Practice #5--confident but humble

Certain parts of the Mudcat Motto are easy to remember. Hustle, for example, is something that has been said by every baseball coach since the cavemen fielded a team (and yes, they broke into stations at practice). Having fun is a pretty simple one. Making the commitment to four team practices and/or games per week is a pretty good indicator that a player has fun playing baseball.

But being "confident but humble" is a little more mysterious. The confidence part comes fairly easily, and it's often a product of those four practices per week. When a player gets that many repetitions, their confidence naturally grows in proportion to the repetitions. You can already see progress in several of the Mudcats from day one to today.

Asking a six-year-old to be humble, though, is more of a challenge. Heck, sometimes asking a 36-year-old to be humble can be a tough assignment. We've spent a couple car rides to and from practice trying to distinguish "having confidence" from "being humble." Explaining that you want your son to believe he's the best, but not tell anyone he's the best, is one of those things that doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you put it into words. In that way, it's much like explaining why learning algebra is important.

That confident/humble combination is a fine line that exists from the smallest t-ball league all the way to the major league World Series. And everywhere in-between, too. It's even an issue at the Little League World Series, where one team is trying to draw the line between confidence and overconfidence.

One of the most remarkable parts of our first two weeks of West Raleigh play--other than the fact that we have an assistant coach with a direct line to Otis Spunkmeyer cookies--has been the way the older players carry themselves. It's not unusual at all to see Charlie coaching up Asher on the finer points of baserunning, or Drew reminding Brenner to follow his throws. The older kids are bigger, better, and more experienced. But they hardly ever act like it when they're interacting with their teammates, which suggests that even though the distinction between confident and humble might be subtle, they still understand it--even if they don't realize it.

Take Thursday's practice, which began with a throwing competition. Players lined up about ten feet away and had to hit a bucket on the fly. It was sort of a souped-up version of Bozo's Grand Prize Game. As soon as anyone was eliminated, they went to the side and--apparently without coaching--did something noteworthy: they cheered on their teammates. Little Ben and Hayes eventually won one session apiece, but even when later congratulated on his victory, LB simply said, "It was fun." When I was seven, if I had won an event like that, I would've demanded a musical accompaniment of We Are The Champions every time I entered the batter's box.

After the throwing competition, players split into infield and outfield stations. In the outfield, the focus was on learning the correct way to get the ball into second base, and on which Mudcat (shortstop or second base) should be covering the bag depending on where the ball was hit. After fielding a few fly balls and line drives, the outfield station also worked on baserunning, especially on listening to Coach Mike in the first base coaching box and knowing whether to round the bag, head towards second, or run through the bag.

In the infield, the first group worked on game situations, including making some plays with baserunners. A continuing point of emphasis: stopping the lead runner by running at him with the ball and calling timeout. The Mudcats do not want to give away runs by needlessly throwing the ball around the infield. Running at the lead runner while calling time is always the safe play. In addition to making some plays at home and first, the second infield group also learned the finer points of making backhanded flips around second base. Eventually, it will become instinct, but right now they're still learning how to avoid handcuffing their teammate who is receiving the ball at second.

Practice ended right on time with a quick scrimmage, which included a pair of nice rips from Anthony. Today's helmet stickers were given by Coach Jim, who was watching for form and focus. He awarded stickers to Little Ben and to Charlie. Coach Andrew also awarded a sticker to Big Ben, who showed terrific hustle behind the plate both during infield drills and during the scrimmage.

The Mudcats, who are in the middle of a tough stretch of five practices in six days, have Friday off to work on their studies, and hopefully will do all their own work instead of letting a tutor do it. They return to the field on Saturday at 3 p.m. at West Raleigh and will be in the cage first.