Practice #6

I'm not sure how, but we are already two-thirds of the way through our preseason practices. Wednesday's practice included a visit from a member of the witness protection program. There is a rumor it might have been Coach Sean in disguise, but there is no way a very sick Coach Sean would come out to the frozen tundra of Nowell Field in his condition.

Practice began with throwing and catching drills, and the players were reminded that they need to be doing some throwing and catching at home if at all possible. We also worked on some baserunning scenarios, including running hard through the bag at first, going from home to second, and going from first to third and picking up the third base coach while rounding second.

The Mudcats split into two groups for infield/outfield drills, then finished the field portion of practice with some game situations. Channing, Quenten and Jackson clearly won the coin flip, because they got to be runners and keep warm on the first series of plays; they later switched and moved to defense while Jay, Brayden and Hayden tore up the basepaths. Both Jackson and Channing made nice plays in the outfield during the game situations.

Practice ended in the cage, which made up for being cold by being dark, so you couldn't actually see if your fingers had frostbite.

Our next practice is Friday night from 5-7, and we will start off on the field, which means there won't be anyone on the field ahead of us, so please be early if you possibly can (we realize getting there at 5 p.m. in work traffic is a challenge).

By the way, make sure you turn in your raffle money. Unless, that is, you're saving your money for this raffle. Go ahead, you need to read that story. You read it right: an Illinois Little League is raffling an assault rifle. The money quote is from the league commissioner, who says, "We could've went with a basic shotgun or something simple."

No way--don't go simple with your Little League gun raffle!