Junior Year Box Set

After breakfast, we had our morning meeting in the conference room. The coaches showed us highlights from yesterday’s game and pointed out what we needed to work on. One of the plays that failed was a rundown between first and second. That’s where a runner is caught in no-man’s-land between bases, and the defense tosses the ball back and forth until they can tag him.

The Stripes base runner took a big lead at first. He must have had a brain cramp when the pitcher tried to pick him off because he didn’t even try to get back to the bag. When Dave caught the ball, he did what he was supposed to: run towards the base runner to either tag him or, when he approached second, toss the ball. Dave ended up hitting the runner in the back, and he was safe at second.

“When we hit the field today, we’ll practice rundowns. I just want to point out that Dave did almost everything right, but he wasn’t in position to make a clean throw. From looking at where Mitch is at short and where Dave ran, it’s clear that we haven’t played enough together to make this play. Both Mitch and Dave should have taken an inside line,” Coach Kingwood observed.

What you didn’t do in a rundown was follow right behind the runner down the basepath. The best approach was to be a couple of steps inside the basepath. That did two things for you. The first was that it gave you an unobstructed throw to the other fielder. It would have prevented Dave from having to either throw over the base runner or hit him with the throw. The second was that if there were other runners on base, you could both see them clearly and have a clean throw if they took off. If you set up outside the basepath, you might have the runner between you and where you wanted to either see or throw.

Coach Kingwood then told everyone that we were mixing up tonight’s lineup. All the players who didn’t get to play last night would start tonight. The only one he would keep in the lineup was me, but I would be the designated hitter and bat fourth. The plan was for everyone to get a chance at playing, and in my case, show off my hitting in the cleanup spot instead of leading off.

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When the meeting was over, we took the bus to Urban Youth Academy, where they had two ball fields for us to practice on. We got one, and the Stripes practiced on the other one. I led our group off the bus and warmed them up.

“Dawson, you’re with the infield today,” Coach Kingwood announced.

When he had the infielders gathered around, he told us what we were going to do.

“I want David to act as the base runner because if you can get him out, everyone else will be easy.”

“He won’t be a problem,” Dave said confidently.

Silly boy, he should never have challenged me like that. I planned to make him eat those words.

The idea behind a rundown is to get the base runner to run towards the other base. The fielder covering the base is supposed to run towards the oncoming runner. You toss the ball to the fielder, and the base runner has to stop to turn around and run back. This gives a considerable advantage to the fielder because he’s already running and doesn’t have to change directions, making it an easy play.

For me, as the base runner, this was a game of tag. In my head, I was hearing MC Hammer singing You Can’t Touch This as I put on my running cleats.

“In the first scenario, I want David to get a lead at first. When Allard makes his move to first, David takes off as if to steal second,” Coach Kingwood directed.

I took a decent lead and waited for Allard to make his move. When he did, I made a big show of going to second. Dave wasn’t taking any chances and fired the ball to Mitch at short. I only took one big step towards second and ran back towards first. In my head, fireworks were going off, and they were having a parade in my honor as I did a happy dance on the float. What I showed to the rest of the world was an encouraging look for Dave. I was a team player, after all.

“You have to get the base runner moving. Do it again, but let’s make sure David is actually forced to second,” Coach Kingwood taught.

On the next play, I stood there when the ball got to Dave and smiled at him. Dave got a determined look and began to jog towards me. I ran backward. I was about halfway down the baseline when Dave pulled the ball out of his glove and tossed it to Mitch. As soon as he started to throw, I exploded back towards first where someone was supposed to be covering the bag. No one had thought to cover first, and I beat Mitch by a mile as he tried to run me down.

To his credit, Coach Kingwood kept his cool. He sent me to the outfield to practice while he worked with the infielders on fundamentals. This was basic stuff that they’d all learned in Little League. After thirty minutes, he was satisfied they could catch me, so I was brought back.