Yes, sad to say that my team has not won a game. 0-5. I keep it all in perspective as I am coaching 9 & 10 year old boys. That's not to say that I don't joke about my winning percentage or coaching abilities.
We had a great game the other night. Yes, obvioulsy, we lost (7-5). A really close game but a few late errors cost us. We were winning for the better part of it but in the end the other team prevailed. The remarkable thing is that my kids were not devestated. Perhaps, the fact that they had a chance to win the game was satisfaction enough. Is that possible in this day and age?
Most of our games have been close with the exception of the one game we lost 16-9 but even then my guys were ecstatic about scoring nine runs. Yes, they were thrilled because they scored a bunch of runs.
I find it amazing as I'm learning a real lesson while trying to teach these kids sportmanship & baseball skills.That's life for you, I guess. Here I was worried about teaching these kids and they are teaching me things in the process. Never to late to teach an old dog new tricks?
BTW, Our team motto...have fun, play hard & smart.
Update - May 19th
We lost again tonight 14-11. It was an amazing game. We were actually down 12-0 after two innings, playing the best team in the league.
A funny thing happened though. Similar to what my cyber friend, bigtenboy, described in his comment. I very calmly told the boys to sit down in the dugout and started encouraging them to play hard & have fun. It was interesting because they all seemed to relax and started to play the game.
Next thing you know we start chipping away, five runs here and then we start playing well in the field. We actually had a 1,2,3 inning. You know three up, three down.
Hold onto your hats but by the fourth inning it's 12-11 and my guys are smiling and having a great time. I hear a few kids exclaim, we can win this one coach.
Unfortunately, we couldn't pull it out in the end but we had the winning run at bat and our star player on deck in the last inning.
Like Bigtenboy mentioned kids are resilient but I could sense that they were a little disappointed by being so close to their first win. I gave quite the pep talk afterwards and praised these kids to high heaven and you know what, I watched them all walk off the field laughing, hugging, wrestling (they are boys after all) and in great spirits.
The other great part is when I tucked my son in bed tonight. I asked him if he was disappointed. He said "no, we played a great game Dad but the other team just played a little better"...0-6 but Wednesday is another day and we'll have another chance at that elusive "W"
IrishNY
May 28th update - 0-6 and holding...
Actually, no real updates to speak of. We haven't had a game since last Monday, the last update. We have a game tonight though, against the second best team in the league. We also have about 4 games in the next week so let's hope the boys continue to have fun and play well in search of the elusive "W". If we win tonight, I'm sure I'll have more to add. Stay tuned.
