Baseball: Before the First Practice

In my first year at North Side, I had many experiences that I never thought would be possible.  At one point there was a student in my class who was only two years younger than me.  There was also a woman who came back to finish her senior year with her teenage son.  She didn't want a GED; she wanted to do it right.  And she did.

Probably the thing that threw me the most came in February of that first year.  I had been so busy with football and teaching that I really hadn't spent much time getting ready for the baseball season, after all I was the head coach.  After the holiday break, I prepared for workouts, tryouts, and all the hoopla that goes with starting a new season.  I was excited to get the team together, practice, and begin the season.

The first problem that I encountered was when I finally looked at the schedule.  Many of you may not be aware of what a baseball season  would be, so I will explain.  A schedule in high school needs to have at least three games in a week.  There are generally seven to eight weeks in the season, so a full schedule should be at least 21 games.  Most schools play many more than that.  This is important because pitchers are limited to the number of innings that they can pitch.  Now if you want to get around the pitcher rule, you just have fewer games, but that means that you don't build a pitching staff.  If you don't build a pitching staff, you don't have a program that will develop into the future.

The two previous North Side coaches had been an assistant basketball coach and an assistant football coach, and both aspired to be head coaches in those sports.  They were just filling the position to get ready for their true seasons, so the schedule that they had was only games that were in the conference and maybe one or two more.  That meant they only had a game a week.  I had been assistant at South Side where we not only had over twenty games for the varsity, we also ran a reserve schedule that I coached.

Before I even faced the team, I had to get a schedule.  I went to the athletiic director who was formerly a football coach and didn't really understand my problem.  He allowed me to put something together.  That meant contacting schools to see if they had a hole in their schedule.  If they did, we had to decide who would be the home team.  If it was decided that we would be the home team, I had to find a field to play the game.  At that tme we didn't have a home field; we played home games at City Utilities, Shoaff, McMillen, or anywhere else that was possible.

When that was finished, I realized that for the home games, I needed umpires.  Luckily, I had spent the last few years coaching summer baseball and had a great relationship with the head of the umpire association.  He came through each time I called.

I was very pleased with my progress.  The problem that I had was that I really hadn't kept the athletic director informed on my decisions.  You see, when you coach summer baseball, you have a sponsor who gives you money to take care of umpires, equipment, and all other things that you need.  Thankfully, the athletic director covered my work, though he wasn't exactly happy with me.

You would think that would have been the end of my struggles that first year.  What I didn't know was that we only had twelve uniforms.  The average high school team at the time had 20 to 30 players.  We didn't have enough baseballs to play the number of games that I had scheduled.  There was only one set of catcher gear.  We hadn't ordered hats.  That was all more money.

So, before I even met with my team.  Before I ever had a tryout.  Before there was even a game, I had a lot to do. In retrospect, it served me well for the rest of my career.  From that point on, I may not have wished for a crisis to be put in my way, but if there something needed to be done, I felt capable of doing it.