"The Final Inning - My View From the Stands" (3/8)

I had mentioned that the 11U Northwest Select Team was pretty good. Well, they were good enough to win the Ohio Hot Stove State Championship!

That was pretty cool!

Clay Crawford was named the team MVP. His dad, Chad, was one of the coaches and was absolutely passionate about the game of baseball. Having had his right leg amputated just below the knee because of cancer, Chad hobbled around the field every game without the slightest complaint.

 

Chad was so proud of his boy as he posed for pictures with Clay holding his trophy.

Chad succumbed to the disease and passed away the next year. He was only 49.

I believe it was the winter of 2012/2013 when Bryce started taking hitting lessons from a local guy named Shannon Swaino. Shannon was a catcher at Kent State University before being drafted by the Montreal Expos in the 24^th round of the 1996 Major League Baseball amateur draft.

This would mark the second crucial decision in Bryce’s development as a baseball player.

Coach Mark and I would bring Bryce and Mark’s son, Jared, to hitting lessons every Saturday. This would take dedication on all of our parts because the lessons were held in a big barn of sorts that had been converted into a baseball/softball practice facility… with *NO* heat. We all froze our tails off!

 

No pain, no gain… or something like that.

That winter, Shannon completely deconstructed Bryce’s swing mechanics and then rebuilt them from scratch with repetitive drills designed to re-establish his muscle memory. Bryce leaned into the process, soaking in everything that Shannon had to say.

Watching Bryce take swings in the batting cage, I could notice a huge difference in his stance, his swing and his follow through. And it looked good. The questions was… would it translate in game situations against live pitching where the dude on the mound is doing his dead level best to strike him out?

The spring and summer of 2013… after months of hitting lessons, I started to notice a definitive improvement in Bryce’s bat. He didn’t have “great” season but he was obviously headed in the right direction. He struck out less and made more contact. It was good to see.

Bryce had played tackle football for the first four fall seasons that we lived in Ohio but after his 7^th grade season, he had decided to hang up his pads. I had a twinge of regret because I enjoyed watching him on the gridiron but ultimately, I realized it was a good decision. He was certainly on the small side and with the risk of concussions and other injuries associated with football, it would have only been a matter of time until we would have to deal with that.

So… with August through October freed up, Bryce played his first season of fall baseball. Right from the start, he began to build on what he had demonstrated during the summer season… the kid was hitting the ball consistently and with authority. He started moving up in the batting order.

A couple games into the fall season, Joseph McGuire, who batted second in the order, hurt his arm and had to sit most of that season. Bryce was moved into that second slot and, for the most part, would never relinquish it again for the rest of his playing career.

Bryce batted just under .400 in the 2013 fall season. It was a breakout year for him and I began to think maybe he would play high school ball after all… because up to that point, I had very serious doubts.

The Northwest Select team tryouts for the 2014, 13U team were probably the first ones where I had a total absence of anxiety. Bryce had finally established himself as a pretty solid ball player who could contribute with his glove and his bat.

As practice began in early 2014, we coaches were forced to deal with an unfortunate situation… we were short on pitching. Every team at this age needs a good stable of pitchers. A good portion of your roster should be able to throw some. Two of our main pitchers were experiencing arm difficulties and were unavailable to pitch… maybe for the entire season. Who was going to fill that gap?

From early in his baseball playing days, Bryce did not want to pitch. I was happy about that because all four of my daughters were pitchers and I had spent countless hours on a bucket, getting my shins bruised up from errant pitches that fell a couple feet short of the target. On top of that, I had spent way too much money on pitching lessons.

So, when Bryce showed no interest in pitching… I was cool with that!

However, about once a season, the coaches would trot Bryce out to the mound to pitch an inning or two in a blowout game. All fun; no pressure.

When he pitched, he couldn’t break the backstop if it were made of glass. He had awkward mechanics and virtually no velocity. He looked like he was throwing darts. But… he seemed to always throw strikes.

Coach Mark said, “We’re going to have to put Bryce in the pitching rotation this year. We have no choice.”

I laughed but he was serious.

To make a long story short, Bryce pitched that entire season and when the dust had cleared, he was statistically the second most effective pitcher on the roster. His earned run average and strike-out to walk ratio were more than respectable. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised.

As the summer season of 2014 ended… so did Bryce’s short-lived pitching career… at least in my mind. He was about to enter his freshman year of high school and my plan was to really work him on his hitting with Shannon over the winter… just like the previous year.

Literally as we were packing up our gear after our final summer game, one of the players’ dads, Brian Petty, asked me a question. He said, “You’re going to continue Bryce’s pitching, aren’t you?”

I chuckled and told him, “No. His pitching career has officially ended.”

Brian pressed the issue and asked my why. I stopped what I was doing, curious at his insistence and responded. “Bryce isn’t a pitcher. You see his velocity. He could never pitch at the high school level.”

Brian expressed his disagreement. He told me that Bryce was a lefty with a decent curveball and great control. And the fact that he’d never taken a lesson and had only one season of pitching under his belt… he had a high ceiling. He said the high school coaches would love to have another left-handed pitcher on their roster.

Hmmm… this was a compelling argument and it gave me pause. Was Brian right? Maybe we should pursue this crazy notion that Bryce could do some pitching in high school.

This… was the third crucial decision in Bryce’s baseball career.

To be continued…