Well, the second half of the Little League season started out like the end of the first half. Except for Gabe's 15 strike-out game at Countryside, the Cards are getting beat, and soundly.
As the rest of the teams have slowly improved over the course of our season, our team has not. The top four batters are hitting above .400. The rest of the team is batting .119. So, we'll start a game and get two or three batters on with one out and score nothing.
Add that and the multitude of errors that we always seem to allow per game (I think there were 12 last night in our 10-1 loss to the Yankees, including, for example, four by our first baseman in one inning) and you have the makings for a very, very long second half of the season.
Now, I know its just Little League. The sky is not falling. The world is not ending. It is just a game. However, kids being kids, they don't have a lot of fun losing all the time, no matter what the official brochure says.
And it's been tough on my ultra-competitive son.
He's been working on improving his swing and that has translated to some tough game time at-bats. I know he has it in him to be more consistent as soon as he gets more reps. The other night at one of the shorter Countryside fields (their fields are always smaller than ours) during an impromptu batting practice, Gabe hit a home run over the fence from both sides of the plate. So, he'll get there, but its going to be tough until then.
It's a good learning experience for him... test his leadership skills, his focus and his commitment. For the parents, not so much fun right now. :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
We went through a really tough time with my gymnastics team where none of us were winning. Being an individual and team sport, it was discouraging from both sides and hard to stay motivated through that. Beyond natural talent, sports is a lot of hard work and mental games. You try to visualize and focus to overcome fears which some days feels like a joke and other days you are dead on.
I always stayed with it because those were my closest friends. They see you sweat, break down, fail, be afraid, practice incessantly as well as break through mental barriers, succeed, perform at your best and support each other. Through all of that, we still like each other and that made us very close friends. It taught me everything about leadership, being a good sport, teaching, encouraging and working hard for something I wanted from a very young age. There are a life time of lessons in team sports, even through the rough spots, Gabe will come out of the far end shining.
Post a Comment