The Rockets

Actual games have started for tee ball, and today was the team picture.  Their team is the Rockets, and here they all are with Coach Scott.  The only problem is that this is a terrible picture.  I'm not a professional photographer, and I get it that it's trickier with baseball because the kids wear caps, but it seems unlikely this is the best way to take a picture of the team when you can't see any of their faces because of the shadows from the bills of the caps.  But this is what we have.  Joshua is on the far right in the back row, and Clara is on the far left in the front row, and their teammates are Brant, Leighton, Cade, Makinna, Tanner, Hudson, Ashlyn, Isaac, Tyson, Brady, Parker, and Summer.

I am an assistant coach for the team.  When we are batting, Scott is at home plate helping each kid hit.  I manage the chaos that is our bench, which consists of making sure all 14 kids get to bat each inning, and that they do so in the proper order.  Because the kids are so young, the focus is on getting everyone to participate.  So in each inning, every kid bats once.  The first kid hits (meaning he or she takes as many swings as is necessary to hit the ball off the tee anywhere into fair territory.  And yes, it sometimes takes many swings even though the ball is on a tee), and no matter the result goes to first base only.  Then the next hits, and he or she goes to first base, and the previous kid moves up to second base.  This continues until the bases are loaded, and then the kid on third will come home.  Basically it's a "keep the line moving" string of 13 straight singles that would make Ned Yost proud.  Then we continue through the entire lineup until the last kid hits.  That kid gets to hit a "grand slam", as after that hit everyone on base comes around to score.  So in the end, each kid will have hit and scored each inning.  We only get through three or four innings each game, so we rotate through the lineup each inning such that by the end of the season, each kid will have had a chance to have the end-of-the-inning grand slam.  Because most kids do hit it on their first try, it moves quickly, but that means it's very fast-paced for me in the dugout.  I have to wrangle fourteen kids who only marginally care about baseball to make sure they bat in order, and that I always have the right kid going up to the plate, the right kid in the on-deck circle (well, there's no actual circle; they just need to be out of the dugout with their helmet on and bat in hand), and the next ones after that ready to go.  We only have five batting helmets, so I'm constantly switching them out, because after a few hitters, there are always three kids on the bases, one at the plate, and one in the on-deck circle.  So as soon as a kid scores, I have to grab that helmet and get it on the next kid who's on deck.  And some kids have their own bats and helmets that they want to use every time, so I have to keep track of that.  And this is ongoing constantly the whole inning, with a new batter as fast as every 30 seconds or so.

But I also would like to take some pictures of my own kids playing, which is hard to do when I'm doing all of that, but today I made a point to get some pictures, focusing on Clara this time.  Here she is at the plate.  Scott seems like a good coach, but in looking at these pictures I'm not sure why he let her stand like that.  She should definitely have her feet shoulder-width apart and not close together like they are.  That makes it much more difficult to swing.  But I'll cut him some slack, because like my job, his is fast-paced too.  And that poor stance probably contributed to this awkward follow-through, which is not exactly textbook.

But it worked well enough, as she hit the ball, and here she takes off for first base with more hustle than you usually see out of her.  And then here she is three hitters later scoring at home plate and getting a congratulatory low five from Coach Scott.