American League Red Sox

What a great day for baseball this Saturday turned out to be. The weather was fantastic and we were playing the very tough Tigers. Coach Dude and I continued our strategy of splitting the warmup between throwing, fielding and soft-toss. I think the soft-toss generally helps, but on this day we still struggled to put the bat on the ball.

While we did put the bat on the ball a few times, I still believe we are letting to many good pitches go by without a swing. Coach Dude and I are trying to remind the kids at the beginning of each game to swing at anything between the knees and the shoulders. I'm trying to frame this as an opportunity to hit the ball in a game that may not have many due to the erratic pitching. Our most consistent hitter continues to be Ian who manages not only to swing, but to make contact in almost every at-bat. Big-cat Ben Linberg also had a nice smash up the middle.

Defensively we played well on about half of the balls. Our biggest challenge in fielding is getting our players to move aggresively toward the ball. Players sometimes seem a little confused on how to approach a ball. Sometimes it seems as if the motivation to make the play is softened by the confusion of how to make the play and the fear of getting in the way of the ball. It will always be nearly impossible to make a play if the player refuses to get in front of the ground ball or undeneath the fly ball. Only practice helps to take this fear away. Once the kids know that they can catch the ball and that they can effectively prevent the ball from hitting themselves they will gain the confidence necessary to move quickly to the ball and make more plays. If you have time to practice, you can start with soft-core balls (come see me for some) and that way if they do miss it won't hurt quite as much. Having said that we once again almost made a caught-stealing play at third with Ben and Trevor. Joe make a great play on a --hot line drive to first base and showed some great hustle chasing a ball down the rightfield line.

Despite our lack of offensive power, we kept the game close, closing it to a tie in the top of the 3rd inning. We were unable to hold the Tigers in the bottom half of the inning, but we did compete very well with a very good team.

Several Red Sox players and their families joined the more than 250 people from Rancho Cordova Little League at Raley Field on May 4th. We really lucked out with sunny but mild weather and a terrific game. RCLL Teams from T-Ball to Juniors took part in the pre-game parade which let the kids do a complete lap around the perimeter of the field in front of fans.

Judging by the grins on the kids faces I think the parade was a hit. The kids really got a close look at the incredibly manicured outfield grass and even high-fived some Rivercats players as we passed the home team dugout.

Our team was especially lucky because one of our teammates was selected to participate in the "field of dreams" moment. Trevor Ready was selected to join the starting leftfielder at his position as the Rivercats took to the field to open the game. As we all knew he would, Trevor used his blazing speed to beat everyone to the position. Trevor said it was fun to talk with the Rivercats player and to have him autograph his hat.

As the mild weather turned to hot sun, the Rivercats began to turn up the heat on the Iowa Cubs. The kids also turned up the heat on the parents for cokes, cotton candy, popcorn, red ropes, hot dogs, etc....

As the game wound down toward the end, it appeared headed to extra innings. As some of the boys waited in line to test their arm strength against the radar gun in the play area, Casey Rogowski hammered a shot to left and ended the game with a dramatic walk-off home run.