Good news!

Marshalltown lost both games in the finals (it is a double elimination tourney). So they had 2 losses, and were done. Ankeny was still playing today, though based on scores, it looks like Urbandale is going to come out of District 3 with the championship.

North Story 12s

Dan and I got cut off, but this is what you get for now. Let me know if you need pics, we can get them emailed to you.

Post Season Party

Logan's grandma offered us a post season party at her bowling alley, Carousel Lanes in Story City. I am truly thankful for such a nice offer. Players and immediate family are invited to come, with free bowling and shoes. If you want something to drink or eat (like those tasty bowling alley/bar frozen pizzas) you will have to buy that on your own, but I certainly don't expect that with the bowling offer. So anyway food/drink is dutch, but the rest is on the house.

I realize it is the vacation season, and I doubt we can get all 14 guys there. But we will make best effort. So I have chosen Wednesday July 15 at 7PM at Carousel Lanes, on the west side of Story City.

So please reply if you can or cannot make that, and a tentative head count if you can. If we can only get a couple people, I will pick another day. But I know all the coaches kids can make it that day, so for now, we will make it Wednesday.

So again, please reply, with a yeah or nay.

finally some time

I actually made a post about our last game, but I don't know what happened to it. Been on the go a lot here lately. But the family left me for the weekend, and I have the run of the house, so I can get around to typing again.

So I will give an abbreviated commentary about the last game. Super fun night with the big crowd, and playing under the lights, and all that. I talked to the Ames coach afterward, and they had a good time as well, obviously more fun for them by winning.

The big difference in the game was their outfield play. They did a great job of hitting the cutoff man with solid throws. He said they practiced that, and executed as well as they ever had. Stinks for us I guess.

Our 5th inning was a goodie. All of our 5 runs came with two outs. Kudos to the guys for not giving up. Taylor had a good night with the bat going 3-4, Jerald went 2-4 with a double and a dong, and Alex went 3-3.

Mick had a rough pitching start, but did his job catching 2 flies in right, right after being taken from the mound. Jerald and Andy did a good job of keeping Ames off balance.


As for the gang as a whole, this was a super bunch to be around. You don't think of it with 12 year old boys, but this is a very quiet bunch for the most part. They got along well, but weren't running their mouths and annoying the coaches, which is good.

It was a different team to run, with 14 guys on the team. They are used to being on teams with 10 or 11 kids, and getting a lot of playing time. Obviously they want to play, but I didn't see anybody having a big black cloud about it, affecting the rest of the team. As I told the guys, their days of being on teams with one or two players above what is on the field are about over, as they move into Jr High, and HS.

Because I like stats, here are some. We had a .339 team batting average, which is pretty good. The stats look a lot different than my regular season team. The batters walked and struck out a lot less. I equate that to better opponent pitching, and better batters on our part.

Our pitching wasn't the greatest. We had some good efforts mixed in there, but a couple of bad innings really did us in. I am not even considering or worrying about Marshalltown tho.

I also want to thank those of you that volunteered for various jobs, be it in the concession stand, doing book or pitch counts, umpiring, being TD, or anything else that I have currently forgotten. There is a lot of stuff to make this all fly in the short amount of time, and I couldn't do it all myself. I also want to thank my assistants, Doug and Dan. It is a good experience to work with different coaches, and I learned some stuff from them as well, and they are good guys to boot.

Have a good rest of the summer!

No commentary tonite

With the late game, and I have to go to work now, I am not gonna have time to comment on the game right now. But come back, I will do so tomorrow some time, and offer a wrap.

Also, we are going to have a year end party at Carousel Lanes in Story City, thanks to Logan's grandma. Not sure of the date, and I know we probably can't get everybody there because of vacation time, so stand by on that.

Well, not tonite

Despite the loss, that may have been our best played game of the tourney so far. That first inning was ugly--just a lot of unfortunate stuff for us. I thought Taylor was throwing well. There weren't many solid hits--2 in right field, 30 ft past first and about a foot fair. Then these little bloops just past our pitcher. Such is life.

Really the only thing I had a problem with tonite was our outfield play. We missed some cutoffs, and couldn't hold the batters back at first. Ankeny's outfielders did a pretty good job with that.

We also left too many runners on base tonite. Unlike last night, our 3, 4, 5 batters did not come through when given the chance. We had the bases loaded in the top of 6, but left them there. But I'm not picking on them, because we win as a team, and we lose as a team.

We brought 32 batters to the plate and struck out 8 times, walked 4, so that means we put 20 balls in play, 7 of them base hits.
Ankeny brought 28 batters to the plate, struck out twice, we surrendered 6 walks/hbp. So they put 20 balls in play, with 9 base hits.
So very even on the offensive side, but we left 9 guys on. They didn't have as many left on, partially because we had good defense getting them out on the bases. Alex had a nice throw down to pick off a runner at 3rd. And actually we had a caught stealing down there too.

Ozzie caught a ball in CF without running his face into anything, so that is a plus. One thing I thought our outfield was better with tonite was backing stuff up. In particular Carter, Logan, and Caleb were all moving into position to back stuff up. And Taylor and Jason did a good job from the 2nd inning on, allowing no more runs.

So tomorrow will be our last game, win or lose. 8PM STORY CITY. Come early and watch the 11s at 6PM. But if you can't please have your son there by 7:15. I expect minimal screwing around if they are there earlier than that. They can watch some baseball, cheer on their buddies, and then get loosened up.

If you can work in the concession stand for a little bit of the 11 game, that would be nice. I already have 2 volunteers.

Not to bed yet

And another thing. We only gave up 1 walk tonite. Awesome. Amazing how a team can go from 17 walks to 1 walk in one game. Hmmmmm. We were walked/hit 4 times, so their pitchers did a good job. I thought Austin did a good job behind the plate as umpire. The zone was an appropriate size, and it made for a better ball game than the atrocity the other day.

Our batting was nice too. We had 33 plate appearances (to their 34) and put the ball in play 22 times. That is a pretty good night at the plate. We struck out 7 times, we struck them out 9 times (all by Alex)

Couple other things

What an at bat of Mickey vs their player. 13 foul balls in that at bat. Glad to see Mick smiling the whole time. I liked Jer's diving stop at first. Nice spear. Taylor had a nice catch out in right on a well hit ball. Off to bed.

Grey or Bald, let me choose

What hairs I have left, are quickly going grey. Aye carumba, what a game. Where do I start? Well, let's start with Alex. Very good job of pitching. Of course he started out by giving up the dong. And then Ozzie immediately heard the bells. He put a nice dent in the sign too. Glad to see he was able to come back and play later in the game.

Mickey did a good job pitching tonite too. I know he gave up the lead, but we had 3 or 4 errors in that last inning. Flat out, Mick did his job, and the guys didn't help him out. I don't like physical errors, but I'm not gonna get mad about it. They are 12 years old, they will make physical errors. We didn't really have too much in mental errors. We had a couple balls thrown to the plate, that someone should have called them off, but that comes with practice as a team, and we haven't had a lot of that.

So on to batting. I did have confidence in that last inning, despite being down by two. I told the guys, these are the situations that legends are made. I don't know if they believed me, but with the top of the order coming up, I thought we had a better than 50-50 chance. And Taylor, Andy, Alex, Jerald, and JD all played a role in making those 3 runs happen in the bottom of the 6th.

JD had a great night at the plate with 2 singles, a double, and a walk. I really liked Logan's double to drive in 2(I think) in the 3rd. We batted 10 in the 3rd inning. Cody started us off with that goofy looking 2 strike bunt. He is a good bunter, but I don't remember one going up in the air like that. But good hustle got him on base. And then we went hit batter, single, double(Mason's great at bat, after being down 1-2 in the count, worked it full, and then finished off with the hit), then double, double walk.

So in the end, it was ugly, but I'll take it. I'm proud of the boys for not giving up. Off to Ankeny tomorrow night. I might post a map here later. You can get to one off the league website tho. Reminder to take the Elkhart exit, it's faster than going down to 1st St and fighting all that traffic. Be there at 5:15 if you can.

Let me know if you didn't get pics tonite, we'll get some to you. Let me know if you haven't already, if you can work in the concession stand for some of the 11 year old game on Wednesday. And again, we are now playing at Story City at 8PM on Wednesday.

Woot! Woot! Game change.

Wednesday's game is now going to be at 8PM at the Carousel instead of 6PM at Zearing. We are going to do a double header with the 11s. The 11s are playing Ames at 6PM, and since we are also playing Ames, we decided to move us to 8PM, so both teams can watch each other.

If you can help in the concession stand between 6 and 8PM during the 11s, let me know, that would be a nice help.

Monday is still 6PM in Zearing, and Tuesday is still 6PM in Ankeny.

PIcture night Monday

Sounds like everybody will be there on Monday. So I dub it picture night. Win or lose, after the game we will all gather after our post-game talk, line the boys up, and parents can come out and take pics of the team.

Again, the game is at Zearing at 6PM. Try to have the guys there by 5:15 if you can.

Practice is a go

Soggy in a couple spots, but should be pretty good by 1. Again, only if you have no plans whatsover, come to practice at RMS from 1 to 2:30 on Sunday.

Pics

Not that I particularly want to relive the game, but as mentioned in my below post, the guy that took the photos, had posted our game photos on his website. They are of both teams, and about 250 pictures I think. And some of them are pretty good pics. Also what I believe is some good evidence of Logan being safe when he was picked off first. So anyway, you might want to check them out.

http://sportsphotos.marshallcountysun.com/GalleryThumbnails.aspx?gallery=219536

Sunday practice reminder. Definitely optional. Possible punting on having it. Still standing water at RMS at 3:30PM Saturday.

Well......

Not much to say about that game. But I'll try. As you may know from previous blog posts, I hate walks. So Taylor walked a few guys to start the game, so I was a little frustrated at him. So I brought JD in, because we needed strikes. I've seen JD pitch this year and in years past. He is not over powering, but he is right around the plate. He got us out of the first, and then proceeded to walk the first two guys of the 2nd inning.

That was a little odd, but we needed strikes, so I thought maybe it wasn't JD's night, so I called on Jerald. I'm not saying this because he is my kid, but simply because I had him on the Brewers this year, and I have his stats. He faced 150 batters during the regular and tournament season, and walked 12. The kid is a strike machine, they might hit it, but he rarely walks anybody. In case you are not good at math, that means he walked 1 out of every 12 batters he faced this year. Tonite, he walked 2 of 4.

I'm no rocket scientist, but I was starting to detect a trend, and it wasn't in our favor. So I called on Ozzie. Ozzie is a lot like JD on the mound, and pretty much the same thing happened. I had Jason penciled in for relief tonite, so I just let him go, despite the many walks that ended up being surrendered. After awhile, things were completely out of hand, so I thought I would give Mason a whirl. Mason doesn't throw that hard, and thought maybe that would please our plate umpire. Mason seemed to have some success, so he got to finish it out for us.

So my apologies for all the mid-inning pitching changes, and making the game drag on. But I was trying to find somebody that could please the umpire. And if not, I was going to torture him by making the game drag on. Trust me, I have umpired 100s of ball games, and the last place I want to be is behind the plate in an 18-1 ballgame. And then, when a manager is still giving the take sign with a 18 run lead, I as an umpire am calling a strike on the pitch if it is anywhere in the same county.

Our defense was so-so tonite. But that is another reason I hate walks, is because the defense starts to get sleepy out there. For the most part, we made plays when presented with an opportunity.

Our batting was ok I guess. We got fooled by some curve balls. Most guys don't have much experience looking at those. And it showed.

So that is easy to let that one go. The guys were in pretty good spirits afterward, so I was glad to see that. We need to improve, but basically a shrug of the shoulders, and on to the next game is fine with me.

We are going to do a practice from 1 to 2:30 on Sunday. I AM BOLDING THIS TO MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT LEAVE ANY FUNCTION TO COME TO THIS PRACTICE. IT IS ONLY IF YOU ARE SITTING AROUND WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO. TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY OPTIONAL. I am around on Sunday, so will be hanging out with anyone who shows up. Got it?

Next game is Monday in Zearing at 6PM. Be there by 5:15 if you can.

A guy was taking photos tonite. He handed the coaches a card. Apparently he sells photos or something like that. I know nothing about this, but FYI the address is www.marshallcountysun.com. Nothing on there for now, but again, passing this along as an FYI.

Speaking of photos, I hereby designate Monday as photo night. Win or lose, we will take postgame photos, assuming everybody is there. We will line the boys up, you can come out and take all the pics you want.

Have a great time celebrating Independence Day!

Bring skeeter spray

Just thought about M-town's field. Kinda down in a hole, lotta trees around, wind tomorrow is going to diminish. Sounds like prime skeeter territory. Might wanna bring some spray. Also not much for bleachers either I don't think. So you might bring chairs too.

Good game, on to Thursday

First off, here is the link to the map for Marshalltown

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=109575020038814676831.000446b23d72439193bfc&source=embed&ll=42.041963,-92.938671&spn=0.032381,0.055189&z=14

I believe it should be the same as last year, for those of you that went there, which is the south of the two push pins on the above link, the one at the golf course. And we will be playing on Field C. It is 1006 S 12th St. Marshalltown Bring along my number 515 290 7500 and call if you have problems.


View Larger Map


And now, on to tonite's game. Well that got a little more exciting that I planned. No quit in the Highland Park outfit.

First off, our pitching. Alex did a very good job for us through 4 innings. He had to come out after 4, because of the 85 pitch, pitch count. So I brought Taylor in. He didn't do too bad, but after throwing 1 pitch for one out, he went long on the next 3 batters. I wanted to save him for Thursday, so I had to pull him at 20. Jason was able to finish off the 5th for us. Then Jason ran into a little trouble in the 6th with a BB, HBP, and a single. I also wanted to save him for tomorrow, so I brought in Mickey.

Mickey did his job. He threw strikes. Unfortunately, they hit them where we weren't. I've never seen so many balls hit on the ground, right up the middle. But then we got the pop up for the first out, Mickey got a strikeout, then the 5-3 put out to end the game.

Scarily, their first 8 batters reached in the 6th, with no outs made by us. BB, HBP, 1b, 1b, 1b, 1b, 1b, HBP, and then F5, K and 5-3. Whew! We coaches talked about pulling Mickey, but I think we just had bad luck. 3 feet in either direction on any of those 5 hits, and we have an easy ground out. So anyway the 10-3 laugher turned into a 10-8 nailbiter. Mickey went to 23 pitches, so he will be ineligible to pitch until next Monday, just like Alex. Taylor and Jason will be taking the hill for us in Marshalltown.

On the defensive side of the ball, we did ok, though we didn't have many opportunities. Of Alex's 12 outs, 10 were strikeouts. Of the last 6 outs, only 1 was a K. Andy had a nice spear of a line shot at first, and Logan made a nice catch in RF to end the 5th inning.

Offensively, I was very happy. I'll give the stars to Andy and Logan. Andy had the over the fence home run, and a triple. Logan went 3-3, and almost jacked one, just hitting the bottom of the fence. I also want to tout good sportsmanship. Maybe the SS, and definitely the 3B for Highland Park gave Andy a 5 as he rounded the bases after his home run. And at least two of their coaches shouted out a congrats as Andy went by. Really nice to see and hear that.

Not everybody got on today, but every spot in the batting order 1-9 got on base tonite. In two other hits of note, Mickey had a very key 2 RBI double for us in the 2nd. And Alex's line shot to 3rd base...It went right in the kids glove, but went right thru the fingers. I was looking at it with their coaches after the hit, and it appears the ball went right thru the glove between the ring and pinkie fingers of the glove. That was a hard hit ball.

I thought the guys were a little tight before the game, and our infield session before the game was kinda ugly. But the team as a whole really came through and got down to business. I really have no complaints about the performance. I could throw out some various nitpicks, but they are mostly physical, and I can live with those. Mentally, we played pretty well, and I didn't see any real bad "dumb" mistakes.

North Story went 2-2 on the night, winning the 12s and 10s, and losing the 9s and 11s. Scores are on the North Story website, and if you hit "Links" you can get to the District 3 website, and there should be some scores there on Thursday.