Written by Coach Michael DeCarlo

Reason # 2 on why baseball is the greatest game.

When each player focuses on his responsibilities and fundamentals the team plays better than the sum of its individual parts.

There is a certain beauty and rhythm to a baseball play in which teammates connect to make outs. A ground ball to 3rd starts out with some nifty glove work, then some footwork to put the body in position to make a strong throw as the first baseman lies in wait to glove the throw with a stretch in which his foot must stay in contact with first base. A batter drives a hard shot into the outfield ticketed for extra bases and the outfielder swiftly tracks the balls path, anticipates were the ball will be coming down for a safe landing and eliminates the hitters need to run by putting the would be double into the coffin on his hand. With a man on first and a line drive hit up the middle the shortstop snags it out of the air and reverses its path back to first base quicker than the baserunner can giving his team 2 outs on one batted ball. The rhythm of a batting line up moving like a congo line with hard hit shots coming off every musicians bat as base runners sprint around the bases while not going to far as to run into and out. We expect to see these things of beauty at a big league game but when a team of 7 year olds architect a baseball Picasso like that it is special.

All of this can only be accomplished if players focus on their duty at hand whatever that may be during the ebb and flow of a ballgame. If the 3rd baseman is worried about the first baseman catching his throw he probably won't even catch the groundball to make the throw, if the outfielder is worried about his outfield neighbor not covering his ground he probably won't be in position to track the fly ball once hit into his neighborhood, if the shortstop is worried about his second baseman covering second for him he probably won't be ready to catch a line drive let alone know where to throw the ball if he does catch one and if a hitter is worried about what the next hitter will do after he hits he probably won't be on base when the next batter hits.

I believe all our players learned something about the greatest game of baseball this weekend and more importantly also learned a life lesson of perseverance. And for all you fans who supported us I hope you now understand reason #28 on why baseball is the greatest game if you didn't already. Because when you care about who wins each pitch is an opportunity for a special play to happen for or against you and you never know what play may alter a players focus therefore making every pitch count!

Get local exposure by purchasing ad space here.

Attention Business Owners!!! OVLL now has the ability to place ads on its website. The best news is 100% of the ad sales go directly to Ocean View Little League. The ads can be as simple as a banner displaying your business name, or as complex as an animated ad that links directly to your company website. You can provide your own banner or we will create one for you.

For $150 / year (coincides with Little League seasons of spring and winter, not calendar year) we are selling the banner space at the top of our website. The banners placed on the site will share a rotation schedule. The rotation schedule will be equally divided by the number of sponsors who place banners on the site. I.E. if there were 10 banners (from 10 sponsors), then your banner would come up on the website every tenth time the page was loaded. As new sponsors are added the rotation schedule adjusts according to the number of banners. We can offer priority to certain banners at a fee we have not yet determined, i.e. have your banner come up every third time the page was loaded. Since we don't have too many sponsors signed up yet, this may not be applicable until future years when this catches on.

Please contact Dave Beran for cost details and Ken Deleske for banner details.

Send a Message to Your Favorite Athlete!

Are you proud of your young athlete? Do you want to send a message for the WHOLE LEAGUE to see? For a $10 donation we can put a message to run for a week. Contact Dave Beran for donation and Ken Deleske for message details.