None of that is on Cheese. Our players are the ones doing it, at least the ones I have witnessed.
Damn guys, put up the damn pitch forks. Seriously. Not everything has a deeper reason than?. Our guy F?ed up.
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Drives me crazy. All those things are what MADE ballplayers when we were coming along. You would struggle to make your high school team if you couldn't execute those fundamentals. And even then, that's almost all we worked on in practice. Over and over again. I swear we spent more time on those things then we did hitting. 10 cuts each in BP everyday for 6 weeks was all you got to get ready for the season. Need more - go to Bat n' Pac (it was an arcade with batting cages) and pay 50 cents for 20 balls on the "fast" machine and figure it out on your own! Strike outs are fine, but if you miss the cut-off man you are running foul poles after the game!
Me, you and so many others grew up learning the same way. Baseball is a long season and games are long. Those fundamental things may seem trite but over the course of a season(or game), those things can be the difference between winning and also ran!
Think about this too. How many reps did we get playing sandlot baseball with our buddies? Kids don't do this anymore. We literally got thousands of reps just playing in the backyard and that's how you learn the game. Those reps you learn what can work and what won't work!
This doesn't necessarily apply to this thread, but it has to do with how baseball is so different now. i watched a video(and i remember watching this game)1977 playoffs, Yankees/Royals. Brett hits a gapper and is going for 3. Throws coming he slides HARD into Nettles at third. Nettles kicks him and Brett comes up and punches him. Both benches clear and there quite a scuffle. Know how many were ejected? Not one player! The umpires could be seen warning them but no ejections and they went back to playing ball! 2 weeks ago it took 45 minutes and replays and ejections of half the teams for a little knee bump at home plate! Holy crap things have changed too much!
We devised a 2 v 2 baseball game with ghost runners that we played in the street. Defense 2 played pitcher and outfield; offense 2 batted and caught. Batted balls had to land between the curbs to be "fair" hits. We played that game endlessly.
My Dad also grew up going to Savannah and playing "half-rubber" and taught us - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-rubber.
Learned a lot about pitching and hitting using a broom stick to hit a rubber ball cut in half.
From the time school let out in June, my typical day was - street ball from 9 - 3; swim for a bit to cool of and rest; eat then go to the park for a 6:30 or 7:30 game; play the game then get picked up by another team who was missing a player and play another game; play "cup-ball", pickle, or pepper until they turned the lights off at 10:00. Go home. Get up next day and do it again. This lasted until All-Stars started in mid-July. If I didn't make All-Stars, I was down in Statesboro for Georgia Southern Baseball Camp for at least a 1 week session, 2 some years if my parents could afford it. And Coach Stallings at GS was a hard-nosed old school guy, so all you did at that camp was fundamental drills and scrimmage. I hated it when school started back.
Yep that was pretty much my summers in a nutshell! Depression always hit me when school started back! The good ol days and great memories! I miss em!
I taught my boys like I was taught and they grew up playing the game hard. Sometimes to hard for some of the softies that are out there now! My youngest son when he was 9, he drilled a hitter in the ribs after his teammate had just knocked our catcher out with a an elbow to the head trying to score. He threw hard and the kid cried but they didn't do that stuff anymore lol!
Right! And breaking up double plays, sliding hard, etc... Like you said very rarely did anyone get mad it's just how you played the game. And if someone did get upset you settled it on the field by someone catching a heater in the ribs or something. Great times!
Everyone is expecting everyone to pass the buck. The trainers expect the travel ball and high school coaches to teach the game to the players. A lot of the strength coaches don't know the game. And the travel ball coaches either expect the players to have learned or they're worried about what Mommy and Daddy will think if they're not letting the kid swing for the fences every plate appearance.
This comment should probably be directed to a new thread, but there is a lot of different comments already here. So, here goes: I haven?t seen any double steals this year. I haven?t missed but one or games. Polk used to do this frequently and the crowd loved it. Is the problem (1) coaching, (2) lack of speed on base pads, or (3) we don?t get 2 men on base very often? Or something else? I am not a baseball guru, but I love the sort. Your comments please. . . .
You don't see it much in college ball at all anymore. I'm sure it's a "metrics" thing that says the odds are bad (which they are). Again that's a skill that goes back to baserunning. You have to have guys who know what they are doing to pull off the double steal. Especially the lead runner.
So you would have Larry just stay at third then and even if they don't get the double play you're almost in the same boat. 2 out and still need a hit. While the double play not guaranteed Hines can't run and the ball was hit pretty hard. Taylor made double play. Was pretty sure it was a contact play anyways cause Larry was off on contact, so really moot point.
Cheese doesn't have us a good catcher AGAIN and base running is trash. Y'all tell me what he does to deserve a spot here other than being Lemonis version of Hevesy. Seriously, what does he do well here? I'm asking
Well considering we lost our starting catcher and are playing back-ups? I think we are doing a pretty good job at Catcher
Hugesak and Downs being morons just can’t be blamed on Cheese. Hugesak almost got picked at 2nd when he took too big of a turn on a hit the LF. The play was literally right in front of him and he damn near got hosed. That’s just a dumb player. Shit Cheese told him to hold up. You just have to overcome morons on your team
I’ll give Lebbo some credit. He got rid of our 2 stupid WR’s from last season. Let them be somebody else’s problem
Not just a backup catcher - our 3rd string catcher for most of the season. I'm not sure that many teams carry a true third catcher, they are usually "emergency" catchers who are walk on's who warm people up in the bullpen.
For all the gripping about our catchers - SEC teams have only attempted 6 steals against us (which is the 2nd least in the conference), and we only have 3 passed balls in conference games - so I'm trying to figure out what all the bitching is about.
Catchers like LoTan who are elite defensively and offensively are rare.
We didn't have a good catcher last year. Highfill was as marginal as it comes. Long isn't good and Powell rarely plays. Baserunning has been terrible since Cheese got here, been going on a long time. If he's going to be paid to coach, he needs to actually do his job.