I woke up early Sunday morning to the sight of 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. I had to pick up Kevin from his friend's house early in the morning to get to his Little League tryouts. They were having tryouts at an indoor batting cage and practice field, so the weather was not a factor. We've been practicing for weeks, getting his baseball muscles into shape. Actually they were already in shape. He's been doing a weight training program after school 3 days a week for a number of weeks now. He has packed on a lot of muscle yet he has also lost a good amount of bad weight. He is looking really good.
We had to do some running around to get things that he forgot at my ex's house. We drove across town to the indoor field. Kevin warmed up by playing catch with a boy his age that also needed to warm up. This boy was just starting to play baseball this year. Kevin was taking it easy on him . The other boy missed catching one ball and got clocked on top of his head. He shook it off and kept playing catch. A few minutes later he took one on the cheek. He was done. He sat down with his parents and I went in with Kevin taking his place.
The Little League tryout accomplish 2 things. It allows the league to find the best kids and place them in the AAA league. There are only a limited number of slots to fill in the AAA league so they need to find the best. The other reason is to find who is good and who is in need of work and assign them to teams in the AA league in an attempt to spread out the different talent levels evenly across the AA teams. Kevin has been wanting to get into AAA for the past 3 years. Would this be his year?
A little while later the group Kevin was assigned to was told to take the field. They continued to warm up with the coaches and officials judging kids in other groups. A few judges watched the boys playing catch to see their throwing and catching form.
For fielding tryouts the they had one kid at a time take turns in the short stop position. They would hit a series of 5 balls to the kid, which then had to be thrown to a kids at first base. Many kids fumbled the balls hit to them, others could not throw accurately to the first baseman. When Kevin got up the first ball he fielded perfectly, but his throw to first went too high. The next 4 hits to him he also fielded perfectly, but also threw perfectly to the first basemen. They followed this up by timing how fast the boys could run from home plate to second base.
Batting tryouts were next. I had been watching a lot of the kids from the previous group in the batting cage. I was standing behind the coaches and officials. The pitching machine they used confused some of the kids. Each kid was instructed to bunt the first 2 balls pitched to them, then swing hard at the following 3. Most kids had trouble with the bunting. It is not something they want to practice. The 3 regular swing were not easily hit by any of the kids either. There were a lot of strike outs that morning.
Kevin was up and got into position. He missed the first to balls (bunts). The first regular swing he nailed it, the second he hit foul, and the third he hit solid again. I knew he did very well from what I saw of almost all the other kids. A couple of the coaches were asking what his number was so they could note his performance in their books. I thought his chances were getting pretty good for AAA.
Then the kids were to go over to the pitching area. Not all kids tried out for pitching. I am not sure why that was. I told Kevin he should go over there. He wants to be a catcher again, but of the games he did pitch he did extremely well. He is a hell of a relief pitcher (maybe I am a little bias). Kevin asked one of the coaches at the batting cages where they were doing the catcher tryouts. He said he thought they were doing that over in the pitching area. We headed there.
We found out that this year they were not doing catcher tryouts.
For the pitching tryout you threw 5 balls to a boy that was decked out in catchers gear. I watched a number of kids pitch while Kevin was out warming up for the fielding tryouts. I dont know what they were looking for more, speed or accuracy (I would hope accuracy from the pitches I was seeing). Kevin is a very accurate thrower.
There was one boy in front of Kevin. He threw well, I think he had 3 balls and 2 strikes. I could not see what the radar was reading for his pitches. Kevin stepped up, had good form and threw 5 perfect strikes I saw the radar on one of the pitches. He was throwing around 33 MPH. Not fast, but accurate. Again the coaches were asking what his number was. We watched the next kid throw. He was throwing much faster than Kevin, around 41 MPH, but his throws were all over the place.
We won't know the results of the tryout for a few weeks. Keep your fingers crossed.
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