On 3/25/2019 at 11:20 PM, Koz said:

Hopefully this helps him start to turn the corner in more ways than just baseball.

Good time to have a conversation about personal development as well.  Good job noticing these things.  Your a great dad.

 

I decided to retire the Dog Town deck.  It was my first deck, getting back into skateboarding after 25 years.  It's perfectly broken in, so I wanted to keep it in that condition.  Sort of freeze the moment.  Decks are cheap, so I picked up a shop deck.  Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Bridge on Rt. 490 spans the Genesee River in the heart of Rochester.  We all refer to it locally as the "Freddy-Sue." The deck is a collaboration between Krudco Skates and GoodKnews Photography.

 

8 hours ago, Harold Scoggins said:

Thanks for sharing this. I use to umpire games up until about 15 years ago. Gave it up when some of parents started getting verbally abusive towards the kids. I do miss it.

With every team I coach (rec/travel/school) I have a player/parent meeting before the first practice and outline the code of conduct for the year. Among the items on my list are abuse of umpires. I let them know that I have no problem benching or cutting a player if the parents misbehave.

 

 

1 hour ago, Koz said:

With every team I coach (rec/travel/school) I have a player/parent meeting before the first practice and outline the code of conduct for the year. Among the items on my list are abuse of umpires. I let them know that I have no problem benching or cutting a player if the parents misbehave.

I get where you're going with that and it can be an effective deterrent (at player/parent meeting) - but if you take that action, it seems like punishing the player for somebody else's actions isn't fair. Just thinking of it from the kid's perspective. I don't envy you for having to deal with hot headed parents. Have you ever had to follow through with it?

 

To be clear, thanks for what you're doing. While there are certainly limits, I think most kids learn a lot more about respect (and life) from a tough coach than from an everybody's-a-winner coach. Just a little opinion there.

 

 

7 hours ago, haggard said:

I get where you're going with that and it can be an effective deterrent (at player/parent meeting) - but if you take that action, it seems like punishing the player for somebody else's actions isn't fair. Just thinking of it from the kid's perspective. I don't envy you for having to deal with hot headed parents. Have you ever had to follow through with it?

 

To be clear, thanks for what you're doing. While there are certainly limits, I think most kids learn a lot more about respect (and life) from a tough coach than from an everybody's-a-winner coach. Just a little opinion there.

 

 

I've never had to bench or boot a kid because of the actions of a parent. But there have been a few kids that I did not select for my travel teams because I knew their parents were nightmares at the ballpark. These were parents that either were involved in fights at the ballpark, constantly berated umpires, or had public intoxication issues at previous games. I felt bad for the kids in those situations, but it would not have been fair to the team to have to put up with that stuff.

 

I've coached long enough in my town that most parents in my son's age group know me.  In rec league ball we have a player draft but parents are allowed to request coaches. I'm proud that I'm usually the most requested coach. That's not because of a reputation for winning rec league championships (I've never won one) but because I'm a teacher of the game. My goal is that on the last day of the season every player is a better player than they were on the first day of the season.

 

There are a lot of coaches that bury their marginal and poor players on the bench as much as possible and basically ignore them at practice. I'm a "skills and drills" coach rather than a "let's hit balls at kids and take batting practice coach". My job is to teach ALL players what they need to know so they are prepared for high school and college ball, not worry about winning plastic rec league trophies. I don't bury the less skilled players in the outfield. Everyone plays infield and outfield every game, and everyone takes a turn on the bench. I also change the batter order every game so the less skilled players get their turn batting at the top of the order. My own son happens to be one of the top ranked players each year and even he sits the bench.

 

But travel ball is a completely different animal. We are in it to win it every tournament. Playing time is based upon merit. A player might only get a few at bats all weekend if they have attitude or performance issues. If a player is slumping he has to play his own way into the lineup. That can ruffle a few feathers at times, especially when we have a player new to our team. But parents have seen me bench my own son or move him down in the order when he is in a slump, but some still aren't happy. But being a role player or bench player is also part of learning the game.

 

Didn't know we were 1024th Indian ???

1 hour ago, NHBull said:

Didn't know we were 1024th Indian ???

 

I wish I could do that, these days I'm sporting the '70's cut. I'm parting my hair down the middle wide enough that Moses would be proud of.

 

So yeah, these days I'm missing shingles on the roof and got snow at the eves.

Are you a Fluevoger?

That groundhog is so fired!

10 minutes ago, Harold Scoggins said:

That groundhog is so fired!

Can we bar-b-cue him?

Not a local picture but still made me laugh ~

 

 

A-Jay

7 hours ago, Harold Scoggins said:

That groundhog is so fired!

Actually, he was right just not for your region. His forecast was for Florida where he has a summer home. 

14 minutes ago, Gundog said:

Actually, he was right just not for your region. His forecast was for Florida where he has a summer home. 

(lying varmint)

A nice sunny spring day, fishing an urban canal......

 

 

Not my picture, but my buddy that runs the guide service I guide for, who is also now the video editor for Milliken Fishing, got a hilarious picture of his dog going full send mode on a squirrel that he saw on the bank. It was actually taken from Ben's GoPro. 

A-Jay

Started building a fireplace today in an old building that used to be the town courthouse in the 1800s/early 1900s and was the local legion branch for years. Had to cut a hole out the wall to run the fresh air intake, you know your working on an OLD building when the insulation is sawdust! 

Took our boys to Monster Jam the other day. Them guys can get those huge trucks a long ways up in the air, although the landing cost Bigfoot a tire immediately after I took this picture.

Wish they had these at all lakes. Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge.

8 hours ago, Harold Scoggins said:

Wish they had these at all lakes. Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge.

We have them at every state owned launch.  They're often filled and surrounded by litter.  I suppose it makes my job easier, having the trash in one place.

1 hour ago, J Francho said:

We have them at every state owned launch.  They're often filled and surrounded by litter.  I suppose it makes my job easier, having the trash in one place.

We just had an annual clean up at our local refuge and at one lake I was picking up trash in the parking lot that had two dumpsters on either side of the lot.

NY won't pay for trash cans, so people just dump their crap at the ramp.  I always carry a trash bag, and pick up when I leave.  It's common practice for many anglers that use the ramp.  Most of the junk comes from shore anglers and kids partying at night.

Good and scratched up!

 

The water where I live is so corrosive and hard that when I tried to change this customers filter the 1 inch steel connection snapped off in the filter housing. Water was only flowing through that tiny opening. 

A-Jay