Last winter, Tyla and I thought Elijah might enjoy trying out tee ball so I started doing some research and not only had we already passed the age group for tee ball, but it was almost too late to register for the upcoming season! Since Elijah and I have played a bit in the yard, I thought he’d be ok making the jump straight to a pitched ball.
Because of his birthday, Elijah was one of the youngest kids on the team and since he hadn’t played tee ball, he was a bit behind many of the other kids. It was a challenge at times but overall he had a good attitude and worked hard to catch up.
Pitching was done with a pitching machine. It was fairly consistent which was nice but some of the machines really ripped the balls in there. Elijah had a tough time figuring out the mechanics of swinging a real bat and hitting a real ball at that speed. He did get a few hits over the season.
He did learn a ton about the game. He knows where the positions are and has some idea of where to throw the ball if it gets hit to him. At the end of the year, his coach said he was the best ground ball fielder on the team.
It was fun to see him learning and being part of a team. I got a front row view for it. I wasn’t one the official coach or assistant coach but I helped out with many of the practices and all the games. Coaching was a challenge for me because it’s hard to watch kids throwing their gloves in the air and playing in the dirt. How do you draw the line between teaching them and constantly nagging them?
It will be interesting to see if he wants to continue when the next season rolls around. Hopefully he’ll want to continue practicing hitting over the summer as well.