Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler First Tee-Ball Game

A couple shots from todays opener:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v155/bigwill/DSCN3360.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v155/bigwill/DSCN3368.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v155/bigwill/DSCN3371.jpg

It's my personal opinion that we're starting them too young now, but not much I can do about it, huh?

Very good, Mark, but give'm a football, too.

My son (6 yo) had beginners basketball lessons this winter. I had my hand over my face for most of them, but he did get a pretty good dribble down after the third and last class.

I think starting kids early is fine as long as there's no performance pressure. If they show any talent early, though, you gotta milk that and start pimping them out to scouts so you can live off them when they hit the pros.

My oldest(9yr old) has tried baseball, soccer and last fall football He seems to try things once and that's it, done, never to try again so it appears. I can't figure him out, but at least he is trying something. I get the feeling some instruments might be his next thing and he is hinting at drums, oh boy......

I gave up on sports for my son after soccer. He just isn't inclined that way. Its hard to get used to because I was really into sports as a kid, but thats just the way it is. He kicks my ass at pretty much any video game though...

Just Wait til you see your first parent confrontation. During a Coach Pitch Game where I was the "Dad behind the catcher" I had a dad from the opposing team tell me "If I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you". My Brother-in-Law (Big Dude) was coaching first base for the opposing team. He called time, ran down to Home Plate, Grabbed me in a head lock and said in a low voice. "I haven't had my Prozac today - let's go get that A$$__le. (I love my Brother-in-Law - btw). I said "no...we'll just keep playin".

Nothing like a Saturday Morning Little League game after a Big Friday night.....

And thats the big reason I'm happy that neither of my kids are much into sports. When I was a kid, it was about getting together to have some fun. These days, everybody things their kids should be headed to the pros on a big contract.

One of my nieces was really into soccer, but refused to play in the competitive league because of the jerk parents.

Nice pics, Mark! Thanks for sharing. You know? Those fields look very familiar. Think we must've played softball after work on those fields a couple years ago. Are the fields close to Milliken Ave?


And, I know what everyone means about sports being more competitive for the parents than the kids. Shoot, back when I played community soccer, they had to start separating the parents to different sidelines to avoid any confrontations.

I remember playing Tee-ball as a kid. I had a hard time with swinging too low and knocking the stinkin' Tee over... I always wanted to smack it outta the park!

Cool pics, Mark! Thank you!

My kids swim. While it is clearly NOT immune from "Little League Parent Syndrome", it is a pretty good sport in that respect. There's no bitching about playing time, there's no bitching about officials, and there's no bitching about the final outcome. There's your water, go swim in it. Also a pretty high correlation between hard work and success.

Me too!! I think for some of us kids, the "T" was too high...but we won our local championship....The Greensville Astros!!

My dad even built a tee so I could practice at home, I still couldn't hit the stinkin' ball.
I remember feilding a fly ball once- I kept an eagle eye on that sucker and made dam sure it hit the ground well away from me.

My son loves soccer and hockey.
He is really good at baseball but it is too boring for him at 5 1/2.
I am trying to keep him in sports with lot's of movement.
He starts lacrosse in a couple of weeks so that should keep him busy for 3 months.
Swimming is probably one of the most important activities for a child.
My attitude is to let him try everything and then he can choose what he wants to participate in.

Thanks, John.

He's not built as heavily as my brothers and me. He could bulk up some later - you never know - but I'm thinking golf and baseball right now. Those are the two sports he says he likes. Gonna have to start sneaking him onto the course in my bag, I guess.

Milliken turns into Hamner south of the 60. That's about 5 miles away and another mile east.

Stuff gets built here so fast you never know what's what. You could Google "Harada Park" to see the exact location.

Regarding crazy parents... I never really noticed until I started coaching high school sports. Who knew people were so irrational, so delusional, so blind, proud and stupid when it comes to assessing the talent of their offspring?

Yeah, Mark; I certainly learned that as well during the five years I was a volunteer coach in high school football.

I think if I was a celebrity I'd rather throw out the first pitch at a tee ball game instead of a baseball game. Then I'd just be setting the ball on a tee. Of course, the embarrassment factor would go way up if I couldn't even accomplish that.

I'm with most folks above. Nothing wrong with starting a kid young as long as they are having fun. If they don't like it, let them pick what they would like to try next. Just pray they don't choose goalie in hockey. I think they could get into junior go cart racing cheaper than you can buy hockey gear for a goalie.

Of course, considering you are posting pictures of green grass and t-shirts while we watch the last (hopefully last) of the snow melt, you are probably safe on that one.

Great pics too by the way!

Yeah, that's it! I used to work in Mira Loma right by the 15 and 60. On Fridays we'd all head on down to the park and pretend like we could play softball.

I remember always wanting to hit the "elusive" home run. One game I made good contact and knew it was more than my usual single when I got to first base and the hometowners were yelling at my little butt to keep running...2nd base...RUN!! RUN!!...3rd Base...KEEP GOING!!!>>>slides into home plate<<< HOME RUN!!!....wait a minute....Ump sends me back to 2nd base says the ball got lost in the taller grass or something, calls it "interference"....the only time I came close to a T-ball homer

I'm always amazed at how little league ball diamonds look the same the continent over.

Just do yourself a favour, don't let him pitch, unless he loses 100 IQ points and that's all he can do. Spoken as a former middle infielder and current Infield/Running Coach.

Bren R.

Great pix! Being from Minnesota I'm very jealous-we've still got 1 and 1/2 feet of snow on the ground. I'm an experienced T-Ball coach and my opinion is that if the kids have fun they are not too young. A lot depends on the coaches and parents. Enjoy the T-Ball-I just got done coaching my daughter's 4th grade basketball team. Trying to get 10 little girls on the same page and playing basketball was much more challenging than T-Ball at 4 and 5 years old.

It was freakin' HOT today. Maybe 82*. Felt like 92* though since it has been so long since the last warm day.

Pitching will be out. My elbow is jacked from a short career of snapping knuckle-curves, and I certainly don't want to wish that on my little guy.

Several years back, I was doing some free lance photography for the local paper. I was out at the local field and went to the Tee Ball field. There was this kid "playing" short. every 30 seconds or so he would extend his arms to his sides, tilt his head way back and - for lack of a better description - CROW. I got a great shot of him in mid CROW and it actually made the front page with the caption "The Joy of Spring". He was definately having a good time.

Great story. I can imagine my kid doing that in a year or two. More likely, he'd flap his arms and run in small circles around his position, saying, "CAW! CAW!"

Jake's been doing alot of "pirouetting" with his arms straight out. Learned it from Mario on Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics.

I get the urge to yell at him, but pretty much every kid is doing something stupid half the time.

At least it's at tee-ball age... I spent the last three summers coaching PeeWee AA (12-13).

Having them do that at THEIR age is a little tougher to take. My joke about how to fix it is a fist full of "Hitalin."

Bren R.

Jose Canseco took "Hitalin" or something like that.

Kirby Puckett dispensed it according to his wife.

Bren R.