Sunday, April 8, 2007

team race rules question on rule 28

a team race occured where a boat capsized after the windward mark but before the offset mark. by the time the boat was righted, the competitor simply sailed to finish without complying with rule 28 (his team had one the race with a 1,2).

there is a provision in appendix D that says "When all boats on one team have finished, retired or failed to start, the
race committee may stop the race. The other team’s boats racing at that time shall be scored the points they would have received had they finished."

the other team had finished and the RC simply scored the final boat as a 6.

can the other team protest this boat for a breach of rule 28 and prevail?

emmett's big hit

emmett is playing aa little league. this is the first time that the kids are pitching (boys and girls) to each other. there is a rule that says if a pitcher throws 4 balls, then the coach takes over and finishes up the pitching. some of the coaches are awesome picthers (who could easily strike out little leagers) so a coach from the same team pitches to the players.

emmett's team is called the nationals. the manager (head coach) is coach joey. coach mark and bryan are assistant coaches. so far this season, the nationals have played three games. coach joey and coach mark have done a fine job of pitching when the time came to fill in for the pitchers who were pitching too many balls.

during the last game, when emmett was up to bat, he had 4 balls pitched to him. coach joey gave me the nod and said that I was up to pitch. as a pitcher, you never want to have a coach come in to sub for you. they are under a lot of pressure to pitch for their team so i acknowledged the other side's attempt at pitching and gave the little man a high five and told him he did a great job. baseball at this age is all about having fun and encouraging players to fall in love with the game.

it's an interesting feeling pitching to your own son. of course you want him to do well but there are nerves in your stomach thinking about the possiblity of striking your little guy out (or, heaven forbid, throwing more balls). as i approached the mound i told emmett that my first pitch may be a bad one and if it is, don't swing. my first pitch was miserable...a grounder that rolled by emmett's feet...oh oh. one thing we say to pitchers when they are struggling is to simply pretend they are playing catch with the catcher. my second pitch to emmett was fine and emmett smacked the heck out of it. emmett has always been a big boy. he towers over the rest of his team. the sound the bat made when he crushed the ball was a high fidelity mixture of aluminum and baseball. the ball soared to the outfield. it could have been a double but we were being conservative on base running (to be polite) and ended up being a single.

there are not many times that a pitcher high fives a batter for hitting a good hit but i gave emmett a huge high five for his awesome hit.

Saturday, April 7, 2007

breakfast with grandma

emmett, bryanna and i visited grandma this morning. we had an awesome time. emmett shared some of his music knowledge with grandma. he showed how he could read music, identify a treble clef, the difference between a half note, whole note and quarter note. he showed her what a measure was and the notation to end a song. he solo'd "hot cross buns" to us. he got in a little argument as to what the proper notation was for an A. mom said he was point to a B but emmett insisted it was an A. she looked at me and said emmett really should not be questioning her ability to identify one musical note from another. i agreed and told emmett that mom was right and he should listen to her. we found the note in a book and it turned out emmett was wrong.

bryanna showed grandma some of her favorite pictures that she used to create a story book at school. she gave a lovely slide show and wonderful story of each picture to grandma. grandma loved listening to bryanna.

bryanna also showed grandma a lovely video of emmett and me competing in a speed sailing event in sf bay:
http://homepage.mac.com/sailing/sfspeed.htm
emmett was so proud to share what a talented (and record holding) sailor he is. we set the rave class record for the event. he also loved hangin' with the photographers and race committee for the event. he even told the driver when one of the photographers fell out of the boat (that the driver did not notice).

throw like a girl

i'm a coach for my kid's little league. bryanna is in coach pitch and emmett is in aa. emmett is going to pitch for the first time in his next game. he has a great arm and should do fine.

he's got some pretty big pitching shoes to fill if he's so inclined. his uncle yager was a pitcher. his uncle bobby was a pitcher for the team that won the pennet, was voted MVP and also held the home run record for richardson park in rancho santa fe. his uncle rickey was a pitcher, another MVP for his team and stole more bases than anyone.

today i told emmett i wanted him to throw like a girl...that's because his 13 year old cousin nat (aka peanut) is an all pitcher and was going to give him some tips today. we went to rancho school to throw some balls. emmett's catching was a bit off the pace but i'm glad he got the practice today. nat was awesome. after warming up a bit she was playing catch with him. they were pitching to each other and playing a game to see who could throw more strikes. i think it was good for emmett to see a real pitcher pitching good pitches over and over again. it was also good to see that she too was not perfect and threw balls too. after a solid hour of different drills, emmett was getting pretty bushed. i was really proud of how he did and nat said he had a great arm.

golf on saturday

played golf with goliath, chetty and goliath's dad. i played golf yesterday and hit a bunch of balls so my right forearm was a bit stiff. i just wanted to hold it together today. as i was hitting balls to warm up before the round, i was all over the place. left, right, fades, draws, straight. the problem was that i did not know what shot was going to come next. hitting off the grass range was very helpful since fat shots are truly fat (whereas fat shots off a mat can look grand). i spent a lot of time chipping off the grass range. something that helped my chipping was to keep the left arm straight...no bend in the left elbow to prevent fat or thin chips...i was wild off the tee the previous day so i hit three 4 wood shots off the grass, three chips and three irons...this pattern allowed me to focus on my weak 4 wood and the ever important chips...

first hole...pushed drive to the right of the fairway...it was a grand drive and i had a clean second shot. i hooked my second shot ob...ended up with a triple...not a good start...second hole...ob off the tee...not a good way to start the second hole...ended up with a double...third hole...tee'd up with my seven wood and pushed it...lucked out and had a clean approach...was on the green in regulation and parred. fourth hole...KILLED my drive...chetty said he'd never seen a drive this long on this hole...it was a 250 yd drive but all uphill...got it very close with my second shot and birdied...fifth hole, shot a 180 yard tee shot with my six iron to get up close to the hole for an easy par...sixth hole, nailed another tee shot and got another par...seventh, killed it off the tee. goliath works for taylor made and has a great game...it was fun to out drive his hi tech taylor made driver with my calloway 4 wood. he was giving me shit for not using a driver. i explained that gene sarazen had the best shot in the history of golf with a 4 wood so i figured the more i played with a 4 wood, the luckier i could be. he also told me to get some golf shoes. i play in topsiders (which are awesome to sail in but not the best grip for golf). ended up with a sandy par on the seventh. the 8th was another par three and walked away with a par in regulation. i killed it off the tee on the 9th. used my 4 wood on the approach and was JUST off the green in two...a simple chip away from an eagle...ok, i was on the far side of the green and managed an easy par after missing my birdie putt.

40 on the front nine...not bad after two ob's on the first two holes.

on the back nine goliath insited i play from the blues and use a driver...i psyched myself out with this combo and collected a bunch of bogeys, doubles and triples for an ugly back nine...