Quote:
|
Originally Posted by tibear
Had the exact same situation with a 10 year old the other day where the pitch was coming straight at him and his defense mechanism was to try to hit the ball towards his dugout, he missed and it hit him square in the chest. I yell "Time. Strike Two".
Kid is crying, coach is yelling that the pitch hit him and the kid's mom is running from her lawnchair to check out little Jimmy.
Had to explain to all three that if the player tries to hit the ball it doesn't matter if he gets hit it is a deadball and a strike. Needless to say none of them were too impressed.
Here's where some of you are going to jump all over me. The next time this little guy came up he was the first up in the inning ....
|
Not jumping all over you but there was a time when I was a LL coach. As most LL coaches do I had to deal with some kids who were not quite as good as the best. They were my own little projects, usually it took a while but eventually they got a solid single, or made a good play in the field, or whatever.
Anyway...this one kid took a pitch off his chest as he "swung", just as in your play. The ump, a 15 year old trainee doing his first game behind the plate called a strike, just like you did. I bet he felt pretty good about it too.
There wasn't any yelling and no one jumped up out of their lawn chair. But I did walk out to ask what was going on and bit my tongue when told my number 9 hitting right fielder did not earn first base for his pains.
That kid quit right there on the spot. He never had his next at bat.
Still bothers me to this day.