The Little League Coach

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We host the Senior Baseball Sectional tournament tomorrow and they we are done until fall registrations! Which are ummmmm…..28 days away! It never ends!

What do I have to do after this?

1. Design the fall baseball flyer
2. Get it copied
3. Mail it to about 500 people
4. Get in the hands of local businesses
5. Get it approved by the school board and into the schools
6. Email the entire league about registrations and tournament success stories!
7. Make sure the city hangs our signs and gets data into the newsletter.

That’s what I do in my "off season"! I guess we really have to love this stuff huh?

How do you spend your off season?

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The following is a list of the top ten songs for a tournament game as selected by a senior baseball team of 15-16 year old boys. Quite and eclectic list I might add:

1-We will Rock you-Queen

2-T.N.T-A/C D/C

3-Sexy can I -Ray J ft Young Berg

4-Center Field -John Fogerty

5-Tush-ZZtop

6-Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynard

7-Barbie Girl-Aqua

8-Lollipop - Lil’ Wayne

9-Down and Out - Tantric

10- Low - ft T Pain by Flo Rida

11-Ella me Levant - Daddy Yankee

OK, it was 11, but Little League amplifiers go to 11 don’t they?

(first one to identify the joke above wins their choice of a free 15×15 ad for a month or a guest post!) Just enter it in the comments section below.

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OK, now you are asking, how does this relate to Little League? Great question! We all host tournaments, even it if is only our district playing, we need music between the innings and games! This is the answer!

You Have to Have Music!

First, you have to have music during your tournaments. You also need to introduce your players. This is simple to accomplish. A cheap amp and speakers from any store like radio shack will suffice. We are fortunate enough to have a concert system donated from the Moose Lodge that kicks butt! Very small and concise, but very powerful.

Two cords for speakers, 1 for the mike, and and MP3 player is all you need. You simply hook up the MP3 player to the system with an 1/8" to stereo RCA jack adapter cable. Again, $2 at Radio Shack or Wal-Mart. Then let the fun begin!

How to Get the Music to Play

I was going to have to download about $100 worth of music to play! Not really my idea of a good investment. Enter the Sirius Stiletto 2 ! I already have Sirius Satellite radio, I hear songs I forgot I knew! If a song is published, they play it. Never a dull listening moment. But the Stiletto 2 takes it to a whole different level!

Is it a DAR?

Anyone familiar with a Digital Video Recorder for a television will instantly understand the power of the Stiletto 2. I guess you would call this an Digital Audio Recorder (DAR). I have never heard it called that, but that is what we will call it here. Can this be possible you are thinking? Yes, ONLY BETTER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE!

The Secret Button!

The most kick-butt part of it? The little "heart" button. Like a song you are listening to? Hit the heart button and (go ahead smile now because you know what is coming!) YES it records the song!!! In full digital quality! Amazing!

I have spent the last 3 days recording music for the sectional we are hosting on Saturday! Man is this fun! The only problem I am experiencing is if the DJ talks over the music then it records that as well. But I have learned not to record those. For personal use, I could tolerate it, just don’t want it in my recordings for Saturday.

There’s More!

OK, so that is cool enough right? You are ready to buy right? I was as well. BUT this thing also is an MP3 player with more memory than you could ever want or use. It has 2 gig onboard and a slot for an 8 gig add on card. The best part? It plays mp3 AND wma files. My biggest problem w/ the ipod is it doesn’t play wma files. I saves about 250 CD’s as wma files about 2 years ago and the ipods won’t play them! Again, Apple kicking their own proprietary butt.

So while all day I record the latest, greatest, and oddest songs I do not already have in my library. At night I am transferring songs from my personal collection. When all is said and done I will have more than enough music for Saturday. After Saturday I will load my entire collection of songs from my PC onto this thing and continue to record as I hear songs I like. I love this thing!

It Goes Anywhere

It picks up the satellite anywhere and comes w/ headphones w/ a receiver in them (not sure if I like my head being the satellite receiver, but I guess it’s safe). It also comes with standard ear bud headphones. Obviously go buy some Bose headphones if you are really into it. It is 100% portable. If you want it in the car you will need the car kit. If you already have a car kit installed it will adapt to that. Make sure to use the power adapter that came w/ the unit though otherwise it won’t sound good and probably will damage it (learned this the hard way).

There Can’t Be More Can There?

It also has wifi capability to listen to internet radio. I haven’t used this yet and doubt I will really, but you can use it if you are in the office and want to listen to live music. Personally, I just listen to my personal and saved library while in the house. Which, btw, I can do w/ my shuffle feature. I love the shuffle feature of everything, for some reason I find it cool not to know what song is next, only now I know I will probably like the song!

Finally, you can use the recurring record function to record shows that you listen to on a daily basis.

This thing does much much more as well, but the functions above make it worth every dollar! Go buy a Sirius Stiletto 2 now!

What is your opinion of the Stiletto 2 ?

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I had a pitching lesson last night with an eight year old girl that has good core talent. We have been working together off and on for a few months now. In fact, her minor’s team wasn’t really doing anything for her so she often practiced with our majors team. Anyway, last night we were dodging lightning bolts so I decided to show her a few basic drills.

I have to admit, I thought this practice was pretty boring. We started in the dugout w/ a simple flip drill, then once it stopped raining, we moved to a basic one knee drill. That is pretty much all we did.

Her response? She told her dad that was the funnest practice she ever had???? Amazing!

Don’t ever forget the effect you have having on the children you coach. They are sponges, they absorb everything you say good and bad. How about we all try and be a good influence?

What is the greatest thing a kid ever said about you?

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Yesterday we had the honor of hosting our district’s sectional tournament for the major softball division. The sectional was created to reduce the burden on the state tournaments, but in our case is a bit silly. We have only three districts in it so it is a 3 game round robin . Whoever shows up in their two games wins and goes to states. That is for a different article though. Today, I would like to discuss making money for your league hosting a tournament.

The cost we have to put out to host the tournament is about $700. This includes the flag for the champion, pins, medallions, and medals. The problem with only three teams playing is that there is no way to make that money up with concessions. We sold almost $500 in concessions, but that is revenue, not profit. We still had to purchase the stuff that we sold.

Therefore, we needed to find a way to raise more money. Our initial thought was a souvenir t-shirt. Everyone wants a momento of the tournament right? WRONG! We sold only about 20. Why?

I think it is because the girls play in a tournament every weekend just about and purchasing a shirt at each one is not feasable. Had this been the state tournament we probably would have sold enough to justify the costs, but at the sectional they simply did not sell.

This creates quite a dilima for the hosting league. First we have to feed all the umpires and district adminstrator. There is a cost for that. Then, we have to make sure all the volunteers have water and such to keep them going. And then theres the city guy which we have to make sure he is watered and fed as well. Suddenly we are losing a lot of money hosting this event!

So how can we raise more money at this event? We tried a 50/50 drawing and didn’t sell a single ticket! What tactics have you used in the past to raise money at tournaments? Please share with us so we can all reap the rewards of the hours of effort that goes into hosting a tournament.

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Was up until 3AM putting songs together for the sectional and then just got home! What a long day that was! Oh well, that’s why we make the big bucks working for little league! Oh yeah, we are volunteers! Will post something substantive tomorrow, I promise.

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It’s after midnight and I just got in! Umped major championship after getting field ready. Well, the city guy did most of the work and he wasn’t even supposed to be there! Learned a pretty cool trick w/ a pump to get rid of water, but that will have to save that story for later.

Anyway, losing team was up by 8 in going into the bottom of the 5th and lost on a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the sixth. Amazing. I think we will see more of this with the new pitching rules. Teams are on their 5th and 6th pitchers this late in the tournament.

Sectionals tomorrow have to be there at 7:30! Gotta run!

What’s the greatest ending to a game you have ever seen?

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All Little League umpires are volunteers. At least they are supposed to be. Some leagues pay them. I would love to see a protest at the sectional or state level where a team was disqualified because they used paid umpires all year. Anyway, 99% of Little League umpires are volunteers, we do it because we love it.

The greastest honor a little league umpire can have in his district is to be selected to umpire the Major’s Division Championship game. I, along w/ a few of my friends, have been selected to umpire that game tomorrow. Hand picked by the adminstrator in fact.

It is an honor, and I am humbled.

What is your biggest honor in Little League?

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I think tonight I figured out when things get really ugly. It’s not when the parents yell at the ump, or for their kids, it’s when they yell at each other or at the kids or coaches on the other team! The most amazing part? They are usually wrong! What happens is once you yell at someone else, they are going to yell back, then we got ourselves a fight!

My solution? Tonight I warned each coach that if their parents said another word other than positive to their team that I would clear the stands and we would let the kids play the game. It stopped instantly. The funny part? One coach said, "that might be a good thing!"….lol. Guess he has been getting trouble from his parents as well.

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Top 10 Reasons Parents Spoil the Little League Experience

10. They are too competitive
9. They think their kid should play every inning
8. They think other coaches know better than their coach
7. They dwell on losses
6. They think Johnny/Janey cares whether his/her team wins or loses
5. They over pitch their kids
4. They question every move their coach makes
3. They complain for the sake of complaining
2. They show up late and wonder why that matters?

And the top reason that parents spoil the Little League Experience?

1. They feel that they know better than (insert board member, umpire, coach, concessionaire, any other person in charge) but when asked to help make the problem better they respond "I don’t have time for that".

Have another to add to this list? I am happy to compile another.

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