Catching fly balls

By Brian Lacy

Spring in a house with two young boys means most of our family free time is not free. It is all spent at the ballpark. Whether it’s practices or games, weeknights or weekends, baseball has claimed a spot on the calendar more days than not over the past three months.

My youngest son is 5, so practice is all about learning how to properly field a ground ball, how to make an accurate throw and how to catch a throw from your teammate. There is a difference between teaching baseball skills and learning baseball strategy. When coaching little kids, you have to focus on skill development. Even the “big kids” who get paid lots of money to play the game spend hours every day working on the most basic skills. The strategy of baseball is too complex for a 5-yearold to comprehend, which leads to a lot of laughter and frustration as coaches yell in-game instructions like, “No; throw the ball to second! You have to tag him! Stop; go back!”

My older son just turned 8, and this season has been the first where playing in the outfield is essential. If you ever played or coached youth baseball, you know during the T-ball and early coach-pitch years the more skilled players are placed on the infield, while those who are still learning the basics set up in the outfield where the ball is rarely hit. After a few years, more balls start sailing into the outfield, and suddenly a baseball team needs skilled players at every position. As parents and coaches, we learned quickly that teaching our boys to catch a fly ball is much harder than it looks.

Imagine how it looks from the eyes of a 7or 8-year-old boy. You’re standing 150 feet from home plate when a ball is hit toward you, but you have no experience judging velocity, trajectory or spin of a baseball, and you’ve never even thought about the wind’s impact on how the ball might carry. Is it coming fast or slow? If I don’t move, will it fly over my head or land in front of me? Can

I run and catch it? Should I jump or dive? Should I play it safe and make sure the ball doesn’t get past me?

Even when you can see the ball coming at you, it’s really hard to predict where it’s going to land. Anytime I see a highlight on TV of a professional baseball player dropping a fly ball, I show it to my son so he understands that even the best people in the business aren’t perfect.

There have been a lot of hard-hit baseballs flying toward Cullman Electric Cooperative over the past year. The TVA rolling blackouts in December were something we’d never experienced before, but questions and concerns about power generation are now a regular topic of discussion. Electric vehicles are coming, but it’s hard to tell how fast. Whether the predictions fall short or exceed expectations, Cullman Electric has to be prepared for a change we know is coming.

The co-op is going through a season of growth unlike anything we’ve seen since the 1960s. It has forced us to evaluate how we approach our work and look for new ways to do business in a new environment. Our employees are setting new records every month for the number of service orders completed, yet despite our best effort, wait times for new service orders often exceed six weeks.

During a recent game, my son’s head coach, after watching several short fly balls fall to the grass, told the players he wanted them to make an effort to catch the ball. Sure, you might miss one, but the coaches will never be upset if you are giving your best effort.

The employees at Cullman Electric aren’t perfect. Sometimes we misjudge or drop a ball. But I promise you we’re giving our best effort to serve our members. When we do fall short, we dust ourselves off and get ready for the next pitch. n

Monday, June 12th

5:30-7 p.m.

Cullman Electric - (1749 Eva Road NE) Grady Smith Community Room