--both games against his former team--he absolutely lit them up at the plate. 

The rival coach should his head in disbelief. The irony!

During one fall season, I remember my son tomahawking a high and inside pitch over the right field fence. He probably still has the ball in his trophy case.

The fall season was an interesting one, weather-wise, too. It started in late August with late summer heat such as we have been experiencing recently. It ended with late October chill. I remember on one such occasion, a parent made an emergency run for hot chocolate. It was a more desired dugout beverage that night than the traditional sport drink. 

It's hard to imagine, as we reach the end of the dog days, cocoa being such a treat but it was on that night. By late October, if you played the late night game, the temps could get quite brisk.

At that point, the season was about to wrap-up. Coaches and league officials would gather in early November for a work day to button up the park for the year. Then, it was time to wait for spring while you experience the chill rains the late MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote about all those years ago.

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. 

JG