The Rookie

I'm one of the parents who tends to come to my son's baseball practices and games to help out where I can without having to carry the designation of "coach" or even "assistant coach."  Because I own a catcher's mitt I've taken on the informal role of warming up the kids who will be pitching the next inning.

Last night the coach let one of the fourth graders in our 4th-5th grade mixed team start the game as pitcher (he’s the small guy at the far left of the picture looking at the camera).  I could tell he was nervous when I took him to the side to warm up.  He had never pitched before and he kept up a kind of nervous banter to talk himself through it.

When he went to make his first pitch his body was perpendicular to mine and he raised up his front leg as pitchers are known to do.  But instead of one fluid motion he just froze there for a few seconds with his leg pulled up looking like a navy blue flamingo.  He then stepped forward and threw a pretty decent pitch.

After watching him flamingo a few more times I suggested he continue to lift that leg like he was doing but make it more of a continuous motion without stopping. He tried it and the ball flew over my head by about four feet.  The coach called over for him to rejoin the team and I quickly told him, "Just do what feels comfortable."

He ended up doing remarkably well and I learned that sometimes a kid just has to go with what he knows.


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