First rookie division tryout

We kept checking the website in hopes that today's tryouts would be cancelled again due to weather. No such luck. Russ and I stood around watching Brandon's baseball tryouts for 2 hours this cold, wet afternoon. None of us wanted to be there today, not even Brandon. He was so happy in the warm house playing video games. Even in his head, it was insane to go out in the rain to play catch and hit balls.

Brandon did as well as we expected. The cold definitely made a difference in his performance. His poor hands were so cold, that he couldn't catch as well as he would have liked. During the batting tryouts, he made contact with the ball 2 of 5 pitches. The only thing that made us frustrated was he wouldn't run after the ball. He walked just about everywhere. That's ok though. He'll figure it out next time.

On the way home from tryouts, we asked Brandon if he had fun. He immediately said yes. Then a few seconds later he said, "Not really." I can't blame him. He spent most of those 2 hours catching pop flies and grounders. When he did get to bat, he only got 5 pitches. There truely wasn't time for more than that. There were over one hundred kids trying out for just the rookie division. The president of the league let us know that there are more kids than teams available, and they aren't sure what they are going to do yet. Good to hear that our league is strong and growing, but leaves me feeling a little concerned. We will see what happens on that front soon enough.

We did get the low down on the tryout process from our neighbor who has coached rookies for 2 years: all the coaches care about is the batting. At this level, almost all the outs made are strike outs. The kids are still too little to catch and throw the ball to base for an out. When it does happen it's a big deal. So after all the tryouts are done, the coaches gather for a draft, which I can't help but find funny. Some coaches take the draft much more seriously than others. Our neighbor is one of the "others" who just wants to get all the kids' friends and neighbors on the same team regardless of talent. After that's accomplished he fills with talent if he can. This was good to hear, because we really wanted Brandon to be on a team of familiar faces.