Sounds like big league ball

The playoffs are just around the corner and I have had some time to reflect on my oldest son's first season of real baseball. Well, it was real baseball in the sense that there were three outs and strikes, even though there were 5 strikes allowed per bat appearance.

Around here, kids get 2 to 3 years of t-ball slash coach-pitch before going on to one year of machine pitch and after that, the kids pitch to kids.

After one year of coach-pitch I recognized my son was a little more advanced in baseball than of the many kids in his league. So I cheated the system a hair and lied about his grade in order to move him up to machine pitch. Machine pitch is a developmental league where they go over the fundamentals and more importantly, runs and outs mean something whereas previous years teams switched sides every six batters and runs and outs had no consequence. Well, moving him up worked out wonderfully and he gets another year of machine pitch whereas the kids he played with will go on to kid pitch.

Anyway, my future big leaguer is urging me to be a coach after and I've been thinking how I could top his first year. His team went to the championship game and lost by one run. Actually, I thought it was fortunate to come in 2nd place in the first year in organized ball. It leaves the kids hungry and I'm sure it will drive them to try just that much harder in the years to come.

Over the course of the developmental league season, I noticed the coaches constantly barking out the same things. "Force at one," "force at two," "force at any bag," and other vital pieces of communication. So I had this idea that instead of hearing these commands over and over, it would be fun to hear things you would hear at a major league game. "Programs! Get your programs here!" and "Peanuts, popcorn.. Cracker Jacks!" Imagine the other teams' reactions to hearing coaches calling out "Lemonade.. Lemonade.. Just like Grandma made!"

To make this work, you would have to call these commands while practicing the plays so the kids knew instinctively what it meant come game time. Here's what these coded commands could be:

Klondike.. alerting the catcher there's a pop-up he can catch for an out.

Cotton Candy... Make the easiest or closest out, even at home plate.

Hot Apple Pie (in the sky).. letting the runners know to stay close to the bag in case of pop up

Peanuts, Popcorn, Cracker Jacks.. Force out at 1st, 2nd, or 3rd

Lemonade, Lemonade...There are two outs and runners need to be running on contact

Cold beer here! Telling the runner on 2nd he should be looking to go home if ball goes to outfield (2nd graders like to slide into every bag for some reason).

Well, I could go on and on but to keep things from getting too complicated I'll start with these. If they work well, I'll expand into "Foam Fingers" and "Souvenirs!"