Helping coach summer ball just as fun as ever

Twenty-eight years ago, when we were new to The Holton Recorder and new to the community, I coached a Pinto League (8-U) baseball team in Holton, which allowed me to meet and get acquainted with a lot of people.

Now, after a 13-year break from coaching youth sports here, I am back as an assistant coach on another Pinto League (now 9-U) baseball team in the community. Some of the kids that I coached back then are now stepping up to coach their kids’ teams.

I had forgotten just how many people attend these summer ball games. There are a lot of spectators. Parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents all show up and the kids playing ball really get a kick out of it, it seems.

I coached the baseball and softball teams for my son and daughter the first time around and now I am helping with my grandson’s ball team. And I am not the only one at or close to retirement age helping coach ball this summer. There are others.

It’s interesting that the summer ball kids from 28 years ago are pretty much like the summer ball kids of today. The Pinto League is a beginner league for the 9-U boys - actually ages six to nine - and a motorized pitching machine is utilized to pitch to the boys.

FYI: The pitching machines of today also are pretty much the same as they were 28 years ago, maybe just a little more accurate.

The competitive stakes don’t seem quite so high as a summer ball coach this time around, especially with this age group, and I find that a lot of the miscues the kids make in the field are made simply because they don’t know how or what they are supposed to do, because we coaches have not showed them yet.

Mastering the various skills needed to play baseball at a high level - fielding, catching, throwing, hitting, etc., takes a lot of practice and repetition. It’s the coaches’ jobs to make sure that the learning is as fun as possible for these beginners.

In the Pinto League, we don’t have umpires, everybody gets to bat on both teams every inning and no one keeps an official score. It is most important for these kids to have a good time and work on learning a few of the skills they will need at the next level, which will be competitive.

The ball fields in Holton are plenty nice and well-maintained and booked solid. The new ball field at Rafter’s Park will be greatly appreciated when it is is completed.

I would not have been able to help coach my grandson’s ball team this summer, if I had not had ankle-replacement surgery a year ago. 

Before that surgery, I wrapped my bad ankle each day just to go to work. Now, I don’t think about that ankle with every step I take and I have very little pain or soreness.

I encourage other grandfatherly types, like me, to continue to help out in the community where you can.

Coaching ball now, for me, is just as enjoyable and rewarding as it was in the old days.