Little League and layups

I spent a few hours this evening watching my nephews little league team try and advance to the league championship game

I have to send out props to my nephew, we'll call him Pudge, on his little league season. It didn't end how he envisioned it, his team lost in league semi-finals. As far as an individual performance, Pudge made what one of the fans at the game called the greatest play he'd ever seen at a little league game.

There were two men on base, and I believe one guy out. The batter smacked the ball out of the infield. The runner on second scored easily, and the guy on first was going to test the arm, and accuracy of the defense.

As he rounded third and headed home, the throw came into Pudge ( I think I forgot to mention, he plays catcher, hence the name Pudge( The Tigers catcher))on a hop, he scooped the ball up, and turned to see a kid twice his size come barreling into home plate.

Pudge held his position in front of the plate, and held onto the ball for dear life, as the runner threw him down to the ground. The Ump checked to make sure Pudge still had the ball, which he did, and called the runner out at the plate.

This kept Pudge team in the game. They were only down a run, when it could have been 2 runs, with one out and a guy at second. Instead there were two outs with the guy on second, and his team left him stranded there, as the next batter struck out.

I ended my evening, by playing my Tuesday night game.

Growing up, I always felt that it was inexcusable to miss a layup, I probably yelled at my teammates if they blew what I felt was an easy layup. (I'm not big into yelling at teammates anymore, I prefer to keep it all bottled up inside of me.) All you have to do is lay the ball off the backboard, or directly into the basket.

It sounds simple, but tonight, I just couldn't finish, and it was the most frustrating thing in the word. Mentally I was telling myself it's because I was still out of synch from the Pittsburgh life, that I had no rhythm, but still, these were layups that I should have finished.

One theory is that I was getting to far under the basket, before I would put the ball up, if thats the case, it shouldn't be to difficult to fix, and that will come back as I get back in the flow of the game.

Whatever the case may be, I gotta figure it out, and finish at the hoop, because nothing sucks more than beating your guy off the dribble, making a move to the hoop, and watching it bounce off the rim.

Which is the opposite of what Wesley Snipes told Woody Harrelson in White Man Can't Jump, it doesn't matter if it goes in or not, as long as you look good doing it. There was a time I subscribed to that theory, and even quoted Wesley, but of course in those days I wasn't missing most of my layups, so I was able to trash talk my opponent if they made an ugly shot. Who would have though, bad information from a sports movie...