Observations from My Final Season Coaching Baseball (2013)

(#9)

Of all the great times I’ve had coaching baseball, my last season was not one of them.

I got back into coaching after only because I wanted to coach with my son Josh after he graduated from Belhaven University in the spring of 2012. I even dragged my eighth grade baseball player son , Jake with us. I thought it would be great. It wasn’t. I’ve been apologizing to them both for more than a decade. Most of the children hated and resisted everything I tried to do. For years I kept asking God to “show me a sign” on whether to keep coaching or find something else to do. He showed me a sign!

I loaded my pickup truck in a driving rainstorm after the season ended. 🙂 The Headmaster and Athletic Director (my disloyal assistant coach) told me they were going to go in a new direction and I could either say “I resigned” or that “I was fired.” I told them to just tell everyone they fired me… just call it a mercy firing. 🙂 I had already decided the new direction I would go and if it was a few years earlier I probably would have told those clowns which direction they could go. I did not.

Here are my Top Ten Observations from my last hurrah coaching baseball:

#10. I should have stayed retired.

#9. We started a new concept in batting orders; nobody can hit, so everybody bats ninth.

#8. We installed a permanent “take” sign in hope that everyone would draw a walk.

#7. My players wondered if reaching base on a strikeout/wild pitch would count toward their on-base percentage.

#6. During home games, our right fielder would lose the ball in the sun. Unfortunately, the sun was behind the right field fence. 😎

#5. The baserunners would not steal bases because it violated one of the Ten Commandments; the only commandment they would keep.

#4. Even the greatest heart surgeon in the world has to have some hearts to work with.

#3. A big pile of dog poop could catch more flies than my outfielders.

#2. Our shortstop made so many errors, we changed his uniform number to E6.

And the #1 observation from my final year of coaching baseball:

It is extremely difficult for a helicopter mom to breast feed a senior through a chain link fence. 😁

PS: We did leave some great improvements and renovations to practice and playing facilities and added this great new logo.