Karen at Bat

Season Wrap-up: Nick

From Coach Dave:
Nick: Who can forget the fashion statement of the hooded sweatshirt even in 90-degree heat? Nick blasted our first homer of the season, and showed stunning speed on his inside-the-park homer later in the season.

Nick’s most amazing moment came during our first game against the Pirates when he hit a line drive so hard that it literally ripped the glove off the third baseman’s hand.
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[Thanks to Joe Kimple for the video clip.]

Season Wrap-up: Evan

From Coach Dave:
Evan: He was the Brave with the best vocals (Rick was fascinated with his songs in the dugout). A reliable pitcher who always got the ball over the plate. Everyone will remember Evan's Academy Award performance after he was hit in the head by a pitch. He raised his arms in triumph and shouted, “I was wearing a helmet!” Check it out on YouTube.

All posts that mention Evan

Evan takes one for the team

If Evan ever gets tired of baseball, I think he has a career in show biz waiting.
Thanks to videographer extraordinaire Joe Kimple for the clip.

Braves 1st inning at-bats 6-13-2009

[Thanks to Joe Kimple for the video.]

Moms & Baseball

Q. What's does a baseball player usually say when a TV camera catches him by surprise during a game?
A. Hi, Mom.

Both the big boys of Major League Baseball and the little boys of Little League know that Moms make baseball possible. Mom gave us life, and Mom also took us to a million practices, celebrated victories with us and consoled us after losses. In many families, Mom gets out on the field and helps with the game. (I can't tell how proud I was to see Karen get out on the field and play in the season-ending Mother's Game at Water Tower Park.)

In Whitefish Bay, we honor this day for Moms by not having Little League! In recent years, Major League Baseball has collaborated with Susan G. Komen for the Cure on Mother's Day breast cancer awareness and fundraising. In 2006 cooperating MLB players started using special pink bats on Mother's Day; the game-used bats were auctioned off later on.

The Brewers' Bill Hall is both a leader and a star of this new tradition. In 2006, he swung a mighty pink bat in the 10th inning to beat the New York Mets. TV cameras showed his proud mother Vergie in the crowd. Here is a low-quality (but still enjoyable) fan video of that moment:



Hall hit another pink bat homer on Mother's Day, 2007. As has become his tradition, Hall is also making a $25,000 contribution to Komen this year.

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"The Chicken Runs at Midnight"
On a day devoted to family, I commend to you a heartwarming, yet sad, story from the Palm Beach Post of a major-league coach and a player from another team (and country) who bonded over their lost children:

"They met for the first time on a cold morning in an empty baseball stadium — the 62-year-old coach from Steubenville, Ohio, and the 25-year-old pitcher from Maracay, Venezuela.

"Rich Donnelly and Anibal Sanchez had spoken once before over the phone.

"They knew enough about each other to understand they share a common bond that extends beyond baseball.

"Both are fathers who lost a child."

Continued

The special bonus in this story for us is that Whitefish Bay's Craig Counsell plays a key role in the middle of it.

Happy Mother's Day, Everyone

Jim Higgins

Game Story: Braves Make Practices Pay Off, Win 9-1

It's an axiom in sports that players learn skills in practice and show them in games. That's particularly true of baseball, which has so many little skills, plays and strategic decisions that can only be learned through repetition.
Clearly our Braves are paying attention in practice. Skills and situations they've worked on recently paid off in Friday night's 9-1 win over the Pirates at Water Tower Park.
Last Sunday, former Whitefish Bay High School Coach Dean Ledzian worked with the Braves on bunting. In last night's game, Coach Dave put the bunt sign on, and Matt laid a perfect bunt down the third-base line, beating it out for a hit.
That directly affected how the Pirates played Matt the next time up. Matt tried to bunt the first pitch in the same place, pulling the third baseman in. With the third baseman pulled in, Matt swung away at the next pitch. Had he connected, he had an excellent chance to drive the ball past the drawn-in infielder for a big hit.
Like all baseball coaches do, Dave, Rick, Ross and Stuart stress kids playing catch with each other, with siblings, with parents. Well, one reason the Braves have won their first two games is their outfielders can catch a fly ball. Chris made two fine catches of hard-hit balls to center field (one resulted in a double play). Matt made another excellent catch in center. At this level of competition, the outfield is a not a daisy-plucking position. Outfielders who can catch the ball and hit the relay man make the difference between winning and losing.
I can't say enough about Jason's good fielding. I watched him in practice this week Hoover up everything hit his way. Then, in last night's game, he charged off the mound to field a Pirates bunt and fired a strike to Nick at first to get a hard-charging runner. With the confidence and precision he showed on that play, Jason looked like a high school player.
When a player puts the bat on the ball, good things can happen, even if the result is not a hit. We had a number of productive outs in this game. Evan moved Connor to third in the 2nd inning with a groundout to the right side; Connor later scored. Connor later drove in a run with a groundout himself. And this is a good place to note that hustle also matters: Connor legged out two infield hits in this game.
This was not an easy game. The Pirates are a decent team. Nick subbed a game for them last year, and I was impressed with their coaches, who are quality guys with a teaching, encouraging approach to Little League, similar to the approach our Braves coaches take. Their shortstop made some outstanding plays in this game. Their final pitcher, Jack Arnold, dominated on the mound. This could not have been a fun outcome for them, and I was impressed at the calm, classy way they handled it. If we are on the losing side of a game like this in the future, I hope we will handle it just as well.
More highlights from the game:
BATTING: Ryan, in his first at-bat of the season, battled back from an 0-2 count, fouling off several pitches and drawing a walk. He went on to steal a base and score. Scott doubled in two runners. Chris, on a 0-2 pitch, ripped a double to center field that bounced up against the fence. Alec followed by pounding a double to center that brought Chris home.
Forgive me if I'm biased here, but I must give a slack-jawed tip of the cap to Nick, who did something I have never seen before in a Little League game. In his second-inning at-bat, Nick ripped a line drive about chest high in the hole between the third baseman and the shortstop. Nick hit the ball so hard it tore the glove off the third baseman's hand. The ball landed in left-center field, the glove landed a few feet away from the player. I asked Nick about it after the game. He told me that when he saw what happened, he said to himself "Oh (bleep)," because he thought he had broken the third baseman's hand.
The third baseman was fine and stayed in the game.
PITCHING: High-quality outings from all three pitchers. Connor struck out 6 batters around 2 walks. In other words, no one hit the ball when he pitched. Jason was effective on the mound, aided by good defense, including his own. Chris was dominant again as our closer.

This Day in WFBLL Braves History

First successful bunt hit: Matt
First double play: Chris (CF) made a running catch of a fly ball, threw to Nick (2B) to double up baserunner who had left early.
First steal of home: Jack

Jack's steal made me think immediately of Jackie Robinson, who famously stole home in the 1955 World Series against the Yankees. Robinson's steal was even more remarkable because it was a straight steal - no passed ball or wild pitch involved. The catcher was ready for him, and it was a close play, as you can see by the video excerpt below:



Disclaimer: All opinions are my own. Any mistakes are my own, too, and have nothing to do with the coaches. If you think I got something wrong, please tell me.

Happy Birthday, Willie Mays

Braves: If you don't know who Willie Mays is, ask your parents or coach to tell you about him. Among his many, many accomplishments, he made one of the greatest catches in baseball history.

Jim Higgins

Game Day: Scenes from today's game

Braves Rainout Theater

When I was a boy growing up in Pittsburgh, televised baseball was much rarer than it is today. We could see only one national game of the week on Saturday afternoon, plus the road games of our hometown team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Sometimes those road games were rained out. So the local TV would substitute something called Pirate Rainout Theater, and throw any old movie they had laying around on the air.

Here at Braves Blog Central, we aren't going to throw any old video up on the blog. Only baseball video. So relax and enjoy these clips.


unbelievable baseball pickle (4-13-09) from jay be-gone on Vimeo.

Hank Aaron homers to clinch pennant for Milwaukee Braves in 1957

Video clip: '57 Braves reunite in Milwaukee

Nick hitting

Jack hitting

Tyler hitting

Evan slides into second base