Opening Day

So Saturday was opening day at Alta Loma Little League. After the months of planning, prepping, drafting, practice, reading, training and meeting, the big day was here.  For board members, the report time was 6 am, so because I live like 30 minutes away, my depart time was 5:15 am due to having to stop and get gas. I got everything ready the night before with my gear, my uniforms, my shoes in case we were still going to have games.
See, it rained all night Friday night.  Most fields would be like, clear the standing water and you're good to go.  In Rancho Cucamonga though, the Parks & Rec person comes out and checks the moisture in the grass and on the field and if it is too wet, no games will be played.  So the P&R person came out a 7 am, looked at the fields and said the Major/Intermediate field would be closed definitely while the Senior field would probably be ok for the 6 pm game scheduled on it, as long as we worked on it.  But they would come back out at noon to check on the Int/Maj field for the 5 pm and 7:30 pm games to see if everything dried up.  I, of course, was scheduled to do the field at the 11:45 Intermediate game so now I am completely up in limbo.
The pancake breakfast and opening ceremony went well.  I was the emcee for the breakfast, doing raffle prizes, asking baseball trivia questions that were way too hard for today's young baseball fan (where if the answer wasn't Babe Ruth then it was too hard,) and entertaining the players with non-official trivia from time to time that didn't go over the loudspeakers.  When it was time to do the parade of teams, I did the invocation and announced the teams as they paraded by.  We had a challenger division player lead the national anthem and another lead the Little League pledge.  It is such a great league that involved the Challenger division so much in the league and not just an outside program -- one of the things that I love about ALLL.
Ceremony over.  Now it's time to wait.  A bunch of the board members were out on the field with a shop vac picking up standing water, rakes tilling the ground, absorbent mud stuff, trying to get the field ready for the 11:45 Intermediate game.  Steve comes up and asks if I would rather have the plate for the game since there was plenty of time to get ready.  My license cover says, "I'd rather be behind home" so of course I took the opportunity.  So now I'm all dressed and ready to ump a game that may or may not happen.  And if it does happen, it will be a shortened game because there is another game set for 2:30 right behind it.
Lots of waiting.  P&R show up at noon and check the field. Our president walks out with her as she's checking and at one point it looks like he is pleading or saying something like, "Its only 1% off" or something like that.  She says we can play at 12:10, so coaches and board members get the field ready -- drawing lines, getting bases in place.  We get the plate meeting started at 12:20 where we all agree that no new inning is 2 pm, drop dead at 2:15 pm.
The first squat behind the plate and I was already stiff.  I loosen up as the game goes on but having my legs that spread is something I have to get use to again.  I thought my zone was pretty solid.  Steve was helping me with some of my mechanics that need improving which I am extremely grateful for.
Things to work on:

• Break in my plate shoes.  They are nice but my feet are sore from the shoes this morning.
• Get a smaller hat.  I have a bad habit to adjust my hat and mask after each pitch because my hat is drooping.  My fitted hat is too big.
• Standardize my communication with my base ump(s) with my hand signals to be more sharp and directly into the glove..errrr...
• Ankle strength.
• NO FLINCHING!

I love opening day.  Usually I do 3 or 4 games to break my legs in but I only did one yesterday.  My wife is grateful for that.  I have a game on Thursday and then I am off for a week for Spring Break.  I am definitely going to be jonesing shortly here.

It was good to say, "Play Ball" again.

Umpire Clinic

Well, the new baseball year is now 8 days away and with that, umpire trainings have begun.  Last night we had our first half of the umpire training for all the parents and team volunteer umpires and I must say that it was pretty fun.  It was Chris, Hawaii's favorite son Steve and I.  I ended up leading most of it but Steve and Chris chimed in when needed and helped with illustrations.
The format ended up being we went over the local rules first, then we went over the do's and don't's of being an umpire.  After that segment, I wanted to get everyone to look in the rulebook so I gave them 17 common game scenarios and told them to find the rule to back up their ruling in the green book.  This lead to many good discussions on rules -- although it did not cover all of the rules which was ok.  Like I said, I wanted them to get familiar with the book and realize that it was not a foreign language.  This will lead to them reading it and hopefully catching the umpire bug.  It's a good flu.
Saturday is the on the field portion of the umpire clinic.  Chris and Steve probably won't be there so it looks like it may be all me this time.  I'm ok with that but I always like having that backup in case I need some correction (which happens) or some additional insight that I may miss.  2 (and 3) are definitely better than one in this case.
I can't wait for next Saturday!  Opening day!