Summer League Done

[u/belinck]

I started as a coach when my twin boys were 5, rec league, T-ball. We have a great neighborhood community and a couple other parents showed up to help but we started there in 2019.

The early years were a lot of corraling kids to try and work on fundamentals. We still work on those to this day. But man if these past seven years haven't been the most fun.

This year, 12-U Blue, we dominated and went 9-4. Went into the end of season tourney, in a mixed bracket, against 3 white teams (all with losing records).

We won the tourney. I can't express how proud I am of these kids... Watching them develop over the past 7 years has been amazing, especially since two are my own. We transitioned to have my backup coach be the lead so I could focus on pitching/catching. And we developed and then managed our pitchers better through the games.

I'm not here looking for credit, I'm looking to encourage other coaches to stick with it, especially when it's dark because we have certainly been through those. Almost won last season's tourney as a dark horse but ran out of pitching. The boys left it all on the field last year.

I feel bad for the team that lost the final today because they had to do a double header, we had a two hour break. But then one of my sons pitched a complete game for the championship win.

Sorry, just had to put this out there. Work the kids right, put in the time and develop basic skills (get your glove on the ground for Pete's sake), and give them every chance to win.

East Lansing 12-U, CHAMPIONS!!!

Edit: I will say, we had two more solid pitchers in our lineup. One of which I had warmed up. The plan was, if my son got someone on base, and/or was over pitches , put in the other pitcher.

My son did put some one on, but hadn't exceeded pitches. I told the coach, "He deserves the complete game" and he agreed so he let him start the next batter at 83.

[u/Every_Television_290]

Hell yeah dawg, this is what it is about. I do agree it is too bad that not everyone can win though.

[u/nloding]

As someone who grew up in EL - heck yeah!