Chanukah Tournament

 

Today was our first game of the year. It was Modiin vs a combination of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beit Shemesh. I have three players who I trust can get outs at this point. So I had one at shortstop, one at pitcher, and one (Eitan) at first.

First inning starts. First kid hits a bomb home run. Next kid hits a ground ball right to Eitan who fields it and steps on first. Next kid hits a short ground ball between pitcher and Eitan – Eitan runs to get it and dives to first base to get the out. Next kid hits a sharp ground that bounces off my right fielder right to Eitan, who gets it and sprints to the base. First time in my career as a minors coach we got 3 outs in an inning before the other team hit the run limit. Throughout the game Eitan had a couple more of those, plus two plays that were ground balls to players who threw to Eitan to get the out. In total, we got 9 outs, which is astounding (I think last year in 5 games we got 3). We officially would have lost but they let us go past the run limit in the last winning, and Eitan hit a walk off two run bomb for his second home run of the game (he got on base every time, a few ground balls, but the last two were solid line drives over the infield. Once I threw overhand and he stuck out but then hit off the tee, then I went back to underhand. Will move back to overhand more in practice and then do that for games). It was fun to hear the team cheer each other on, and shake hands after the game etc. Everyone got donuts at the end and it was a fun experience for all – will try to have games every 3-4 weeks now moving forward.

My main takeaway, both for Eitan and the rest of the team, is kickball is so important at this age for getting their baseball IQ up – Eitan and I play 1 on 1 (or 2 on 1) kickball almost every day now and you can see him start to really understand base running, fielding, where to throw the ball, etc. So we started that with the team the last few practices too, and it seems to be working.