T-Ball 2016 - First Half

**GUEST BLOGGER**

 ~ Eric Hendrickson ~

Game 1 - May 11th

Our team, the Yellow Jackets, played our first game on a nice evening in May.

Phoebe's friend and teammate, Haylee, gave Phoebe the yellow socks.  They look cool.

Stacee made the matching hair ties for each girl on our team.  Phoebe played (2) innings in the outfield and (1) in the infield.  She made a good play on one ground ball where she scooped it up and almost made the force out at second.  Good try, Phoebe.

You can vaguely see a spot on the front of each of the girl's hats.  Stacee thought the black hats were boring, so she bought some jewels, a heat tool, and a bee/hornet emblem to put on each of the girl's hats.  I glued on the emblem and "heat welded" on the jewels.  The ladies were telling me I bedazzled them, whatever that is.  The hats and hair ties do look cute and the girls and their moms all like them.

The girls played well.  They all went up to the plate and confidently swung the bat.  We need to work on being more aggressive running the bases and fielding the ball.  Great first game girls.

Game 2 - May 16th

Rainout- rescheduled May 27th - Rainout- rescheduled June 3rd

We showed up at the ball field a little earlier tonight so I could get some one on one hitting with Phoebe. 

She  hit well during the game.

Stacee loves Phoebe's "ready to run" position.  It is cute.

I tried Phoebe out at first base for one inning.  She hadn't played there before, so I had to keep reminding her to get to the bag on a hit.  She did a pretty good job at stopping the ball.

The other team had an intense, competitive coach ( I liked him).  His team played well.  One of the players hit a hard line drive that hit one of our pitchers in the face.  Thankfully, she was ok.

Phoebe is doing a great job and seems to be enjoying T-Ball this year.

Game 3 - May 17th

Rainout- rescheduled June 20th

We are on our last week of the tball season.  Tonight's game and a game tomorrow and the season is complete.

Phoebe played another great game this evening.

She had some hard hits to the outfielders.

It was a hot day but the girls played tough.

Phoebe got two force outs while playing second base.  Great job Phoebe!

My little girl is a ball player. 

Game 4 - May 19th

Rainout- rescheduled May 20th

Phoebe played pitcher for one inning and had many balls hit to her.  She did a good job of fielding them and making strong throws to first base.

I worked with Phoebe earlier in the week on "loading" and getting hip action when hitting.  This makes for a more powerful hit.  Out of Phoebe's (4) at bats, (2) of the balls were the hardest hit this year.

 

Stacee loves Phoebe's "ready to run" position, above on the left.  She does this everytime she is standing on a base waiting on the next girl to hit her on around the bases.

Below I am holding the line-up and coaching the dugout.  The girls do a pretty good job of getting ready to bat.

  

I try to get the girls an equal amount of time in both the infield and outfield.

The girls enjoy the "good game" shaking hands at the end of the game.

Game 5 - May 26th
Rainout- rescheduled June 13th
This evening we played a team that was coached by the same guy who coached Sarah a few years ago in machine pitch baseball.  He and I had a nice chat prior to the game starting.

Below, Phoebe is playing 2nd base.

Above, Haylee and Phoebe in the infield.

What a sweet girl!

It seems at the end of every game, a few of the girls forget either a bat, glove, or helmet.

Coach DJ and I pack things away and get ready for two more tball games this week.

Game 6 - May 31st

Coach DJ noticed Phoebe's "loading" and he was impressed. 

We played a girl from our softball team, Madelyn's, dad's tball team.  I was able to chat with him while coaching at third base.

The girls played pretty well.