How is it possible that another week went by so fast? Warp speed
Last weekend was our first foray into baseball. Two scrimmages in two day. The biggest relief was finally seeing the boy on the mound. Not a bad first outing. Two strike outs, a walk and pop up to get out of the inning. 23 pitches total, with a 57% strike to ball ratio. Room for improvement, yes. But when you start where he started from, it’s a huge milestone. Pop Pop and Mom Mom made the trip to watch him, which made it even more special. It’s been a long 4 months of work.
Tuesday, the dog walker once again came. Much like the boy, there is slow progress. The star pupil came roaring back this week. She’s really getting her sit, stay and come command down. The lay command is still a work in a progress.
That night, we headed to his first practice in months. But the highlight, was taking him out for 10 minutes to talk with Tom House. I love how he works with the young guys. As soon as he started and got into his energy angle, Tom said back up the video, “best angle of the night. For all of you older guys, this is what I’m talking about for a perfect energy angle.” That was the good part. The bad, Zachary somehow lost his equal and opposite over the past few months. That change is causing his glove to not be over the foot and causes his head to move toward first base at release. Which is funny, because we noticed his head movement, we just didn’t know how to fix it. Something new to correct. Tom told him you get that and your mechanics will be perfect. He taught Nolan Ryan this very mechanic. So I like to yell, Come On Nolan to Zachary.
Funny Nolan Ryan story that Tom likes to tell. He was the pitching coach and Don Zimmerman told him to go tell Nolan that his day was over. Tom said he sauntered out to the mound. Nolan took one look at him and said get the hell off my mound. So, he sauntered back and Don said, that didn’t go well. The next inning, Nolan was still struggling so Don went out. Two second later he came back into the dugout, sat next to Tom, with no Nolan. Tom said, didn’t go well, right. They both laughed.
Finally, spring is upon us. My grandmother’s daffodils made their first appearance this week. It always puts a smile on my face….yay
Which gets us to the rest of the week. Many, many reps to make that correction. And it’s not been easy. He’s closer, but still not perfect. They like to say 1000 perfect reps is what it takes to change a behavior. Oh boy, that might be true with this one. The funny part, Jordan asked how old are you Zach? And when he said 10, you can hear Tom say he’s only 10. Jordan joked with him that all of the older guys are laughing because they can’t believe how good he throws. So, in a nutshell it’s all about the progress.
