MJB

The finishing touches were put on the Orange field last night and today. I had to add some soil & Turface around 2nd and 3rd as well as the mound to get it back to opening day status for the tournament.  We really fight the midday and afternoon Southerly winds over here and it is hard to keep dirt where it needs to be, it is a constant battle.  Rest assured, it was well packed with quality rental equipment, lol. I had an afternoon visitor today surveying the field, any guess who that might have been?  Needless to say, if he happens to get by us in the morning, I have him beat in the H2 contest, lol. Good luck to everyone and I think it will be a great event with good competition.  A comment was made today about all the coaches getting along.  It seems that is the trend these days. See you guys tomorrow in Orange. 

Each game the team seems to improve in some aspect.  The more time they spend together, the more cohesive they get.  They never let a player get down and do a great job of keeping each other motivated. It's a great team to watch play aggressive baseball

From what I now gather at this late hour, Vidor and Orange will be hosting this year's event.  We will work our best to get Orange in good condition in the next two days.  We are on short notice to say the least, lol. Orange has a few teams that should do well.  The Indians, Twins and Yankees might have a chance. 

Orange has 9 Pinto teams that will attend.  I think the 12 number came from the Shetland division, we are heavy at that age group.

Registration dates have been selected for the upcoming Spring 2010 Season: When? January 9th, 16th from 9am to 3pm and January 23rd from 9am to Noon Where? OYBS Field House (Memorial Field) off IH10 Frontage Road Ages? Instructional (3-4) Shetland (5-6) Pinto (7-8) Mustang (9-10) Bronco (11-12) Pony (13-14) We look forward to seeing everyone for another great year

Congratulations to Vidor for winning the Championship, they did a great job. Special kudos to the Vidor 1st baseman for taking a bad hop right in the nose and then coming back in the next inning. I did see some poor conduct from the TC coaches by telling their catcher to not present a target for the Orange pitcher. After the Orange bats got hot he was instructed to keep his glove on the ground or on his knee and most all the balls went to the backstop, thus extending the game even longer. The TC coaches kept asking for a warning as they felt the Orange pitcher was communicating with the batters when in fact he was inquiring if the TC catcher was OK as he kept getting hit by pitches from not having his glove up. Great job to all that worked the park, countless hours went into getting the field in shape and it was appreciated.

It has been raining all morning pretty hard in Bridge City. We need the rain but I think it might be too much for the PA field. I would like to see some games tonight though. Those in the know, please keep us posted.

Any idea how much rain has come down at the PA Complex today? I know it needed some water but it might be too much. Please update if there are any cancellations for tonight's game.

Orange 2 defeated TC2 20-0. Orange 2 plays winner of Vidor 2 / PA at 7:30 Sunday. When I left the park it was 7-6 after 3 innings with PA leading.

Great Recap of Monday's Play. The little catcher from Groves is great entertainment. If anyone has a say, please keep those two Monday Night umpires off the field until they get their vision checked and brush up on the rules of the game regarding tagging base runners and fielder interference at second base. It was a good game but there would have been a few more HR's for Orange if they could have touched 2nd base without having to stop and stick a foot between the fielder's feet to make contact and head to 3rd. There were a lot of bad calls in the late game that went both ways. I am glad Orange came out with a win, they battled late in the game to get the outs needed to win.

Orange 2 (Red Sox) won a good game over Groves 1. Personally it was a sweet victory for me as the same cackling, unruly fan I had to deal with at the Groves Pinto event had a player on the Groves 1 team we beat. A fan should never act like that, never. It makes me want to climb the fence and give them a lecture on ethics when they erupt in cheer when a player at this level strikes out. That is completely uncalled for with kids at this level. Our game has been moved to 3pm from the 1:30 slot for Sunday/ We played on the third from the back field and it was great, you could tell they spent some time over the last few weeks prepping. Great job to Vidor on that field. I wish we had that to play on in Orange.

Orange Pony Pinto will be determined by the best record in league play, which is TGreen at this point. The coach with the most wins has "first right of refusal".

I would agree with TD on the fact that BCLL works with the kids that play both league and select. I live very near the BCLL park and we play in Orange due to several factors. BCLL has a great organization and we have played one year there but Orange Pony offered more convenience and the fact my youngest could "play up" over his age group at the time. I plan to play in Orange for two more years unless things change. BC is a small community and the league only draws from BC and Orangefield. I only know of maybe one kid that lived in Orange and played BCLL and I think he is only select now. I might be way off but I do not think there is much infusion from outside the BC area. They do a good job of capturing all the available players and the park is packed every night of the week except Sunday. I think every boy in BC plays ball over there.

This is very true of the Orange Pinto Division. The Red Sox with TGreen at the helm have 3 All Star candidates(returning All Stars) and the other 8 teams all have maybe one or two each. There is not really a stacked team in Orange. From the looks of this tournament, Vidor does look to be the ones to be on top this year.

There was some good play out there from what I have heard. There are only 2 Orange Teams left from what I have gathered, TGreen's and the Nationals. I might be a sore loser but things just did not go our way in Groves and I am not too sure I will go back over there to play in future events. It bothers me a little when the opposing fans erupt in cheer when a 7 year old gets struck out by a coach pitcher, even if the game is tied up. I think we had a couple of "decent" umpires but they were not great. Our coach pitcher was reprimanded and I do mean reprimanded when he handed the player, who just scored a run, the bat to take to the dugout and commented "Great Hit". He did it twice and was cautioned the second time again. I know two coach pitchers that complimented their batters at the Port Arthur fields today. They were not coaching, just complimenting them. The second issue was the opposing coach pitcher bursting out onto the field of play between 2nd, 3rd and the mound while the ball was live in order to disrupt play as their left fielder had been hit in the chin while fielding a grounder near the fence. The player had thrown the ball in and then went down. There were already coaches heading out that way and were to him when the other coach came onto the field. I thought that would have been an ejection or something of that nature, instead, our runner that was on 3rd was placed back at 2nd and play resumed. It was obvious it was to stop play and keep a run from scoring in a close game. The injured player was out at the fence near the left field line and they were the home team so it was a straight shot to the player that was down, no coach had any business in the infield where the play was happening. We have a decent team in Orange but it seems that there is some stiff competition in the Vidor ranks. We watched a Vidor team, the Rangers I think, work on another decent Orange team, they were fielding great and banging the ball. Come to find out, today was the only game they have won this year and it was in the tournament.