daddy23

I know that the discusion is way past the original question and I do not feel I have anything to add to that discusion. However, you asked about where to play your kids. Here is my 2 cents. The most important two positions are 2b and SS. You will be surprised at how many balls are hit to 2b (even more in the 1st half of the season). Lots of the 7 year-olds are still late on their swing. Your 1b-man needs to be able to catch, but does not have to be one of your best two players. Unless you are totally stacked, you have to give up somewhere and as long as you have someone who catches well on the throw--use him there. Your 3b is not near as important as it was in T-ball. Good coaces teach everyone to hit to 3b in T-ball, so the 3bman gets lots of action. Not near as many kids can turn on the ball. P is more important than you might think. Certainly most of the T-ball outs are P-1st and that is not going to be true in Pinto, but you still want to get those easy outs when you can. However, a P that is not super agressive is ok, becase they will not jump (or dive) and disrupt a play that your 2b or SS can make. But he needs to be someone quick on the short balls and have a steady (not huge) arm to first. C is interesting. You think that you can use your P to cover home and certainly C really becomes important in Mustang, not Pinto. However, an agressive Catcher will have the opportunity to catch about 1 foul ball per inning. Sometimes those fouls are from big hitters and a catch there can really turn an inning. The outfield is a luxury. It is awesome to see an OF at that level track and catch a ball, but it is more important to the team to have Outfielders that are paying attention, can stop the ball and quickly get the ball back into the IF and hold the runner to a single. Good Luck and hopefully we will see you in the Director's Tourney in Port Arthur.

This (and what lead up to this) is what keeps a lot of good people from helping out in Youth Sports. I think the the governing body (in this case STJFL) has to take responsibility for what happened and do something to make sure that it does not happen again. If it was as bad as I heard one of both of the teams should be disqualified for the playoffs. If that happened, then coaches in the future would be much more careful. And I do feel bad for the kids that would not be able to participate in the playoffs, but most of the kids in the league do not get to participate in the playoffs anyway. Everyone vaguely remembers back in 2004, the brawl that occured during the Pacers-Pistons game. It played over and over on SportsCenter for days. I barely remember it, but my then 8 year old son watched it as well. His only question: Is that an NBA game? He has played BB since and has just made the 7th grade team this year. However, he has never asked to go to an NBA game and has never wanted to go when I asked. Things like this make a deep impression on the boys. I also know that STJFL will not keep the teams out of the playoffs or expel any organization permanently (which I think would be worse for everyone) but instead will just slap everyone hads and put everyone on probation. And next year there will still be coaches that act like this in the league next year and the year after and the year after that. I cannot do anything to fix the problem, but I do hope the my presence is mostly positive for both the boys and the league. Sometimes our teams will win, sometimes our team will lose. I will fight hard to win and still want to be friends with the coaches that end up beating me.

What a dissappointment. I was pretty excited to catch some info on a youth football clinic and instead got a rant on the liberal media. Well, if anyone knows where a liberal little league coach (that would be me) can find quality football clinics for 8-12 year old players, I would still be very interested. I would like my boys to have every possible opportunity.

I echo the comments of the earlier poster about the Pee Wee Game between Nederland White and Vidor Black. We got beat fair and square. I did not feel like our boys played their best but that is expected from time to time when dealing with 7 and 8 year old boys. However, I thought spirits were good after the game. If anyone saw any problems with our boys in the handshake line, please tell me. There is no place for that. I hate to hear that somone may have lost their temper in the handshake line. I hope it did not happen, but I am sure that if it did that the coaches will deal with it.

Vidor 23 PNG 14

www.pony.org Pony has adopted a new rule to allow local leagues to adopt an "And Under" approach to Age Limits. This would allow kids to "play up" one division. I would not think this would be a good idea for very many kids. What impact do you think this will have, if any, on the local leagues.

Points Allowed

Vpirate 75, if you feel so strongly about the situation, you really ought to have your boy/s play in the other league next year. Hopefully both leagues will still be competing next year as well. Both Vidor Jr teams won this week, so I really dont know how the "president's team" winning 6-0 is somehow evidence of stacking. I still have my son's uniforms from last year, and I recieved new unifoms this year, so I also dont really understand the "stolen uniforms" accusation either. It was kinda yucky how the whole political process shook out last year at VJFA. However, most parents knew (both leagues advertised everywhere) that there were two leagues and I thought that everyone did what they thought was best for their own families. I am not trying to attack you but I just didnt think the rant was right on point. Back to the question. In Pee Wee, Woodville 20 - Vidor Black 12. Woodville has some great athletes on that team. I wish we could have forced an overtime to see what happened, but we just ran out of time. Great Game Eagles.

Decided to head to Orlando to keep the kids occupied....sounds like it may take some time before we are able to get back in full swing. Lazeek, be careful, I hope your home is safe and solid.

td, Thanks for having us over for the Pee-Wee scrimmage. Ya'll have a great team from what I could see. We learned a lot and hope that we can bring it together in time for the first game on Saturday. This storm is not helping us at all. My hats off to your team and your entire league's friendly attitude to our visit. THANKS

I tried to upload the schedule to the board, but the upload space is full. Glad to e-mail anyone what I have if you shoot me an e-mail. [email protected]

My guess is that the Vidor Jr Black team will play in Vidor if there are games in Vidor....

Thanks Lazeek..... And thanks to everyone who has shown so much support to us throughout. I appreciated it a lot.

I agree that all of the boys deserve to be recognized. The Shetland Team: #12 Derek Brasher 1B #11 James "Kelby" Odom 2B #9 Cory Kizer SS #6 Braydon Leger 3B #10 Klay Sylvester P (only 5 yr old on the team) #23 Luke LaPray C #4 Mason Brown LF #5 Brad Nunez LCF #25 Bryce Bowman RCF #17 Bryce Tousha RF #7 Cade Leonard RF #91 Chance Woodroome Designated HR Hitter (and boy did he hit them) Also, everyone should know that two of the boys (#10 and #17) are from Evadale. Our team would not have been the same without them. Also, I have got too much credit for the success of this team and our league team. Clint Brasher has been the main part of our coaching success. But do not forget about Jason Sylvester (our hitting coach all year) who could not have done any more for the team, and James Odom who worked with our outfield. As time heals the pain of the last loss, the reality of just how special this experience was is starting to sink in. I am grateful to have been a part of such an incredible ride. All of these boys are amazing.

Our ride (Shetland All-Stars) ended tonight. After last night we really thought we had a chance to win this thing. However, we were not able to get them tonight. We lost two. I am very proud of our boys. 5th place in the State is nothing to hang our heads about. Thanks to everyone for the support and the good wishes. These boys played their hearts out and deserve to be treated like winners. Also congrats to the Pinto team who fought a great tournament as well.

Great win by the Pinto team tonight...Win two in row tomorrow!!!

I am going to keep posting because so many of you asked me to during the Sectional Tournament. Tonight was an amazing game. We fell behind 5-0 after 1. We were down 15-10 after 3. Our boys never gave up and managed an incredible 28-20 win. The director came up to us coaches after the handshake and said "That was one helluva comeback." We play tommorow night at 6:30 and we need one more win to advance to the Final Four on Saturday. Thanks to all of you pulling for us, texting us, e-mailing us. It makes us feel like we are part of something bigger than just our little team. We appreciate the support.

It was a crazy night. Because of early lightning delays, our game started really late. We did not start until about 10 pm. We did not end until 11:30 pm. Our Shortstop was sick and on Antibiotics. Our first baseman was coming to the field late and was involved in a very serious car wreck (everyone was ok, but the car was not drivable). They were lost when the accident happened and it took people a long time to find them and get our First Baseman to the game on time. There were lots of lights, people and distractions. And did I mention that these kids are only 6. We did not play our best defensive game but we hit the ball well and managed a one run win (without batting in the 6th) with a stabbing catch by our first baseman. I am very proud of the boys and the way the kept playing despite the distractions and the late hour. I hope we can continue to represent the Golden Triangle well all week. Next game tomorrow night at 5pm. Congrats to the Pinto team who opened up very strong and then hung in with a big hitting team for a big win earlier in the night.

Congrats....Great Job.

Congrats to Everyone in the Tournament. Every game that I saw was well played and had lots of sportsmanship. Thanks to Terry and everyone else who did so much to have the field in such great shape. And forgive me for being a little excited about the outcome. I am looking forward to hanging out with Robby and company next week in Irving. Good Luck to Both of our teams and may we represent the Golden Triangle with class dignity, and some wins.

I got to catch about 4 games this weekend and I saw 4 or 5 solid teams. There were two good games tonight and I would expect to see some great baseball this week. I wish I could see more games this week. Be sure to keep us all posted.

Groves won Game 2 and Vidor won Game 3

Game 2 on schedule or is the rain slowing things down? HAL

Congrats to both Port Arther and Vidor for making the championship. Good Luck to Port Arthur as they move on. Go All The Way.

congrats ;D