Baseball season is going to kick off in earnest in a few weeks. I was a little worried that Logan didn't seem that excited about baseball. He's been pumped up about basketball lately, though. The weather is probably going to be warm-ish for good this year. I moved the hoop to behind his mom's house. Now, he can shoot at home whenever he wants.
His basketball skills have increased dramatically this year. I was caught totally off-guard about the Cats tryouts, but next year, I'm pretty confident he'll be ready. I wish I'd known more about it. I would have prepared him. As it is, he did pretty well for not having anybody to get him going on the right path.
He's been really eager to practice basketball these past few weeks and that concerned me because he really has been apathetic about baseball. The indoor workouts are a grind. Same drills every time. It helps, but kids don't play baseball to do drills.
We had our first outdoor practice last night. The coach is evaluating Logan to see if he will give him a chance to do some pitching this year. The team has 5 solid pitchers, and Logan is trying hard to get to where he can get a few innings here and there. He didn't pitch at all last year, but I've been getting him to a pitching coach in the offseason. The improvement in his throwing has been dramatic.
At the practice, he threw pitching practice to the coach. Then, during the scrimmage, the coach took an extra long look at him.
Logan has this awesome ability to turn everything up a notch at game-time. In practice, he just sorta quietly and competently goes about his business, but at game time, he always seems to amp it up a notch or two.
During the scrimmage he really, really pitched well. This was the first time he ever faced live batters. So, I was impressed with how well he threw. At this level, sometimes all you need is a kid that throws strikes. They don't need to be that overpowering to be effective.
After the practice, Logan asked if I would work with him on more pitching and I had to tell him no. He had already pitched quite a lot and we needed to ice him down. Continuing to pitch would potentially lead to injury.
The coach overheard the conversation and backed me up. I had to explain to Logan that when you pitch, you can throw your arm out if you're not careful. I told him about a promising player I knew who had Div I stuff, but threw his arm out by the time he got to High School and never got to really play in college.
So, he understood. That didn't stop him, of course, from asking me to feed 2 buckets of balls into the pitching machine, though.
So, he's pretty pumped about baseball right now. I guess the thing to do with a kid like that is to keep them from trying to do too much, or doing things that will frustrate and discourage them.
What a great little kid.
I also am not a big believer that practice performance equates to gametime performance, but if it did, Logan would be awesome. He's crushing the ball right now.
I've just seen too many cases of kids who were money in practice, but who got into game situations and just couldn't pull themselves together. Logan is sort of the opposite. All business and competent in practice, but amped up at game time.
If he does that this year and turns it up a notch from what we're seeing now, he's going to have an awesome year. In a few of the smaller parks we play in, Logan could go yard. He has home run power, now.
He's also working on some stuff that I think is pretty advanced for a 9 year old, like jumping on inside pitches early to pull them foul or down the 3rd base line, and letting outside pitches get a little deeper into the strike zone and hitting the inside of the ball to drive them to right.
That's where the pitching machine comes in really handy because it can throw a ball in about the same place every time, letting him work on hitting certain types of pitches.
The season starts in mid-April. I can hardly wait.
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