Thursday, March 16, 2006

Spring Training

The field was muddy and the south wind was biting. Rain was forecast and hamstrings were tight, but "our" first baseball practice of the year was pulled off a couple nights ago at the Loyal Heights field, four days before the opening day of spring.

This year it's really a family affair, with me helping out as the inept but well-liked assistant coach, my brother-in-law Don appearing as the Manager, sister Cindy the misunderstood Player Agent, and of course, nephew Sam as one of the team's star players.

We started off with some warm-up stretches, led by Stu, a real-life conditioning coach, and went right into ten minutes of short throwing. After that was fifteen minutes of fielding practice and we finished with bunting and hitting drills. At 6:15 it was already getting dark and the line-drives were becoming a blur, so we called it quits before someone got beaned (me).

It felt great to dust off the glove and throw on the cleats again, which had been stowed away in the garage since last July. The Little League team will have two practices a week for the next couple weeks and then the games start. Then on this coming Monday, it's the first practice for my girls' softball team, which I also coach. That'll be two days a week, plus one weekly game starting in early April. Last but not least is the men's softball team I play on, whose practices will also start in a couple weeks. So for the next few months, there will be plenty to do.

Savanna's UIltimate Frisbee practices started last week with her first games tomorrow, and Tiana has turned out for cheerleading, so for the first time in quite a while, the girls will also be busy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

No mention of the Drifters. It hardly seems you could fit that in. Is that on your schedule?

Anonymous said...

bad reading habits led me to neglect your mention of the drifters so ignore the previous post

Anonymous said...

SeattleFrank, please be advised that the position of District Manager does not occur within a local Little League. Continued misrepresentation of your sister's title may result in the following consequences: your suspension, mandatory appearance before the board of directors,and/or forfeiture from post-season tournament play.

seattlefrank said...

Thank you, Ms Peterson, for your tersley-worded correction. Be advised I have changed my description of your role within the Gestapo that is the local Little League to "Player Agent," even though only three or four people in the entire universe know what that actually means.