Last game of the season; ready for next year!

[jbolt_2000]

Just wanted to share....


Our LL Farm team had our last game of the season today. We lost every single game. Several by getting mercy ruled. My goals for the season were:
1) Teach my players the right way to play, with sound fundamentals and to learn situational plays.
2) Have fun
3) Instill the passion of the game that I have in the players so that they all choose to come back next year.

All of our players learned a great deal.
- We started the season with just a few hits each game and over 7-8 strikeouts. By the end of the season we only get 3-4 strike outs at most and everyone is getting hits or putting the ball in play.
- We started with only making 2-3 outs a game to getting 7-10 outs a game.
- We lose games not by poor playing but by the other teams just having monster hitters. Several teams have multiple hitters who hit into the outfield every at bat. We have a very young team with little power (only a two kids can occasionally hit into the OF).
- They all learned to run through first and look for the pass ball. They all stop on second or third and look to the coach for advancement.
- They all stopped banging home plate with their bat and now tap the corner and stay loose before the pitch.
- They all run no matter where ball is put in play (fair or foul) and run hard!

Anyways, I told the kids that it would be my pleasure to have everyone of them on my team again next year and some asked if I was coaching Minors next year so they can be on my team and some others said that they are only coming back next year if I am their coach (I'm sure they'll come back regardless, but it felt good).

We had a losing season, but was by no means unsuccessful. This was actually quite a great year with my team and it pumps me up to know I get to coach some of them again next year and get them ready for Minors.


Too all the coaches out there with their season coming to an end - I hope you all had as much of a fulfilling year as I did! It really feels good wipes away any frustration towards the Win/Loss record.

[leecemark]

--Congrats on having such a good perspective on what its all about and getting such satisfaction out of the season. I am having a similar experience with our team. 7-9 league and we only have one kid who played at this level last year. We've only got mercy ruled once, but we've only won twice. Everybody on the team has worked hard and shown some real improvement though.
--We played the team that mercy ruled us last night. They had half their team return from last year and are undefeated this year. I told the kids this would be a real test of how much they've improved and they really rose to the challenge. We played them even going into the last inning, but they scored 3 in the top of the inning. Since we've never scored more than 2 in an inning all year that seemed likely to be it. We rallied though, getting a run in and the tying runs to 2nd and 3rd with the winning run at the plate. The would be winning batter struck out to end it, but I was as proud of them after this loss as I've ever been after a win.
--We only have 3 9s and only one of our 8s is ready for the next level so I hope to have most of the kids back next year. I'd be happy to have all of them. Three games left and all of the kids have had some good moments to remember the season by. One still looking for her first hit (one of our three 7s and two girls). I'd love to see that happen before we wrap things up.

[JCincy]

Super post jbolt. Very uplifting.

If you can keep in touch with your team in the off season that can be a big help. A few ideas...
- Post season party.
- Arrange for cage time in the off season.
- Send out reminders about sign ups.
- Your roster should have birth dates and addresses... consider sending a birthday card to your players.

[tg643]

Ending with a pizza party players versus mothers whiffle ball game is always a way to end the season with a win.

[oobnuker]

Great post! I had a very similar season 4W-11L-2T. We mercied another team once, and were mercied twice. Most of the other games were won or lost by 2-4 runs so never big runaway games... This is 10-12 50/70 Cal Ripken Majors in our town rec. league. Our worst loss in the beginning of the season was 17-3. The other team won with ONE EARNED RUN - the rest was on errors. That was a big eye-opener to the kids and they tightened up their play considerably. Seeing as we were an expansion team that was just created this year, and the last team I coached was a T-Ball team, I think we did alright! I took the advice from many others in my other thread about playing time and fairness and I set out to have a good season and I believe that we really did. I have a lot of solid 10 and 11 year olds who will be back next year and I get first pick in the draft (since we lost overall for the season). We did make it to the second round of our single elimination tournament - knocking out one of the teams that mercied us... So that was extremely satisying.

[azmatsfan]

Too all the coaches out there with their season coming to an end - I hope you all had as much of a fulfilling year as I did! It really feels good wipes away any frustration towards the Win/Loss record.

I had a similar season in LL Minors this year. We went 5 - 13 this season, but this was the best team I've ever had in terms of attitude. 8 of our boys had never played kid pitch before, and for 4 this was their first year playing baseball. But every kid improved and seemed to love playing baseball. I never saw teammates getting down on each other, and I never once heard a "Is practice almost over yet?" Every kid had at least one hit and all but one pitched at least 2 innings. I always worry the boys won't have fun when our record is so bad, but then I see the smiles on their faces even after a tough loss and I realize it's the coaches and parents who worry the most about that. The best compliment I got was when a player whose favorite sports were football and soccer before the season now says baseball is his favorite sport, and he's going to play on my Fall travel team instead of club soccer.

[shake-n-bake]

1) Teach my players the right way to play, with sound fundamentals and to learn situational plays.
2) Have fun



was by no means unsuccessful.



These will always go together regardless of win percentage. Way to go!

[AdamInNY]

My minors season is coming to an end. Had quite a few 12yo kids this year that never made it to majors, so came into the season a bit jaded and I got the sense previous coached just dumped them in the OF. We've been pretty successful and it seems the kids have had fun. Some have told me they want to play Ponys next year, which was my goal with the older kids.

Best conversation of the season:

Player: "In the last 3 years, you're my favorite coach"

Me: "Well the season isn't over yet, you may want to take that back"

Player: "No, the other coaches I had were always hitting on my mom"

Just walked away after that.

[JCincy]

My minors season is coming to an end. Had quite a few 12yo kids this year that never made it to majors, so came into the season a bit jaded and I got the sense previous coached just dumped them in the OF. We've been pretty successful and it seems the kids have had fun. Some have told me they want to play Ponys next year, which was my goal with the older kids.

Best conversation of the season:

Player: "In the last 3 years, you're my favorite coach"

Me: "Well the season isn't over yet, you may want to take that back"

Player: "No, the other coaches I had were always hitting on my mom"

Just walked away after that.

Hoping you weren't the player's dad...

[songtitle]

Now that was funny.