Practice #8--In the outfield

The infield is boring. In the infield, plays are made more often than not, especially given the strength of the Mudcats' likely starting group. And if a ball gets missed, hey, it just went between somebody's legs and the batter got one base. It happens.

But in the outfield, now that's some excitement. At Monday's practice, the Mudcats broke into three groups--one infield group (Boo...boring), one hitting group (all captured on video for later perusal and/or archival at the Smithsonian), and one outfield group. I don't know what happened at the other two stations, but I can tell you that in the span of about 75 minutes in the outfield group, with Coach Rob wielding an Agassi-esque forehand and hitting fly balls with a tennis racket, we had a tennis ball bounce off a head, we had multiple diving catches, we had players twist all the way around to perform a complete 360 and then making a catch, we had players running one way while the ball went the exact opposite way, and we had lots of grass stains.

Are you not entertained?

The drill was simple. Coach Rob started out hitting "normal" fly balls. Only, for a 5-to-7 year-old, there's nothing normal about a fly ball. It might be the toughest thing to do at this level of baseball. Here's the biggest problem--out in the yard, throwing with Mom or Dad, the ball usually comes more or less at you. But out on the field, rude opposing hitters very rarely hit it so courteously. It's a little to the left, or it's a little to the right, or it's dropping in front of you, or--most treacherous of all--it's over your head. And very few six-year-olds have taken enough fly balls off a bat to be able to read the ball in that first half-second. That's the biggest difference between fly balls at this level and the fly balls you see run down regularly in the big leagues. As they get older, they'll eventually learn how to react correctly as soon as the ball hits the bat. But in the Minor League, there's usually a full second or more where they're gauging the ball, figuring out which way they want to go. Unless it's hit perfectly, that second usually means the ball is going to drop.

To simulate the challenges of playing outfield, Coach Rob lined the Mudcats up in front of him, with them facing the "batter" one at a time. Then, with an evil laugh, he hit the ball over their head. The first instinct is almost always to try and run backwards to keep an eye on the ball. But running backwards while trying to look above and behind your head is also a recipe for an ESPN Not Top Ten tumble. So the teaching point for Monday in the outfield was to open the stance as soon as the ball was struck, running more sideways than backwards while keeping track of the ball.

Eventually, it started to look a little more natural. With three groups rotating through, there was a winner in each group, with the victor decided solely by the number of clean catches. Christopher won his group and also picked up the team-high, snagging an impressive 11. Big Ben won his group, and Hayes claimed the title for the final group. All three winners received helmet stickers.

Somehow there is no practice scheduled for Tuesday, which feels like a major oversight. We plan to drive around while eating dinner in the car just to stay in rhythm. See you Wednesday at West Raleigh at 5 p.m.