Baseball Journal

[jagermeister]

I watched the second most pitcher dominated high school age baseball game I've ever seen tonight. The most impressive game was one I played in back in 1988. Tom Engle owned our team. No surprise there, he also owns even today the national record for consecutive no hitters in HS baseball-6. He pitched with the Mets until 1995 when his arm gave out.
My 14 year old has officially impressed the heck out of me. He's playing in this 17U league. Gave up 3 runs, all unearned, walked 1 and struck out 17 over 8 innings tonight. He threw 116 pitches over 8 innings, drove in the winning run and scored one Of the other runs. This was against the only undefeated team in the league.... I tell ya fellas, if the kid keeps maturing and getting stronger, he may well get old Toms 30 year old record in a few years.

Just think how many no-hitters Tom Engle would've tossed if he was going against these dead-as-fuck BBCOR baseball bats they make kids swing today!

Tell Mason congrats on the 17 strikeouts! That's a hell of a feat in any age class. It sounds like he had a really great game tonight.

 

[brock ratcliff]

Valid point jim. I'll just let you piss on someone else's parade, dead bats or not, Mason lit it up tonight.

 

[bowhunter1023]

HA. Good work Mason! We had the dead bat talk all night last night. I could still go yard if I had my old Copperhead! Either way, 17 strikeouts is a hell of a day on the bump!

 

[jagermeister]

Valid point jim. I'll just let you piss on someone else's parade, dead bats or not, Mason lit it up tonight.

Not trying to piss on anyone's parade Brock. Sorry if you took it that way. 17 k's is an incredible achievement, and has nothing to do with the bats.... (Strikeout means they didn't hit the ball)... So I'm not sure why you'd take it that way. It was more of a testament to the prowess of Mr Engle.

 

[Buckmaster]

Good stuff Brock.

My team is cruising along with a 7-3 record. Should be 8-3 after tonight.

The head youth football coach contacted me last night about resuming football play this fall. We had football success K-3rd grade, took off 4th grade to play fall baseball, and will continue this year with fall baseball.

We'll revisit the football topic when my boy hits middle school in 7th grade.

 

[brock ratcliff]

We will find out June 11 if Mason really has "it". He will be pitching against Whiteoak. They just entered the league and have only played one game to date. They won that one, 14-0. They were late getting into the league due to tournament play, they finished 4th in the State. I watched their first 7 batters the other night, and they are good. No doubt they will be the best team Mason has pitched to, but if he's on point as he was the other evening he should do alright. They won't win, but hopefully on an individual level, he will have a decent game.
His batting average is now over 500, playing better defensively than ever. Kid is really starting to get it.

 

[Buckmaster]

Good stuff Brock. That sounds like a positive experience forthcoming throwing against the best.

My son pitched one inning Monday night...threw 7 pitches and they were all strikes. 2K's and a groundout later and it was a quick 7 pitch inning.

Sitting at 4th place with an 8-3 record.

 

[cotty16]

Goddamn Mason!!!! My offer still stands for that boy to live with me. LOL!

White Oak is who knocked out our local powerhouse, Toronto, in the DIV state semis.

We leave tomorrow for Johnson City, Tn to play in the Perfect Game tourney there. It's our first tournament after a few scrimmages. Hope it goes well.

 

[Boarhead]

Big congrats to Mason on a game Brock.
Good luck Cotty!

 

[Dustinb80]

Good luck Cotty, travel safe.

Congrats to Mason and good luck to him as well.

 

[brock ratcliff]

Good to hear Ben!
Good luck in TN Mike. Hopefully a good experience and enjoyable time! A team that Mason wanted to play on called yesterday to see if he'd play on Fathers Day weekend. They will be playing in Dayton. It's a 14u tournament and should be a lot of fun as they are really good. Most of the kids are from around Waverly. Mason only knows one of them. That kid was our No.2 pitcher in Jr High baseball but since moved. It will be good to see them play together again.

 

[brock ratcliff]

We watched White Oak run rule two teams tonight. They are solid Still, I think Mason will do well against them. I imagine they will enjoy it too as it doesn't appear they have had much to worry about in this league. If he's on, I think they will have to wake up the win.

 

[Buckmaster]

Now 9-4.

 

[brock ratcliff]

Heck of a good start Ben!

Funny how you can't get the competitive nature out of your soul, even when you too old to compete at anything other than a staring contest... I dreamed about the upcoming game with White Oak last night. Ha! Mason, however is more excited to squeeze in the weekend of travel ball. I told him about my weird "white oak" dream last night, and he said he dreamed about playing in Dayton next weekend. Ha. Incidentally, what made my dream really weird was that Mason and I discussed strategy. We were trying to decide if he should run dipsies with spoons or bandit deep divers by the White Oak batters.

 

[Redhunter1012]

Heck of a good start Ben!

Funny how you can't get the competitive nature out of your soul, even when you too old to compete at anything other than a staring contest... I dreamed about the upcoming game with White Oak last night. Ha! Mason, however is more excited to squeeze in the weekend of travel ball. I told him about my weird "white oak" dream last night, and he said he dreamed about playing in Dayton next weekend. Ha. Incidentally, what made my dream really weird was that Mason and I discussed strategy. We were trying to decide if he should run dipsies with spoons or bandit deep divers by the White Oak batters.

Haha. Mayflies are hatching Brock, he might wanna pull a crawler harness by those boys

 

[brock ratcliff]

Ha! Gotta stay adaptable

 

[brock ratcliff]

Finally played White Oak. Lost 6-3. No surprises there. Errors. Can't even be mad at the kids. Many played positions they had never played. Typical stuff.

On an individual level, Mason did really well against one heck of a ball team. They were the home team, so with five innings pitched, he walked two, struck out 12, gave up three base hits and one earned run. It was the first game White Oak has played in the league that did not result in a four inning run rule. The kid did his job well.

 

[Buckmaster]

Good stuff Brock.

Now 11-4 with 3 more regular season games to go, two of which are a little better than us. Next week should be fun as we move toward tourney time.

 

[Dustinb80]

Good luck

 

[Buckmaster]

Our 10u has finished our regular season at 12-6. We're off to tourney ball in 2 weeks.

My boy finished the season with a batting average of .588. Pitching wise he ended up with a ERA of 1.00 with 2.1 strikeouts per inning pitched.

I may have a mini-Mason on my hands. I just got a 9 pack of heavy balls the other day so we'll continue practicing and working on velocity/arm building.

Fall ball begins in August.