Sandlot Baseball Logs – 04.2024 – Part III
Chili from The Ramblers posted some great film photography awhile back and it got me motivated to dig up my old Canon AV-1 (that I regrettably haven’t used since 2011) and get back to shooting film.
The first two rolls I shot weren’t any good. Definitely needed to knock off the rust and had to revisit a tutorial or two.
Anyhow, here’s a link to the photo album consisting of mostly Sandlot photos.
They will be improving with each roll.
Below are some highlights.
4.27.2024 – East Austin Ramblers vs. Town Lake Nightcrawlers (Austin) @ Govalle – 3pm
I finished last week’s post with: “Ramblers get to get back on the good foot at home vs. the Town Lake Nightcrawlers next Saturday.“
We got the privilege of providing a walk-off winner for those worms.
I’m certain it’s difficult trying to find the most appropriate amount of PT for each player when more than 16 show up for a game. 18 Ramblers were in attendance. Whoever’s job it is to facilitate a roster of that size definitely has a tall task.
There are varying schools of thought. One way that seems to work is let your starters get their three innings in the field + lineup, second stringers take on the middle three innings, and, depending on how the game is going will determine how you finish the final 2-3 innings.
It might not play out exactly as cut and dry as that, but that’s not a bad framework to build from.
I arrived at the ballpark expecting The Ramblers to implement an 18-person lineup as has been the custom. We didn’t. We saw the lineup and the “Coach for the Day” (Ramblers have a rotating cast of foundational players that make the lineup) declared that, to paraphrase– We’re going to bat a tight lineup because this was a game we’re gonna go for.
To the lineup’s credit– Rambly scored runs. The Worms’ starting pitcher, Ches Foster, seemed to have pretty good command except for one inning that produced a handful of walks and a great drive to the left field wall by Grady helped The Ramblers put up a 5-spot. Foster did go deep into the game though (all the way to the 7th I believe) and kept the Worms within striking distance.
For our part, The Ramblers put Sikes, Ticky, Stevie, and Hope on the hill. They all pitched well, never surrendering a 5-spot. The Worms did seem to nibble and nibble though– plating a run or two here and there, but not producing a huge rally early on.
Entering the bottom of the 8th, The Ramblers had a seven-run advantage. The worms cut that deficit in half in the 8th. In the 9th, the worms made some contact and got a rally cooking that ended in a walkoff (same video link as above).
The final tally ended up being (approximately)≈
Ramblers – 11 possumdogs
Nightcrawlers – 12 dirtyworms
Unwritten Rules + Etiquette
With full awareness that this league is chock full of folks who aren’t gonna care about things such as “rules” or “etiquette,” there are a few things I’d like to bring attention to.
I’ve previously brought up baserunners interfering with a defender trying to make a play (purposefully stutter-stepping in between a defender and a groundball, clapping hands/yelling at a defender, etc). If a refresher is needed– this is to be called at the umpire’s discretion. If an umpire perceives whatever action as interference, then it’s interference. With our often volunteer umps or our less-than-motivated/older/often out-of-position umps, these types of calls are rarely made. These old guys (the umps) aren’t going to get in the middle of Little League-playing adults who might be bristling with one another because of inadvertent or purposeful displays of poor sportsmanship. Understandably so.
Some of these instances may be inadvertent because they’re performed by folks who didn’t play baseball growing up. It’s likely they never learned that certain behavior will get you and your team in trouble (i.e. the opposition will throw a fastball at your earhole and/or an umpire will intervene and rule the offender out).
Saturday’s minor, very forgettable issue was about a deke.
Which dekes are deemed acceptable or not? There is nuance to this. The simplest way to negotiate this– as a defender, don’t fool a runner into making unnecessary moves to miss your ball-less phantom/fake tags. You can fool the runner into second-guessing where they (the runner) might assume the ball to be as long as you’re not faking as though it’s in your glove as you throw a fake tag. That’s it.
Ballplayers don’t like the fake tag type of deking. They clear benches for fake tags. They administer their own justice for it, and it’s basically regarded as a dickhead move. But, as they say, the way you do anything is the way you do everything.
We’ve seen the deke from a catcher who acted like a ball wasn’t being thrown to him and then at the last moment he catches it and applies the tag (cool deke), Baylor SS dekes the runners into thinking a fly to centerfield is only an infield fly (10 years ago– cool deke), and more recently we’ve seen the outfielder fake an early catch of a sac fly to fool the runner into leaving third early (cool deke).
Sorry to get Old Man/Old School here, but faking a late tag that could induce an awkward slide or even a collision isn’t regarded as an anti-“Let the Kids Play”– it’s simple courtesy for your opponent. Maybe the Savanah Bananas will popularize fake tags and anytime any runner is running the bases on anything other than a homerun, each infielder will act like they’ve got the ball causing mass confusion, and this is what is to become of baseball so I should just get with it already, but I doubt it.
It’s also fielder’s interference to touch the runner without the ball (or when not in the act of fielding the ball) so… a good ump would rule the play dead and advance all the runners anyways.
Last final nagging note (apologies for all the nagging)– a minor and irrational question of etiquette. Because our fields are rarely, if ever, squared away, this makes little sense, but, ballplayers don’t warm up pregame on the infield dirt (tossing, stretching, etc). It likely stems from the Dads and grounds crews who put in the pregame work to square away the diamond– all that labor and care shouldn’t immediately be undone by a few players who can’t be bothered to walk the additional 60-90′ required to get to the outfield grass.
Every team sport has their do’s and don’ts. That’s a baseball don’t. I checked with a former collegiate softball player– it’s a softball don’t as well.
I know it’s silly when our diamonds are rarely manicured and squared away, but it’s still engrained in ballplayers to keep off the infield until game time.
Caveat*– teams taking infield/fielding grounders is permitted, but simply tossing, stretching, etc. on the infield dirt is a no. I looked up some various baseball league rules to see if it’s still a thing and it’s still a thing. What makes this edict even more tenuous is when you play at a park that doesn’t have a bullpen. The starting pitchers have to throw somewhere. I get it. The more lousy a facility is, the less this flimsy tradition makes sense, but it’s still tradition.
That’s all I got.
We’ll see if the weather let’s anyone get in any sandlot this weekend.