One of the Cardinals shows off some good fundamentals during a ground ball drill.
By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
While many older kids played in summer leagues, played pickup games with friends or just found that the baseball skills they’d developed over the years came back after an initial bit of rustiness, for the youngest ballplayers, a year without baseball has had some detrimental effects. So, while on Tuesday night the seven-year-olds who made up the Athletics and Cardinals of Westwood Little League were supposed to play a game, both coaches realized that with an entire year’s development having been missed, a “skills session” was the better option.
“These would all be kids, this year, that all would have been playing tee-ball last year, but the tee =-ball league didn’t play,” first year coach Nick Clemons explained. “So they’re definitely a year behind in terms of being able to catch the ball, throw the ball, and hit, so it’s definitely going to be a challenge. All the coaches have met for this league and we understand we’ve got to focus on their development this year. We were supposed to have a game with the Cardinals tonight and we decided in advance, 'let’s do a skill session instead, and let’s teach the kids as much as we can.' If we’d have had a game tonight, I don’t think it would have been good for anybody.”
Instead of a game, the players did a handful of drills, like throwing the ball at the backstop, rolling the ball to each other barehanded, playing a basic game of catch, running the bases, and hitting the ball off a traffic cone into a large net. Coach Clemons said he wasn’t sure what the team would do for their next scheduled game, as he needed to see how far along the other coach felt his team was, but noted that if they did play a game, the rules are still focused more on developing player skills than seeing which is a better team.
“The rules of the league are very much focused on development. Players advance one base at a time, there are no plays at home plate, nobody strikes out. They get three swings from a coach who is pitching and if they don’t get a hit, they get three swings off a tee, so it’s very much focused on making sure they learn the fundamentals. So after our conversation with him, we’ll see how he feels his team is progressing and make the call whether or not we’re going to play an actual game.”
While the Little League baseball you remember might involve sorting through a pile of helmets to find which “fit” you best and choosing from a handful of different sized bats depending on how fast the opposing pitcher could throw, those are all things of the past. Because of COVID, on top of wearing masks, each player is required to have both their own batting helmet and bat.
Still, while they didn’t get to play a game, Coach Clemons didn’t sense any disappointment from the team. In fact, he said their enthusiasm had him excited for the rest of the season.
“They’re great. It’s good to get them back out here running around and running off some of their energy. But also learning the game. And it’s a particularly hard game to learn when you’re seven years old - there’s a lot of complicated things involved with throwing, fielding and certainly with hitting.
"But they all seem pretty excited to play, so I’m excited for the year.”
