2020 Little League Thread of Dominance

[pepper brooks 580]

All star's for out 13U team starts tonight.  Such horseshit Little League America cancelled everything past state for every group about 12U.  This was the year our group has a legitimate shot at the world series.  

[Huckleberry 33546]

Yeah it sucks but selfishly it worked out for my family. Because they did that I moved my family's Yellowstone vacation to July after everything. My son was going to be put on a special district team instead of the national team because it was originally scheduled for when the national team district tournament is. I scheduled it before they published that trying to squeeze it in between the end of school and the district tournament but they went too early with district. We've been waiting for years to take this vacation and are hoping my oldest finally stays medically stable enough to do it this year. 

Of course now the downside is I'm not managing either team when they originally offered me the national team before I told them. But the official announcement happened after I told them I'd be unavailable and they had appointed another guy to manage. 

Not that our league needs to worry about winning state but you don't want to tell your kid "oh don't worry there won't be a conflict y'all aren't that good." Ha. 

[Huckleberry 33546]

This rain is stupid and I hate it.

[F250 28944]

Damn that tournament has been stretched out over 2 weeks.

 

[Huckleberry 33546]

Yep. Lost the first championship game and about to head out to the second one. I've really enjoyed coaching these kids, I'm going to be sad after today's game even if we win. 

[Huckleberry 33546]

Well, double sad tonight. Saved my top 2 strike percentage pitchers for tonight and neither could find the strike zone at all. Doesn't help that I'm not a pitching coach and the kids were pretty upset but they never stopped fighting so no shame in that. Still enjoyed the heck out of this season, on to all star practices finally.

My kid has a mental mechanical block right now and his swing is just gone. Got some work to do.

[You don't know me 1161]

I got sucked into managing my kid's 8U LL team this year.  I have not managed a baseball team in nearly 20 years and they were older.  I have never managed a team at this age.  This is turning out to be a major test of my patience.  We had our first game last night I can't come close to counting how many times I said "Put your glove back on", "Turn around", "Watch the batter" and "Stand up".

You folks that have managed at this age group for more than one season should be up for beatification.

[Huckleberry 33546]

2 hours ago, You don't know me said:

I got sucked into managing my kid's 8U LL team this year.  I have not managed a baseball team in nearly 20 years and they were older.  I have never managed a team at this age.  This is turning out to be a major test of my patience.  We had our first game last night I can't come close to counting how many times I said "Put your glove back on", "Turn around", "Watch the batter" and "Stand up".

You folks that have managed at this age group for more than one season should be up for beatification.

That's exactly why I didn't coach my kid until he was 11. I knew I couldn't handle it, but absolutely admire and appreciate the guys who coached the kids when they were younger. It's necessary to get the love of baseball locked in but I definitely don't have the patience to coach kids that age.

[F250 28944]

On 6/2/2021 at 8:40 AM, You don't know me said:

I got sucked into managing my kid's 8U LL team this year.  I have not managed a baseball team in nearly 20 years and they were older.  I have never managed a team at this age.  This is turning out to be a major test of my patience.  We had our first game last night I can't come close to counting how many times I said "Put your glove back on", "Turn around", "Watch the batter" and "Stand up".

You folks that have managed at this age group for more than one season should be up for beatification.

Managed this age group multiple times. It's a pretty fun group to manage.

[Mez2 4036]

We finished up our regular season last Sunday,  finished 3rd in regular season, lost our first game in a double elimination playoff and ended up going on a run to win 4 straight elimination games and put us in the championship round, fell a little short in championship...rainouts took away a lot of momentum but had a great season overall. Kids were 7/8U at Oaks Dads Club in Houston. Going on the run to secure second allowed me to become one of the 2 all star head coaches this weekend. Should be fun, dont think there will be as much pressure...we only had 1 practice as a team so really just putting this together and see what happens.

So much fun, lots of patience though. Love coaching every minute of my son, he'll be 8 in August. 

[Jshep34 2381]

Won our tournament this weekend. Kids didnt allow any runs in playoff games today. Lilshep played lock down defense at 2b. Turned a few double plays. Onto our world series next week.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[BrazilHorn 6651]

14 hours ago, Jshep34 said:

Won our tournament this weekend. Kids didnt allow any runs in playoff games today. Lilshep played lock down defense at 2b. Turned a few double plays. Onto our world series next week.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 

Jesus that is a hell of a trophy. Congrats to the fellas! Fill They taking the trophy on road trips a la the Stanley Cup?

[kmac30 416]

I got sucked into managing my kid's 8U LL team this year.  I have not managed a baseball team in nearly 20 years and they were older.  I have never managed a team at this age.  This is turning out to be a major test of my patience.  We had our first game last night I can't come close to counting how many times I said "Put your glove back on", "Turn around", "Watch the batter" and "Stand up".
You folks that have managed at this age group for more than one season should be up for beatification.

Just wrapped up coaching a 7U All Star team after coaching an 8U team this spring. Heading cats. I think my coaching career is over. I did have a lot of fun, but I’m ready to be a spectator. My spring team over performed and my All Star team under performed. My kid has turned into a solid consistent hitter. His fielding is atrocious sometimes, great others - not great as much as it needs to be. He’s figuring it out though and that is fun to watch.

[BrazilHorn 6651]

Not quite LL but my 14U son's team won their tournaments championship this weekend and my son threw a no hitter in the final game to seal the deal.

Was Hot as the fucking sun this weekend. Holy crap. Give the kids a ton of credit for hanging in there and not melting to death on the turf.

[Huckleberry 33546]

Our 50/70 team lost our first game on Saturday badly and won our second game that night. The heat was oppressive and the kids just dropped out of it mentally when they had one really bad inning in the field. Our first game went from 10am-1pm and around noon they were done.

But they fought from behind in the night game, then fought from behind again last night and walked it off in the bottom of the 7th to stay alive. We have now basically finished at the top of the 3 teams in the tournament who are about our speed athletically. The other team teams playing the winner's bracket game tonight outmatch us athletically and in skill by quite a bit. They're clearly older and more experienced players from select, etc. Our team only has six 13-year-olds on it and it shows compared to these squads. But it's baseball, so we'll go ahead and show up tomorrow night and hope our pitching is on.

[Huckleberry 33546]

@pepper brooks is there a site for the District 16 tournament bracket? I like to follow stuff and can't find one.

[pepper brooks 580]

13 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

@pepper brooks is there a site for the District 16 tournament bracket? I like to follow stuff and can't find one.

not sure.  I will see if i can find anything.  Our district leader isn't exactly on the cutting edge of things.  We play first colony tonight in the winners bracket.  If we win we will play for the championship Friday night.  We won our first game 17-1.  We are playing out at Memorial Ashford LL.  Their intermediate field is the size of a 12U field.  Fence is maybe 200ft.  I think we hit 7 or 8 home runs in 3 at bats on Saturday.  Ridiculous.  DM didn't know the field was that small until the day before the tourney started, wanted to change it, but then one of the coaches objected so they left it.  Absurd.  

[pepper brooks 580]

Doesn't look like blue sobrero site has been updated in 2 years.  That is usually somewhat functional.  

[Huckleberry 33546]

14 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

not sure.  I will see if i can find anything.  Our district leader isn't exactly on the cutting edge of things.  We play first colony tonight in the winners bracket.  If we win we will play for the championship Friday night.  We won our first game 17-1.  We are playing out at Memorial Ashford LL.  Their intermediate field is the size of a 12U field.  Fence is maybe 200ft.  I think we hit 7 or 8 home runs in 3 at bats on Saturday.  Ridiculous.  DM didn't know the field was that small until the day before the tourney started, wanted to change it, but then one of the coaches objected so they left it.  Absurd.  

 

10 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

Doesn't look like blue sobrero site has been updated in 2 years.  That is usually somewhat functional.  

I found something at least. https://tshq.bluesombrero.com/Default.aspx?tabid=2326886

Yeah that's crazy on the field. Our regular season field was 205. League is trying to get money together to build a 50/70 field but doesn't look good. Our district tournament is being played at 270. We've had a couple of fence one hoppers so far but that's it. If it was 200 then we would have had over a dozen in our three games of course. Also, it's against the tournament rules for an intermediate fence to be under 225 for future reference (although your kid won't be 50/70 again but still).

Of course we've had a couple of issues with our district manager also not knowing some rules, so that's not uncommon. Ha. But the coach's objection shouldn't have mattered.

[Mez2 4036]

We finished 3-1 last weekend in our first select tournament (7U), not too bad showing for a bunch of kids who've never played together. we only had 2 practices together before we started playing. it was hot as balls but I had so much fun and think the boys did too. I was fucking exhausted from throwing that much back to back but still wouldnt have wanted to be anywhere else than with those kids and my son. Chuy played pretty well - hit lead off for me (something he has never done, usually hits 2nd on his spring season), he's not the fastest kid but he wasn't afraid to be a lead off hitter. 

Back at it again this weekend and 2 of the next 3 after this weekend, hope we continue to get better. 

[Huckleberry 33546]

Here's your district 16 bracket based on that scores page.

[Huckleberry 33546]

Almost forgot my rant about the team we played last night.

I totally understand and support select baseball players who are committed to their little league seasons playing in the tournament. They're little league players, and their dedication to baseball to play year round and get extra training isn't a bad thing. Well except for the ones in stupid select programs who hurt their arms, but you know what I mean. Hell back when our generation was playing there wasn't select so the district little league tournaments had all the best players in the area. But some of the shenanigans these days kind of tick me off when it's select players who aren't really dedicated to little league season and then their team pulls stunts in the tournament.

The team we played last night had one game Saturday. I watched it to scout just in case. They used three pitchers which didn't matter too much to me because anyone who went over 35 pitches wouldn't be available for last night's game. They had 13 players at the game Saturday. They had 10 players at the game last night. Guess which 3 players weren't there? The three select pitchers they used Saturday who, to be honest, all looked feeble at the plate. From overhearing conversations on Saturday they are definitely select kids who focus on pitching already, so this isn't just guessing. Their parents and their teammates' parents didn't mind blabbing socially to me when they didn't know they'd be playing us. Not sure exactly what the worst part of that is, whether the BS cheating of leaving weaker hitters at home when they can't pitch is worse in terms of rigging the competition or worse for the kids in not letting them work on their hitting. But either way it's BS that is against the integrity of the tournament and if I was as big of an asshole in real life as I play on the internet I would file a complaint with Little League International at the region level. Of course the league pulling it is the league that the district administrator is from.

Rant over.

 

[BrazilHorn 6651]

We have my son’s first district game Monday (11U). Still no idea who we play 

[Huckleberry 33546]

12 hours ago, BrazilHorn said:

We have my son’s first district game Monday (11U). Still no idea who we play 

Yep, district administrators are bad about that. The rules state that the schedule must be published by two weeks before the tournament start.

@pepper brooks were y'all able to get your game in?

[Huckleberry 33546]

Our very short run ended last night. Kids fought hard but didn't have enough. On a bright note personally, my son emerged from his slump during these 4 games and went 6-for-13 with 3 triples and a double plus a game-tying sac fly for good measure. The extra base hits were smoked, every single one would have been out of our regular season field and most intermediate fields. Short hopped the 270 foot fence last night. For pepper's reference it would have landed in the middle of that lone tree out past the center-right center fence at Memorial Ashford. Ha.

Great group of kids who were just a bit outmatched in the end. They competed the whole time, though, so nothing to be ashamed of. Our fielding let us down and they know what to work on moving forward in their careers.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Huckleberry

[jkates 316]

Not LL, but we're taking our 11U select team to Gulf Shores, AL next week for a PG World Series. Our first time leaving the Houston area. Should be fun if the weather allows. Going to be tricky to manage arms and usage. 

[Huckleberry 33546]

@pepper brooks I see you guys only outscored your district opponents 53-2 in your three games. Starting to worry?

[HenryJames 66278]

On 6/18/2021 at 10:53 AM, Huckleberry said:

Our very short run ended last night. Kids fought hard but didn't have enough. On a bright note personally, my son emerged from his slump during these 4 games and went 6-for-13 with 3 triples and a double plus a game-tying sac fly for good measure. The extra base hits were smoked, every single one would have been out of our regular season field and most intermediate fields. Short hopped the 270 foot fence last night. For pepper's reference it would have landed in the middle of that lone tree out past the center-right center fence at Memorial Ashford. Ha.

Great group of kids who were just a bit outmatched in the end. They competed the whole time, though, so nothing to be ashamed of. Our fielding let us down and they know what to work on moving forward in their careers.

You didn’t bunt enough.

[Had Enough 2089]

[mention=1720]pepper brooks[/mention] I see you guys only outscored your district opponents 53-2 in your three games. Starting to worry?

Sorta funny but there’s one district in which a team has a similar run score and differential but lost a game.

[pepper brooks 580]

On 6/19/2021 at 9:56 PM, Huckleberry said:

@pepper brooks I see you guys only outscored your district opponents 53-2 in your three games. Starting to worry?

starting sectionals tonight if the rain holds off.  Unreal how weak the district competition was.  Hoping for some better competition now.  It was pretty much like playing 10U AA level tournament teams.  These guys really need to consider whether playing LL is what they should be doing at this point.  I think if our group had been able to get to the WS this year, thanks LLA for cancelling, they would have been done with it.  I do think this group had a shot to get there too.  Very talented and very very deep with quality pitching.  

[pepper brooks 580]

On 6/16/2021 at 9:01 AM, Huckleberry said:

Yep, district administrators are bad about that. The rules state that the schedule must be published by two weeks before the tournament start.

@pepper brooks were y'all able to get your game in?

sorry i missed this.  We played 1.5 innings Wednesday night and I think we were up maybe 17-0 when the rain came.  They were going to ask FC to concede the game, and get the home office in williamsport to approve it.  FC originally agreed, then decided they wanted to play it out.  we had to return Thursday to play the rest of the game to get it to an official 4 inning game.  

[BrazilHorn 6651]

41 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

starting sectionals tonight if the rain holds off.  Unreal how weak the district competition was.  Hoping for some better competition now.  It was pretty much like playing 10U AA level tournament teams.  These guys really need to consider whether playing LL is what they should be doing at this point.  I think if our group had been able to get to the WS this year, thanks LLA for cancelling, they would have been done with it.  I do think this group had a shot to get there too.  Very talented and very very deep with quality pitching.  

Crazy y'all are in sectionals already. We have our first game of districts tonight (finally).

[Huckleberry 33546]

45 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

starting sectionals tonight if the rain holds off.  Unreal how weak the district competition was.  Hoping for some better competition now.  It was pretty much like playing 10U AA level tournament teams.  These guys really need to consider whether playing LL is what they should be doing at this point.  I think if our group had been able to get to the WS this year, thanks LLA for cancelling, they would have been done with it.  I do think this group had a shot to get there too.  Very talented and very very deep with quality pitching.  

Yeah, expected more out of your district but I'm sure you have a great squad. There are only two teams in our section so it's a best of 3 series to advance to state. I also was somewhat surprised by the lack of pitching in our district tournament. I thought our league was very weak in pitching but we're about average for the district. Just not a lot of kids playing LL in the northwest 'burbs these days.

2 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

Crazy y'all are in sectionals already. We have our first game of districts tonight (finally).

Intermediate is offset from Majors level. Not sure why, but that's how they do it.

[BrazilHorn 6651]

Just now, Huckleberry said:

Yeah, expected more out of your district but I'm sure you have a great squad. There are only two teams in our section so it's a best of 3 series to advance to state. I also was somewhat surprised by the lack of pitching in our district tournament. I thought our league was very weak in pitching but we're about average for the district. Just not a lot of kids playing LL in the northwest 'burbs these days.

Intermediate is offset from Majors level. Not sure why, but that's how they do it.

Ahh makes sense. I was wondering what was going on. I am ready for the boys to play tonight. We are definitely at "diminishing returns" point of practice.

[BrazilHorn 6651]

Tough loss Monday where frankly I think boys were just tight. Absolute blow out win last night setting up the district championship game Friday. They burned their best pitcher Monday so he is out for tomorrow, we definitely have edge in pitching so fingers crossed the bats stay alive and we get the win.

It is blazing hot though, the kids are sweating to death.

[pepper brooks 580]

after two days of rain we played a double header for sectionals yesteday and swept to move on to state which will begin 7/8.  

[Huckleberry 33546]

Congrats. Kirbyville won Section 2, looks like New Braunfels won Section 4. From what I can tell Section 1 might not be sending a team. Their brackets document completely omits intermediate 50/70.

https://bsbproduction.s3.amazonaws.com/portals/21092/docs/06-09-21 section 1 tournament brackets 20210609_20153135.pdf

Either way, good luck. Y'all are the prohibitive favorites. I may even try to catch one of the games depending on schedule. And try to drag my boy to watch.

Scratch that, Washington County (Brenham) won District 13 so there must be a Section 1 tournament somewhere that's not published. Or at least that I haven't been able to find.

Edited June 24, 2021 by Huckleberry

[BrazilHorn 6651]

Won district last night and my younger son hit his first HR. An absolute blast over LF. 
Was awesome. 

[troph 24928]

my son abruptly dropped baseball.  kinda hurt my heart.  but he picked up tennis which I believe is the most amazing individual sport there is.  he also thinks David Pierce is a good coach and that other thread should fucking die.  yes my eleven year old dropped the f bomb about it.  carry on.

[BrazilHorn 6651]

Headed to CS next week for sectionals. Blows. Why CS? Having to be around a bunch of aggy-ness blows.

[pepper brooks 580]

On 6/24/2021 at 4:45 PM, Huckleberry said:

Congrats. Kirbyville won Section 2, looks like New Braunfels won Section 4. From what I can tell Section 1 might not be sending a team. Their brackets document completely omits intermediate 50/70.

https://bsbproduction.s3.amazonaws.com/portals/21092/docs/06-09-21 section 1 tournament brackets 20210609_20153135.pdf

Either way, good luck. Y'all are the prohibitive favorites. I may even try to catch one of the games depending on schedule. And try to drag my boy to watch.

Scratch that, Washington County (Brenham) won District 13 so there must be a Section 1 tournament somewhere that's not published. Or at least that I haven't been able to find.

first game is 7/5 at WULL South Campus

[Huckleberry 33546]

On 6/29/2021 at 10:10 AM, pepper brooks said:

first game is 7/5 at WULL South Campus

Yeah, saw that schedule, not sure if we'll be able to make it after all. The incoming freshman team at our high school has a game that night and he's deciding which one to go watch. He kind of wants to see where he needs to be in a year to make that team. The CFISD schools have a combined summer league with the Katy schools. If you make that team it's not a guarantee you make an actual team during the school year but everyone we've talked to says it's a good barometer and the rosters are 90-95% the same.

[Huckleberry 33546]

@pepper brooks are y'all rained out?

[pepper brooks 580]

20 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

@pepper brooks are y'all rained out?

we played last night/this morning.  Games got pushed back an hour to 6:00 and 8:00.  The 6:00 featured Kirbyville and New Braunfels, and they started late due to a lightning delay.  THe game dragged on forever with really bad baseball being played.  We didn't start until after 10:00pm.  LLA rules state no inning can start after 12:30am.  Luckily we scored 5 in the bottom of the 6th to go up 10-0 and end the game at 12.32.  Otherwise we would have had to go back today to play T7.  We played Washington County (brehnam).  Their starter was an absolute beast.  They pulled him early so he could come back again in the championship on Thursday.  The guys they brought in after him were fine, but not really special.  we hit them all fairly well.  If we win tonight we will be off on wednesday and play again on thursday (presumably brehnam again).  THursday could potentiallly be a double header if we lose game 1.  The Brehnam team is really good.  

[Huckleberry 33546]

4 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

we played last night/this morning.  Games got pushed back an hour to 6:00 and 8:00.  The 6:00 featured Kirbyville and New Braunfels, and they started late due to a lightning delay.  THe game dragged on forever with really bad baseball being played.  We didn't start until after 10:00pm.  LLA rules state no inning can start after 12:30am.  Luckily we scored 5 in the bottom of the 6th to go up 10-0 and end the game at 12.32.  Otherwise we would have had to go back today to play T7.  We played Washington County (brehnam).  Their starter was an absolute beast.  They pulled him early so he could come back again in the championship on Thursday.  The guys they brought in after him were fine, but not really special.  we hit them all fairly well.  If we win tonight we will be off on wednesday and play again on thursday (presumably brehnam again).  THursday could potentiallly be a double header if we lose game 1.  The Brehnam team is really good.  

Cool, I guess that field drains pretty well. Our fields would have been unplayable last night for sure, and it's not because our grounds crew doesn't work hard. The head groundskeeper seems like he's always there trying to keep the fields in shape.

Yeah, Kirbyville won our section but there were a boatload of errors in their games. Basically they advanced just by rocking our district winner's pitching. We didn't play the eventual district winner during our tournament, went 2-2 and lost twice to the runners-up. But at the same time I wasn't sure how good anyone's fielding actually was because the field we played on at ORWALL was not in the best shape. Huge lip going from the grass to the dirt caused multiple horrific bounces it seemed like every game. Weeds in the outfield and a severe slope going downhill toward the outfield fence. Talked to some of their parents and they claim that's intentional so it drains faster and they miss fewer games. 

Anyway, I'm trying to get more kids to stay with the little league around here one small group at a time. Don't think I'll ever make much progress, though. You need community buy-in and our league crosses three different communities (north half of Cypress, Tomball, and Klein).

[Huckleberry 33546]

[pepper brooks 580]

great picture.  Wish i had known you were there.  Obviously you know we scored 22 runs in the first inning and made the kids start batting opposite their dominate side.  I actually think that was more disrespectful, but i don't really know how you tell your kids to not try or to not play hard.  I also do not know where they get these umpires, but my god theyre awful.  Two days in a row we have had pitches against us called strikes that were pitch outs.  They don't know balk rules and have strike zones that have very little relation to anything outlined in rule books.  Worst than that is they are wildly inconsistent as well.  

[Huckleberry 33546]

You're absolutely right on pretty much everything in that post. The appropriate thing to do in that context is have your kids keep batting their real side (unless they've practiced switch hitting for real), play station to station, don't take extra bases, and keep the celebrations to a minimum. And I say this as someone who was once on an all star team that was winning a game 33-0 after the top of the 1st. The only other thing I'd change is instruct the players to swing at anything in the same zip code as the strike zone under penalty of extra running but to be quiet about it. But yes, the hitting from the opposite side is pretty bad when the ear flap on your helmet shows that's what you're doing. And some of your guys looked okay from the other side but some of them had understandably terrible swings from the opposite side. Your coaches did basically everything right except the switching sides. They weren't going on passed balls, hell he once gave a guy the stop sign at third base when he'd started on second and the batter hit an easy standup double. So all in all I think the other side realized y'all were trying to do things the right way so I doubt any offense was taken.

The umpires are awful and it would have made the game go faster if they called the rulebook strike zone. I've noticed that these little league tournaments never seem to call the actual little league strike zone, which is higher than the normal one. They're probably used to the normal one from high school, etc.

(the graphic exaggerates the difference at the bottom of the zone)

I also watched a couple of innings of a senior game and there were at least a half dozen pitches each inning at the top of the zone that weren't called. But yes, the bigger issue is that the zones were wildly inconsistent. The home plate umpire in your game was all over the place. Also, were there four outs in your bottom of the third (I think that was the inning)? There was some discussion and even your team's parents were saying there were already three outs.

[BrazilHorn 6651]

Well our tournament got moved from College Station to Brenham due to rain. We play first game tonight vs Washington County. Fingers crossed.

Team is ready but our bottom is not that great so we will see.

[Huckleberry 33546]

6 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

Well our tournament got moved from College Station to Brenham due to rain. We play first game tonight vs Washington County. Fingers crossed.

Team is ready but our bottom is not that great so we will see.

My man, I will be rooting for you with everything I've got. My Western Hills team got knocked out by Washington County at section our 13-year-old season.