chatter from the Library Monkey

on the road soon

The Tigers are rolling now second victory over the yankers

Some of the slumping guys are doing quite well — like Gary Sheffield.

Been busy with the baseball team — that won again.… I got a kick out the coach was complaining — mostly about no matter what you do the players complain. It’s a never ending thing. The kid who catches for us wanted to pitch and he was whining about pitching and how he was only going to get pitch one inning because the game was being shortened because of the cold. We had a 14-4 lead, when the whiner got the final out (with runners on first and third) the score was 14-9

I’m off for a day after tomorrow. Going to the SLMS conference..

Gratitude (3)

blah

The Tigers have lost and won in the last two days — but looked really good. Of course, as the Tigers pick it up, so have the Cleveland Indians. It is interesting — in the AL Central it is very tight.

Had a very active inactive day. Listened to the Tiger game and now I am listening to the Dodgers beat up the Rockies. I also rode my bike some.

I don’t know how much of the helping coach I am can take. Some has to do with the fact that I joined kind of late in the game. Some bad habits by the kids are in place. For one there are a couple kids that think they are the coach. That is partially due to the fact that those same kids had an inexperience coach last year. During the game on Friday one of the worse kids kept pointing to the third baseman. I thought something was wrong, but eventually realized he was telling us to put the third baseman in as pitcher. What is annoying is not that the kids have ideas or suggestions, but how they present them.

This kid comes from a family that in general is nice (his mom is the scorekeeper), but it is clear that everyone in the family is not what is best for the team, but what is best for the individual. We are combining our sports team with another school that is even smaller than ours. The mom was against it because she didn’t want her daughter (or son I guess) sitting on the bench so one of the other players could play.

As it is, neither would be on the bench, I think it is because the mom keeps score… Not so much that, but the coaches favor the kids. The daughter is the only pitcher on the softball team and she is fairly mediocre. I shouldn’t say that, for our league she is pretty good, but if we were in a bigger area, she wouldn’t be able to compete with the JV team

Gratitude (3)

a win that surprises me

So the team that I am helping coach, which I thought would be 2-8 this year, won the first game of the season. Not only did they win, but they came from behind three times. Now I wouldn’t say the team won because of me, I just prevented them from losing. The ‘real’ coach.

A lot has to do with the pitcher who I picked to start the game.

An amazing thing is the other team only had eight players. They played without a right fielder. The bad thing is the home team (us) won by about 20 runs last time.

After the vacation week, I am not sure how I got through this week. Mostly because the baseball gig has been tough, with long days.

man I am dead tired

Hoping for a laid back weekend

The Tigerswin and are now 10-13, having won the last four.

Gratitude (3)

Coaching the coach

Did another baseball practice — talking to the coach afterwards made me so mad. Not at the coach, but it is yet another thing my school does badly. I asked him about three questions each of them met with a sad answer that showed the unsupportive nature of my school.

When you have a home game (and our season starts at home) you have to give the umpires a voucher to fill out; two new baseballs; and a scorecard with your players on it. The voucher is so the umps can get paid, the balls for the game and the score card is in triplicate so you can give one to the umpire, one to the other team and one to keep. On the score card is your starting lineup, there is space underneath each player for subs and at the bottom is where all the future subs are listed.

No one has told him about any of these. I am not surprised, no one told me about any of these things when I coached softball. The difference, I asked. I asked several times. I had to ask if I could have a team hat — they gave me an old crappy hat. I know because the gym coach told me how he was buying expensive hats for the varsity team (not for the chump softball coach). I asked about what I needed to know several times and each time I got little bits and drabs.

This coach is now one day from his first game and he doesn’t have all the equipment he needs — the team doesn’t have helmets. I don’t know how a team can be prepared to bat if they don’t practice in the equipment they need.

when I coached I asked to have a coach meeting to separate out equipment and no one from the athletic department showed up. I talked to the varsity softball coach and he told me the stuff I had in a bag I could keep, then the varsity girls stole it. And when I caught them doing it and told their coach, nothing was done about it.

What is really bad is how bad the lower level coaches are at my school and seemingly they are receiving no assistance.

The Tigers win their second in a row. The hitting came alive and it all looks good.

Well too scattered

Gratitude (3)