Bandits - winners of the endurance award!

Wow, that was one heck of a long hard set of games!

Through roasting heat, through a well deserved victory and a tough game, we kept on playing ...

I'm proud to have been an HGRA 2008 Bandit (click Sue Peterson's team picture to go to our album):

HGRA Bandits 2008

Among the memorable performances in our long hot games were Michael's great on base average, great pitching in game 1, big runs from Chris and Make, an RBI from Eli and Mike, a Chris grand slam, great defensive plays, Luke and Mac throwing stealers out.

In addition to our album Sue has one too, I'm going to put 'em together soon. You can download the full res image there or order prints from either album.

In the player picture Sue took we have:

Front row: Joey, Tim, John, Charlie, Eli, Mac
Back row: John, Gregg, Ezra, Neil, Michael, Chris, Luke MT, Colin, Miles, Luke P, Marty and Ryan

If anyone has additional photos to share please point me to a photo site, email them to me at jfaughnan@spamcop.net, or (often easiest) mail a CD to:

1660 Stanford Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55105

If I get more photos I'll send out an updated notice, they'll go to the same Picasa album as today's.

A good day to play

It's the last day of Bandits 2008, many thanks to the players and parents who made this a great season and especially to our parent scorekeepers.

We had some excellent plays in our last game. Joey, Michael, Chris and Mac had excellent hits. Luke MT was a wiz as catcher, combining with Neil for some picture perfect plays. Chris pitched superbly, and Tim had a good start before he hurt his arm.

Sue Peterson has sent me her team pictures. They look great! I'll have them up this weekend and will send an email with links.

Today's rotation is available. We're at Homecroft east for 11am, and if we win same place at 1pm. Sunscreen, fluids and lunch are a good idea. Coach John and Gregg are bringing snacks, Mac might have some too.

HGRA 2008 Majors Tournament: standings and games

We’ve got our games and standings for the 2008 Majors.

• HGRA 2008 Majors Tournament (final): has the schedule and fields
• Final standings: We tied with 3 teams for fourth place, but based on our win/loss we were set as 6th place.

If I’m reading the tournament schedule correctly, this Thursday we play the Bees at 6:30 pm Riverside 1 (see schedule for field location). We beat the Bees 16-10 on June 26th, when Luke MT was disabled.

Here's my interpreation of how things play out for the Bandits, but check the tournament link for the official summary: I'll ask Marty, Peter and Gregg to confirm I have this right:

We play Thur and either ...

Win -> Play 8:30 am at Homecroft East then either

Win -> Play 1:30 pm at Homecroft West (Championship)
Lose -> Play 11:00 am at Homecroft West (3rd place)

Lose -> Play 11:00 am at Homecroft East

Win -> Play 1:00 pm at Homecroft East (Consolation champion)
Lose -> Enjoy extra treats!

So if we win Thur we will have two games on Saturday. If we lose on Thur we may have 1 or 2 games on Saturday.

We were good, Spiders were better

We played well tonight, especially on defense and pitching. Our one problem is we couldn't hit the Spiders pitchers. The final score was 6-1.

We saw several great plays at first and pitching from Colin, Neil, Chris and Tim. Colin had an unassisted double play! Ezra stole two bases and got our one run. Special thanks to Michael for coming in to get the last out.

We also discovered we weren't following HGRA rules correctly ...

HGRA BaseBall Rules

...No pitcher may pitch more than two innings per game. The pitched innings must be consecutive. No player may play more than two innings at any one defensive position, except catcher if no other player wishes to catch...

The pitcher innings rule is a bit odd, as we've also been told by the Commissioner that it's not two innings, it's six consecutive outs. The Spiders were ok with that though, the problem is we had Colin on 1st four times.

The rule isn't hard to follow really, so we'll stick to it next time.

Tuesday is our Bandits-family game. We know Luke will miss the Tuesday practice; Ezra will be at practice but will miss the Thursday game. Please let us know of other absences.

Sue Peterson took a team picture, I'll post a scan once I get a copy. Thanks Sue!

Last regular season game, parents practice, treats and more

It's the last game of the regular season tonight. Next Thursday's game is a playoff game, then Saturday 7/26 is a our last day (see note on playoffs). It may be stormy today, but there's a good chance it will clear by this evening.

We're tied with about four teams for third at the moment. The Spiders are a strong team, but with Luke MT back in the lineup we have new firepower. We may surprise them.

We'll be distributing our strongest hitters throughout the lineup, so the batting order will change.

If anyone can't attend tonight please email me or phone me at 651-336-5548 so we can correct the rotation. Joey O'Connor is bringing treats tonight.

Next Tuesday's practice will be parents vs. Bandits. Grandparents welcome too. The non-Bandits will bat with Bandit bats and will hit on their non-preferred side (ex. righties bat left).

I think Luke MT, Michael and Tim have not yet brought snacks. Let me know if this isn't right. We can cover the Saturday games.

We're going to try to get a team picture in uniform before the 7/26 game. I did do an informal picture before the last practice (Charlie was not there). I'll do another informal picture at next practice.

Let's hope for clear skies tonight!

HGRA Major League 2008 - Tournament and Standings

Our indefatigable commissioner has published the HGRA Majors 2008 Tournament brackets and League Standings:

• HGRA Major League Tournament 2008
• HGRA Major League Standings 2008

The Bandits and the Buckeyes both have a 4-4 record, so I'd say we're tied for fourth place ahead of the Seals, Redhawks and Greys. We're competitive with the Bees who are 5 and 3. The Mustangs are undefeated, and the Spiders are 6 and 1.

My goal is to finish at least in the middle and retain our players, so we're doing pretty good by my standards.

The Tournament starts on Thursday 7/24. The next game is Saturday 7/26 at 8:30 am.

There other potential game times (depending on outcomes) on Saturday 7/26 are:

• 11:00 am: For 3rd place and for pre-consolation champion game
  
• 1:00 pm: Consolation champion.
• 1:30 pm: Champions.

So it can be a long day. Don't forget water and snacks and/or lunch.

Commissioner Merley also wrote:

Note that the Mustangs clinch 1st via the tie breaker (head to head) and the Spiders get 2nd...

... In the case of rain this Thursday, the tournament seedings will be based on current standings regardless of make-up games that are played, if any. Teams should not lose a seeding spot just because they couldn't get a make-up game scheduled.

... remind your kids of the following three critical fielding issues:

1. When fielding a grounder at first, run through the bag (don't stop unless absolutely necessary). [In other words, don't block 1st base!]

2. When awaiting a throw at home or any other base, do not stand in front of the base. A fielder may never "block the base" until they have the ball in their glove.

3. Runners must be allowed to round the base. Fielders awaiting a possible throw must not take a position beside or behind a base that will impede the ordinary path of the base runner.

I'll see everyone at practice tomorrow!

Bandits 3, Redhawks 0

While I was away, the Bandits got a lot better.

Really, great play from both teams.

Ezra wins the sportsmanship award as well as doing a good job getting on base. Luke and Neil combined for a great out on a steal. Win sealing base hit from Joey. Tim did a great job pitching, especially shutting down the Redhawks in the bottom of the 6th. Excellent defensive play from everybody, including great positional sense. I was especially impressed to see everyone looking alert and in the ready position.

I was happy to see good swings, any of them might have connected for big hits.

Coach John is back, catch up, snacks, positions, etc

Tim and I are back and catching up. I've heard some great stories about Bandit play and I was impressed with the gloves at practice today.

Coach Marty tells me players are now more settled in positions. I've added them to the Position spreadsheet. If anyone would like to play a position other than what I have listed please email me at jfaughnan@spamcop.net. I got the list quickly from Coach Marty and I'm sure it's not complete. Marty and Gregg tell me Luke, Chris and Mac have been strong in center field.

I'll work on the rotation for next game, we only have 3 games left, and one is a playoff! We are a good team and I am looking forward to our playoffs.  Remember 7/24 is a playoff game and Sat 7/26 is the Majors Tournament, so try to be around.

Ezra's family is bring a snack tomorrow.

If anyone will miss the game this Thursday please let me know so I can adjust the schedule. It's hard to do that at the last minute.

Gregg and Marty will both miss this Thursday's game. I'm hoping Peter will be able to help out again and I have a score-keeper book I need to rememer to get to him. Steve Warner promised to help out too so I think we'll be ok.

See everyone at the game!

Coach John

Bandits beat Greys 12-7

From coach Gregg: Our Bandits get a taste of victory tonight--we played some much improved defense against the 0-5 Greys....

We were 12-1 in the bottom of the 5th- Michael pitched one inning and gave up only one run. So, we were 12-2 in the bottom of the 6th- Luke P. closed that inning and gave up 5 more. But, in the end we had enough, final: 12-7. The boys were happy.

Luke MT can pitch now (he did not pitch tonight). He cannot bat, but the umpire allowed him to play defense. Neil has a sore elbow, so we gave him lighter duty and he didn't pitch tonight either.

Peter ran the bench tonight and kept score, too. Thanks Peter. And, Joe (Joey's Dad) was happy to coach third base...

Directions to Riverside 1 field (tonight)

I've discovered the HGRA web site doesn't have directions to Riverside One field.

5 – Riverside 1 – (Lexington and W. 7th, by the school bulding.)

You can see it on Google maps.

When I go south down Lexington, I turn left on Albion Ave (just before Lex meets 7th) then look to park. I think there's school parking we can use.

There are two fields seen in the sat map, I don't know which we use. The north one looks bigger.

HGRA All Star Game - Sunday June 22nd - RSVP by 6/13

The All Star Game is 12 days away. We have to give Commissioner Dennis our player list by the 14th at the latest.

Eligible bandits include:

Miles Austin
Michael Brauns
Neil Gaworski
Joey Oconnor
Luke Peterson
McKinley Skinner

Collin Marrone (will play)
Tim Faughnan (will be away)

Please email coach John at jfaughnan@spamcop.net and let us know if your Bandit can play.

Here's some more information ...

all star 08

HGRA’s major league all star game is scheduled for Sunday, June 22. Here are the important details:

1. All Major Leaguers with birthdates before 8-31-97 are eligible. This is our way of rewarding the kids who stay with the league.

2. We generally play two games – one at 12:30 and one at 3:00. Players are assigned to the teams at random. We will notify them of which game they are in during the week leading up to the game.

3. The games are loads of fun – we give the kids all-star shirts, have an announcer and sound system, play games and contests between innings and have a concession stand.

4. The game will be played at the Highland Senior High softball field that we regularly use.

Thanks for helping get us this information!

Update: Our All Star Bandits will be

Miles Austin
Michael Brauns
Neil Gaworski
Joey Oconnor
Colin Marrone

NO GAME today - absences, rotations and snacks

Update 5:45 pm

Game is off for today. Marty is phoning and Emily sent out an email. Very stormy!

For the next game if anyone won't be attending please let us know so we can revise rotations.

We're going to try a different rotation pattern. We'll have one player with a strong glove in the outfield (LF or CF depending on corresponding infielder) and we'll rotate less confident gloves into 3rd base and 2nd base.

We'll probably double up on snacks next game!

Practice tonight – dress warmly! Also, notice of site updates

Tonight’s practice seems like a milder version of our game

Saint Paul Weather Forecasts on Yahoo! Weather

Tonight: Cloudy with a few showers. Low near 55F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.

We all know now (I’ve learned my lesson) to have rain jackets, two layers of shirt (long sleeved and short sleeved), etc. A pair of lightweight cotton/wool gloves and/or batting gloves can help too.

I doubt we’ll cancel practice but if we do I’ll update here and send email.

I was asked about getting email notifications when this page changes. The service we’re using for this blog (Google’s Blogger) doesn’t provide email notification of changes. Instead it handles notifications through a “feed” which is consumed by a “feed reader”.

Feed readers are newer tools, mostly used by geeks like me. There are services that will send you email whenever a page changes. I’ve used www.changedetection.com/monitor.html. If you give them the address of http://hgrabaseball.blogspot.com/ and your email you’ll get emailed with every change to this page, including new or revised articles.

In terms of feed readers, I use bloglines as my personal feed reader, Google Reader is also popular. These are web-based “feed readers”.

In addition to these web based solutions, the latest version of OS X Mail.app (10.5.3) will handle feed changes as though they were email; Outlook 2007 will do this as well. Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, and Safari 3 will all track feeds and notify users of changes. IE does the nicest job of this set. See the application help files for more information.

For major things, like a game or practice cancellation, I do send out an email to every Bandit address I know of.

Lessons from a forgetable game - this is Minnesota

Only one coach was properly dressed tonight, and he had to surrender his jacket to the cause (His son, however, wasn't dressed properly!).

Most of our players were so cold they were playing less than their best. It's hard to play ball when you're shivering.

We're going to forget everything about this game -- except that players and coaches need to dress for the weather.
I've added a new paragraph to our orientation handout:

Welcome to the Bandits (Team 5)

...Weather: This is Minnesota. We've had near freezing rain at the end of May and boiling heat in June. Water for hot days is essential. On cold days wear layers beneath the jersey. One layer can be a rain jacket with hood, another good combination is T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt/turtleneck, and then jersey...

Phew.

Also, please be sure caps have names in them.

Next week, we're back to practice and we play ball again. Let us speak no more of whatever team we played against tonight!

Bandits news: game, coaches away, etc

A few sundry Bandits announcements

• Please let John (jfaughnan@spamcop.net) know of anyone besides Luke MT who won't play tomorrow -# 4 – Highland Senior High north softball field (Snelling & Montreal)
• Chris Kelley is bringing snacks tomorrow. (See the position and snack schedule.)
• Please be at the game field by 6:10 pm.
• Coach John Faughnan will be away from June 17 to July 2nd. Marty is away @ June 21. So we're recruiting backup coaches to fill in. John can help with creating the rotation schedule (hardest part of the job!) while traveling. Please let us know of your vacation plans if possible so we can adjust rotations. (See Bandits Calendar for known absences.)
• We'll be looking for parent volunteers to help keep score during the game and to record noteworthy plays so we can mention them during our post-game huddle.
• We're looking for used (i.e. affordable) pitching machines and hitting aides (es. Joe Mauer hitting thingie). If you see a good option on Craigslist or know of one please email John.
• We're going to work on an outing to a fun spot with a pitching machine. More later ...

Game Two: An honorable defeat

It was an honorable defeat!

After falling behind 7-0 after the 3rd inning we battled back to a final 8-7 count. Eli had a great hit at the bottom of the ninth, but the Spiders fielded it too well for us. It was a good game for Eli, with nice contact and good fielding action.

We coaches were very happy to see players swinging! Sure, it's best to swing at strikes, but good things happen when players swing. We got good hits off some definite balls!

We had routinely great fielding from our pitchers (Mac, Neil, Chris), 2nd (Neil, Mac) and 1st (Chris, Collin, Luke). Collin had our first single man double play of the season.

We had good success with bat control by assigning one player each inning to be 'guardian of the bats'. We also had improved bench control by asking 2-3 players individually to be good examples for their teammates. We'll continue both measures.

Next game we're going to ask a parent volunteer to track special plays and hits, so we can mention them at a post-game huddle. It's hard for us to keep track of them. Thank you to our parent volunteers who verified the score and coached 1st base, and to Neil's Dad for snacks. Thanks also to parents who gave us advanced notice that their players would be away.

Advanced notice is everything. One of our most time consuming tasks is preparing batting order and fielding positions; advance notice makes that time pay off.

As per a prior post we've updated the HGRA Majors Bandits 2008 Positions document (see link on left side of page). I still need jersey numbers for Luke MT, John Akimoto and Michael Brauns as they were absent today. I've put treat dates on the document so you can see when you're do. I'll try to fill in more dates by email and at practice. Take a look and send me your choices!

See everyone on Tuesday, have a safe and fun holiday weekend.

Luke MT is on disabled list - but will be helping the team

Luke MT jammed his finger on a football, and suffered a relatively minor finger fracture.

Problem is, this sort of fracture requires surgery to get the best long term results.

Luke had his surgery May 22, and will be on the disabled list for four weeks.

He'll be helping at practice though with soft toss, drills, and helping teach some of our players. He'll also be keeping score at games, tracking outs, managing the bats, coaching 3rd base, and other key game tasks.

He'll be able to hit in about four weeks and field in 5-6 weeks.

Bandits links - calendar, player names and positions, etc.

I've reorganized the links on the left side of this page. Here's what they are at this time with some explanation.

Google calendar HGRA Bandits: This is a Bandits only calendar. It will show when players will be absent, our practices, details on special events, etc. If you click on this link you'll see a web view of the calendar. [1]

HGRA baseball official site: The official HGRA baseball site.

HGRA Major League 2008 Calendar (PDF): The official HGRA Calendar (PDF)

Player Positions: Player names, numbers and positions. Sometimes this will be nonsensical. For example, right now there's no relationship between the players and the positions listed, we're just working on today's rotation. You can print this and bring it to practices, but know that rotations change pretty dynamically. We will add some info on players to help with cheering and following the team.

Welcome to the 2008 Bandits!: The general orientation document for new people.

--

There are some technical sorts among this year's Bandits -- and even among their parents! For their benefit, some footnotes.

[1] The icon at bottom right of the web page will add this calendar to your Gmail account so you can overlay it with your other Google Calendars.

[1] Ok, so you're really hard core. This link will support import of the ICS data into your .Mac calendar or other iCal compliant calendar.

[1] Even more cutting edge? Here's the feed link so you get notified of calendar changes in your feed reader.

[1] Ok, so you're ready for the 21st century. If you'd like to be able to directly enter times your player will miss practice or games please email me and I'll add you as an editor. You'll need a Gmail account.

Player roster - interest?

Sue asked:

HGRA Baseball Saint Paul: Big thanks to the parents who helped out at practice

...wondering if we could get a list of the roster names and numbers...

I'll put something together, but probably not until next week. The list the coaches use just needs a few edits.

I don't like to put information about minors on the public net, especially with phone numbers, but I'm fine with printing something to distribute on paper or emailing a PDF to players/family. That's a common practice on sports teams. I'll just ask if there are any objections once I have one to circulate.

Big thanks to the parents who helped out at practice

Thanks guys (happened to be all guys).

It was a terrific to have your help at practice. Please, keep helping out!

For everyone who'd like to keep warm during practice or a game, or help make this a good season for your child, we really welcome helpers.

HGRA teams always have a very wide range of ability, maturity and confidence, especially in this age range.

Even if your ball skills are similar to mine (pretty low, though I'm improving with practice) you can give one-on-one personal attention to a player who's restless or anxious. Anyone who can walk quickly can help cover open outfield positions or get the ball to a batting coach/parent.

Some players will benefit from a break to do some soft toss (minimal coaching skills required). Others can field grounders -- where an erratic throwing arm can be a feature.

So if you ever played organized ball -- you can help with the main group. Otherwise you can help with everyone!