Ball in the ‘Burgh

Anxiously awaiting the arrival of all the matches of BBBS – Pittsburgh at centrally-located Martin Luther King, Jr Park in downtown Pittsburgh, we had an idea. Thanks to Carolyn and Brenda from Minneapolis, we had received a batch of freshly donated equipment to use for our clinics in Chicago. What we hadn’t used yet… was the catching and umpiring equipment! 

We started warming up the arms by actually pitching and calling balls and strikes. If you’ve ever pitched before you know the feeling. It’s great to have the official catcher and umpire behind the plate as you wheel-n-deal it on in there with the high cheese.

As kids and volunteers started to arrive and warm up, we made the smooth transition to get the kids to take a few wind-up pitches from the mound and heave it toward home plate. It was a raging success. Everyone LOVED tossing it in there. And they did GREAT! Couldn’t believe how well they actually got the ball over the plate. 

It was also great for us. We were able to provide a bit of coaching to the kids through pitching as well. Our clinics focused on base-running, hitting, and catching… never pitching. I think we’re on to something here. They quickly became better pitchers and were very invested in learning how to throw. It was a real treat for us to be able to help them.

With 11 matches signed up for the day, we had a full field. A few of the Bigs, although batting with their non-dominant left-hand, were actually good hitters. Moving Littles around on the base paths with solid situational hitting. All it seemed like was happening was score after score after score. Adam and Rex couldn’t locate well enough to keep the hitters off the basepaths. The final score ended up being in the double digits, 15-11. That’s too high. Come on B4B. Keep your head in the game!

 

I’m kidding, we love the kiddos getting to hit over and over in the lineup. We had several all-stars out there on the diamond and it obviously showed. We had two Xavier’s that both played hard and were great athletes. Really looking forward to seeing them develop into solid baseball players. 

Special thanks to Cheryl and Mark at Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh for bringing out sandwiches and water for the kids. Great job of bringing fun and interactive matches out for a day of fun with the Biking for Baseball team. Another win!

HRs Hit: 41

Final Score: 15-11

Strikes thrown: Five hundred and fifty million thousand gajillion

Balls thrown: ZERO

Smiles smiled: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂