Sykesville Baseball - What I Learned This Season

My son's baseball season finally came to an end. It seemed like we never played in the beginning of the season because of all of the rain-outs. Then we were playing double-headers every weekend to make up the lost games. Along came the playoffs, and now we are done. How did we get there?

Well, to preface the playoffs, we learned there was a blind-draw to determine the match-ups. I'm not sure why they keep standings all season, to then go and seed the teams based on a blind-draw. In perfect retribution, the 1st place team played the 3rd place team in the first round, and the 10th place team played the 12th place team in the first round. In the 2nd round, the 3rd place team advanced and the 1st place team did not. The 10th place team also advanced. So the 1st place team was scheduling tee-times while the 10th place team, who honestly didn't deserve to make it to the 2nd round for beating the 12th place team, got to move on, as well.

We had 3 weekends of double-headers. Our team lived and breathed by the double-header. We won 2 sets of them outright. In the third we had a win and a tie. And if we hadn't run out of time, I'm confident we would have won it in the next inning. I say "we" as if I am one of the players. I was only one of the assistant coaches.

We finished the season at 7-7-1. Not bad, not great. Right in the middle. I think that indicates that we had a well-balanced team. We won the first game of the playoffs. We did it with great pitching. We won the 2nd game with both great pitching and great hitting. In the third game, we pitched below average, then got rained out at the end of the third, then had to come back the next day to finish the game, which was delayed another hour because of rain. We were down 19-3 at the top of the fourth. We shut them down in the 4th, scored 4 in the bottom of the fourth, then we scored 6 in the 5th. As we took the field in the top of the 6th, down 19-13, with the chance of tying the game in the 6th, the umpires called the game because we ran out of time. Apparently we were playing a football game and not a baseball game. So we lost. The team that beat us went on to crush the other team in the championship, 14-0. My conclusion - our game was really the championship game.

So what did I learn this year? Umpires are kids and they are still learning, too.

1) Usually 4 balls is a walk. But sometimes 3 balls is a walk, too.
2) Sometimes a pitch is only a strike if the batter swings at it.
3) Sometimes when the pitch is only a strike when the batter swings at it, a league commissioner will come talk to the umpire in the middle of the first inning and tell him to open up the strike zone, much to the detriment of the other team that already gave up a bunch of walks because of a non-existent strike zone, rather than waiting until both teams batted using the same judgment by the umpire and THEN making the recommendation to the umpire.
4) Sometimes the coaches will "chorus" the umpire to make certain calls. (saying 'good pitch' before the umpire has called it a ball or strike).
5) The coaches that chorus or yell the loudest get the most calls in their favor.
6) Sometimes the umpires will call the infield-fly-rule. Other times they will not.
7) Sometimes when the umpire calls the infield-fly-rule, the coach that screams the loudest will get the umpire to make a bad call, such as tagging runners that have advanced and calling them out.
8) Sometimes the runner will be called out when tagged by the first baseman while the runner is standing on first base.
9) Sometimes the base runner will be called for not sliding in a play, in spite of the fact that the runner is more than 10 feet away from the bus. (see rule #5)
10) Sometimes the umpire will inform the scorekeeper that the run has scored after a third out in the field, because it was not a force out. And sometimes the league official will come out and overrule the umpire.
11) And my personal favorite - sometimes the umpire will tell a team that they are cheering too loud. Ex-squeeze me?

And to be fair, these calls went both ways. The kids are still learning to be umpires, but you have to admit there is way too much fan and league official interference.

If the league wants to make it a learning experience, they should allow the coaches to provide feedback to the league after the game. This feedback should have no impact on the outcome of the game. Like any test, you should be graded so that you know how you do. And each game is a test to these new learning umpires.

Additionally, the league should have the umpires throw out coaches who argue balls and strikes and give warnings when they argue anything else. If the coach argues a second time, then they should be thrown out of the game. The umpires should be in charge of the game, not the coaches.

And that is what I learned coaching baseball this year.