Stories from tryouts

[CoogansBluff]

A friend of mine sent me this email today. His daughter's high school team is having tryouts this week for the fall season. His state plays softball in the fall and recently passed a bylaw allowing spring tryouts for fall sports.

Everybody got a number, and they did a lot of their stuff in numerical order. The girl who got No. 1 is a senior who has never played before. DD said the first thing they did was have them run from home to first. Then they all went back to home plate, and coach said, "OK, now we're going to go from home to second." So the No. 1 girl took off from home plate and ... you guessed it, ran directly to second base, right through the pitching circle. I suspect she won't make the team.

Team was a state finalist last year, so yeah, she's really needs to kill it today to have a shot, IMO.

Anybody have any tryout stories?

 

[Jojo]

Similar story, I was helping out with my local leagues pre-season skills clinic and almost every 14u had never played before. One coach yelled out for each age group to stand on a particular base and told 14u's to go stand at 3rd. One girl walked up to me asked me where 3rd base was.

 

[canyonjoe]

DD trying out for 10U All-Stars. I told her it was 50-50 that she would make it. After fielding drills it was up to 95-5 after seeing the other players. Then they each got 6 pitches from a coach to hit. The kept 4 in fielders to field grounders. After first few hitters DD got up and hit one pretty hard. The girl playing SS asked if they could move back to the grass. At that point I knew my summer was booked.

 

[Cowdogz]

Had a kid try out for Babe Ruth baseball one time, he had never played before but was reportedly a pretty good athlete. He was terrible, but when it was over he asked if he could come to the makeup tryout and wear his eyeglasses this time. We said sure. He was still terrible, but you had to admire his moxie.

 

[maksoftball]

At DD's HS, they don't start season until Spring; however, they do play Fall Ball as a "warm up" and gives the coaches opportunity to check out the skill levels of incoming/new players. One of DD's classmates decided she was going to do softball with DD. DD had never seen her play so she took her word for it. On the first day when they had to bring their gear to school, DD almost fainted when she saw the glove her classmate brought. She said it was a 9 or 10" pink plastic glove that you would probably win in a vending machine. The poor girl had no idea how to play. She dropped out before season started.

Sidenote: DD tried hard to help her out, brought her gear that she doesn't use anymore, etc. I don't think they talked anymore after that.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Reminded me one my own high school baseball tryouts around 1979.

There was a football player in the school who looked like a body builder. Just a freak of nature. This was in the late '70s, before many people were lifting weights. He did lift weights with the football team, but he was the only person I knew that age that looked like that. It was just natural. Very quiet, came from a poor family and never played any sport until coaches got him into football as a freshman.

So as a senior, he decides he wants to play baseball and shows up for the last day of tryouts. I doubt he'd ever swung a bat except in P.E. So, our top pitcher was throwing batting practice. The guy holds the bat cross-handed. I can't remember if the coach corrected him or not. But he swings and misses at several, then hits a few grounders, and after about 20 pitches he launches one in the trees in center field. Had a few more wild flails at the ball, then sent another one in the trees. Then another. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the pitcher accidentally hit him with a pitch, right in the shoulder. The ball just fell to the ground, and the guy never moved or acted like anything had happened. Just 'next pitch please.'

He didn't come back the next day, so I guess he got cut. He couldn't catch or throw at a varsity level, and high school ball is not the best place for a project like that. But I won't forget that day. Not sure whatever happened to the guy. He was a year or two older than me.

 

[Jojo]

Had a kid try out for Babe Ruth baseball one time, he had never played before but was reportedly a pretty good athlete. He was terrible, but when it was over he asked if he could come to the makeup tryout and wear his eyeglasses this time. We said sure. He was still terrible, but you had to admire his moxie.

I had one like that at 10u try-outs. First time player, she SCREAMED at every pop up that was thrown up for her to try to catch. She never caught one, but all the time she was screaming in fear she was actually trying to catch the ball. I gave her extra "moxy" points on my score card which brought her up from dead last to like 4th from last. I didn't get her in the draft, someone else gave her more moxy points, but I got her on my fall ball team. Kid was not a natural athlete, but she had more determination than any kid I ever saw. Her dad said she practiced nearly every day to get her skills up to everyone else, and by 14u she was ready for travel ball.

She ended up getting a scholarship to play 2nd base at a D1 university--that's what determination does!

 

[CoogansBluff]

Reminded me one my own high school baseball tryouts around 1979.

There was a football player in the school who looked like a body builder. Just a freak of nature. This was in the late '70s, before many people were lifting weights. He did lift weights with the football team, but he was the only person I knew that age that looked like that. It was just natural. Very quiet, came from a poor family and never played any sport until coaches got him into football as a freshman.

So as a senior, he decides he wants to play baseball and shows up for the last day of tryouts. I doubt he'd ever swung a bat except in P.E. So, our top pitcher was throwing batting practice. The guy holds the bat cross-handed. I can't remember if the coach corrected him or not. But he swings and misses at several, then hits a few grounders, and after about 20 pitches he launches one in the trees in center field. Had a few more wild flails at the ball, then sent another one in the trees. Then another. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the pitcher accidentally hit him with a pitch, right in the shoulder. The ball just fell to the ground, and the guy never moved or acted like anything had happened. Just 'next pitch please.'

He didn't come back the next day, so I guess he got cut. He couldn't catch or throw at a varsity level, and high school ball is not the best place for a project like that. But I won't forget that day. Not sure whatever happened to the guy. He was a year or two older than me.

I emailed an old high school buddy about my story and asked him his memory. I didn't tell him mine, so as not to influence the memory. I think some of what he said was fiction, but here is what he said --

I remember him coming to practice looking much like Tony Atlas – he was dressed in jeans and took his shirt off when he went to bat. I don’t recall who was pitching, but he took quite a few swings before connecting. When he did, I recall the baseball exceeding the fence, trees and possibly the pond. The balls were never retrieved or even looked for – He didn’t hit many. Seems like I remember the pitcher plunked him and Parks didn’t even make an attempt to move out of the way – the ball just hit him in the forearm and dropped like a dead bird.

 

[Orange Socks]

High School baseball tryouts 1986. This man boy came outwho played football at 6 foot something and well over 300lbs. He was trying out for first base with me and he missed a few balls coming from SS and he whined like a baby that he couldn't see because of the sun. The coach yelled out should we just wait until the sun goes down!!

The year prior a girl came out to tryout for the baseball team. Apparently she was a fastpitch softballer and back then there was no high school softball. She was a decent player but wasn't quite good enough. I don't want to brag or anything, but I beat her out. Today with the high level of talent around here, many freshman boys would be hard pressed to win a spot over some of these girls.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

True story: A woman emailed me concerning our tryouts and said she was going to bring her 12-year-old girl out and she had a few questions. She said her girl was a pretty decent rec ball player (as a 10 year old) and she thought the kid was ready to play for a travel team and she had heard good things about our organization.

So, a few weeks pass and lo and behold, this girl and her mom and dad all show up at our tryout, which coincidentally is being held on the same day as our top 16U Gold team's tryout. I'm over at the check-in booth, talking to parents and working the crowd while several girls are already warming up, and a few are even pitching. The woman walks up to the woman manning the booth and says, "Hi. My girl is here for the 12U tryouts but it looks like we're at the 16U field. Where do we need to go?"

The woman manning the booth is the wife of one of the other 16U Gold coaches in the org. She smiles wryly, then points to me and says, "There's the one you need to talk to."

The woman says to me, "Hi. My name is Blah Blah and this is my daughter, Little Blah. We're looking for the 12U tryout."

I reply with the only thing I could think to say, "Hi. My name is Coach 12U. You're in the right place. These girls are all 12U. Tell Little Blah to find a spot for her gear in the dugout."

Her mouth drops. "OH MY GOD. Are you $##%@# serious?" she says.

"Yup."

"Come on honey. We need to go."

I never saw them again.