Fall Baseball

Mark played for the A's in his Fall League.

We let Mark play an intermediate baseball league this Fall. Sadly, it overlapped Dad's Monday night softball league, so we weren't often able to attend both games. Mark really loved the league, though. A guy that we've known forever was coaching, and there was plenty for Mark to learn.

Mark had to get used to leading off. This wasn't a major problem, and he was still a great base-stealer and never got picked off. The harder part was holding runners on when he was pitching. Mark did develop a pretty good move, though, and even picked off a runner or two. Another thing that was different was that batters could run on a dropped third strike. This isn't a huge problem for Mark because he rarely strikes out, and he doesn't really throw anything very wildly.

Mark liked pitching out of the stretch best.

That looks a little high....

We traveled as far as Payson for Mark's games.

The most important difference was the level of competition. Suddenly every kid was pretty good! That made the league really fun for Mark, who has always been a great player. He was still the smoothest fielder on the team, but he was closer to the middle of the pack as a hitter. His pitching was still good enough for the league, and he did very well in each of his outings.

Mark has a great baseball stance.

Mark has always had the highest baseball IQ on his team.

One thing that was difficult in this league was the level of pressure. There were tears over losses and every game seemed like the World Series. This didn't bother Mark much, but we didn't like the feeling that it wasn't as fun as the rec league. Still, Mark loves playing any kind of baseball any time, so we felt it was successful.

Mark made some great new friends on this new team.

We were able to sneak over to one of Dad's games! It was freezing, but we had fun watching Dad play 2nd base and have fun with his team.

Shh! Dad doesn't know he's too old to play!

This is right before Dad slid head first into third base.

Dad plays second because no one hits it very hard there.