Alex is playing baseball again this year, still in the Maplewood Athletic Association (www.maplewoodbaseball.org). He’s in 6th grade, so we’ve moved up to the A league, which is 6th and 7th grade boys (girls are allowed, but rare – I believe we had one girl playing in the B league last year). He’s been playing with (and I’ve been coaching) the same set of guys for four years now. When he was in 3rd grade, we were the Bats, and did well – C league was 2nd and 3rd graders, so we were older.

B league was hard the first year – we had a losing record as the Mudcats, despite playing well enough to stay in games. The B league is the first level where kids are pitching, and learning how to throw strikes, and how to hit real pitches, was tough. Our second year, we were the Ironbirds, and played very well – our season record was 12-2, 3rd best in the league (and the best record for a Maplewood team – one from Little Canada and one from Roseville had better records). We went into the tournament as the 3rd seed and won.

A new year brings a new league. The A league has longer basepaths – 70-75 feet instead of the 60 feet of the C and B leagues – and runners are allowed to lead off. Which means pitchers have to hold baserunners on, so the balk comes into play.

It’s a whole new game, and it’s going to take some getting used to. We were counting on some practice over the weekend in the annual Jamboree – a pre-season set of exhibition games that don’t count in the standings but do give our guys the chance to find out what it’s like to play. As it happened, the weather didn’t cooperate – both of our Saturday games were canceled, and we got in about 3/4 of an inning of a game on Sunday before the thunderstorms rolled in.

So we went into tonight’s game not as prepared as we would like to have been. We only had one really bad inning in the field, but couldn’t string together hits.

In the end, we got beat by the Roseville Giants 12-3 (I think, I’ll update the score when it’s posted). Alex pitched well, giving up a couple of hits and a couple of runs, but he also struck out two and fielded his position well. He didn’t do too well at the plate, though – two strikeouts and a walk. He did steal second, steal third and go home on an overthrow, though.

We’ll get ’em next time.

[Updated to reflect actual score. Ouch.]