3 big smiles

[cvsoftball]

A friend asked if I would work with his 9 y/o boy on throwing. he said the boy had been wanting to learn baseball and he had been observing me working with my DD at the park. I said sure and they showed up at our next practice, water bottle in hand for some Wasserman work. By the time we were done, I don't know whose smile was bigger, the boy as he began dialing in the mechanics of a good throw or the Dad who was loving watching his son pick up on the drills and make obvious progress or me watching those two grin at each other.

 

[Towny9]

So rewarding isn’t it? My 9yo DD has a 12yo boy (space) friend who lives across the street. He’s a great kid and he comes over to hit with us in the backyard cage. I can’t help but to work with him some. In exchange he catches my daughter when she pitches. It also motivates my DD to want to work more because she gets to do it with a friend.

 

[ANNASDAD]

Man that's an incredible feeling to be able to do something so simple, and it have such a huge impact in helping!

One that comes to mind, which to me was very funny......my son is 16 now, back in the 4th & 5th grades his school had a co-ed coach pitch baseball league, there was 4 or 5 teams that was supposed to play each other twice. It was a draft, named pulled out of a hat..........which was of course complete BS!!

I was one of the dad pitchers, and.......I threw hard, straight, level, and hard! All the other dads threw these high lollipop slow pitch pitches and could never throw two pitches alike. Several of the moms complained I was throwing too hard, I just ignored them, more on that in a minute!

I had this kid, a complete little nerdy boy who absolutely didn't want to be there. He couldn't walk straight up to one of the light poles and hit it with a bat. And his dad..........yeah I could see where the boys nerdiness came from, but he desperately wanted his son to play and be a part of something.

At our third practice, we were on the varsity baseball field (this little boy has yet to ever make contact with a pitch), I asked one of the dads to take my place for a while. I put my hand on this kids helmet and walked him over to his dad and said "do you mind if I take him to the cages and hit off of the tee for a while?"

This kid flipped out, it shocked me! He "said tees are for babies, all the other kids are going to laugh at me!!" Quick thinking........I came back with "WHAT?? Derek Jeter hits off a tee everyday of his life, do you think Jeter is a baby?" REALLY? Absolutely!!

I took this kid to the cages for twenty minutes, tried to explain staying inside the ball, that didn't register, concentrated on his footwork and hand path and on just swinging HARD......for now! But more than anything just banging balls for twenty minutes helped more than anything just to get a feel for something he's never done!

Took him back to the field, first pitch I threw he hit a line drive back over my head that landed maybe twenty feet in the grass, remember this was the baseball field, so it was a pretty good shot! MY WORK IS DONE! This kid went crazy, his dad went crazy, the team went crazy, very cool moment! If his dad would have died at that very moment, he would have died a happy man!

*****Oh yeah, those whiny moms who complained I was throwing too hard, we beat the brakes off of every team in that league, just because of my pitching, those other dads pitching were awful, those poor kids were all swinging up. It got so bad that all the parents for the teams we were playing were yelling at their pitcher and wanting me to pitch the entire game for both teams! Our moms had to eat crow when our number 7, 8, and 9 little girl hitters were hitting line drives through the infield! They never complained again!

I haven't thought about this in years, it was so much fun, I remember I couldn't wait to get to the field every Saturday!