One Month to Liftoff!

It's hard to believe but in less than one month, my oldest will start his 14U season. We kickoff with a friendly game against the other 14U team in our program, then a tournament the following weekend.

This is Indiana after all, so we may wind up having one or both weekends cancelled because of snow, but it will be great to start up again.

It's a bit bittersweet, as this will be the first year I will not be involved in helping to coach him as an assistant. He started travel relatively late (he started the travel scene when he was 10 -- kids start at 5 and 6 these days!?1), but I was happy with how we did it.  We had a great experience in Little League and really enjoyed those seasons of "only" Little League.

I've loved watching him but being involved as an assistant (really more the bookkeeper) made it difficult to enjoy the overall game. This year, I'll be able to sit back and just watch, which does bug me a bit because I love helping, even if its just throwing BP, helping at cutoff, or just running drills.

I hope he has a great season and continues to love what he's doing. It's fun watching him as a pitcher and how on the mound he stays in control. He can throw the ball harder than I ever did and he can make the ball move way more than anything I could do (coaches seem to think his curve is good - even if he limits how much he throws it).

I will likely wind up coaching his little brother this year, maybe as an assistant but more than likely as a head coach. He tried travel ball last year at 9U and it was a disaster. He did NOT enjoy it and told me after the season he wants to play in our local Little League, which we fully supported.

We did Fall Ball so got our taste back into Little League again. He really enjoyed last fall again -- which was great to see. He loves catching so he had plenty of opportunity to play there and just seemed to be happy at the much more relaxed feeling of the game. Even if the competition and skill level is not quite the same as the travel scene, the offset is that the game is more enjoyable and WAY less stressful. 

I'll be looking forward to watching my youngest start up his season and see how he progresses this season. He was blessed with fingers and hands that my coal mining great grandfather supposedly had, so I can't help but think as he grows and get older, if he sticks with it what he'll be able to do with a baseball, as long as he keeps enjoying it.

So I'll likely mix in a few season highlights here and there in my posts this season, which will be here before we know it!