F. U. (Furman University) - and another ball game ...

Wow - I am significantly behind.  Here is a quick update ...

Mal and Uncle Mark in front of the statue at the Furman
Softball complex.

Mallory and Julie headed to Greenville, SC to see her folks - and Mallory attended a softball camp at Furman University.  It was an week long camp and was a chance for her to be seen by the college coaches there.   Mallory had a great week there and they worked hard - each day was long and hard - and ended with inter-camp scrimmages.  Julie said she looked great and played awesome!  Coach Jenkins did tell the campers that Furman does not offer full ride scholarships, but offers partial scholarships - so it is something we will have to consider in the future.  One huge thing that came out of the camp were Mallory's home to first and home to home times (running speed).  Home to first - she was clocked at 2.74 seconds (and to show that it wasn't a fluke time, she ran a 2.77 the time before).  That is a huge improvement over last year when she was running around 3.0 seconds.  She also ran home to home in 12.9 - again a huge improvement over last year.

Mallory came back on Friday - and headed to a camp sponsored by the Rotary club here in Louisiana.  Our neighbor has always thought highly of Mal - and she wanted to nominate her for a spot at this exclusive camp.  She was chosen to go to this camp (called Rotary Youth Leadership Association).  We dropped her off at camp on Sunday - and for the first time ever - we were without Mallory in the house - or able to call her on the phone.  It is a week long camp - and just a hint for the next post - she had a blast!

As for the "old-man" baseball game that Sunday - our team got trounced.  I did not get to start and the game got off to a really bad start and we only got worse.  We fell behind so far, so quick - I told the coach that he should look at another guy in relief - just in case I wouldn't be able to be there for some of the games in the future.  We ended up losing 14-1, I didn't have a very good game either.  Made an error at shortstop, went 0-3 with a strikeout ... but I did turn two double plays.  In any event - another week in the books ... and another post down.  Maybe I can catch up and get you caught up soon!

Two for One

Well - two weekends have gone by without a post - so let me play some catch up!

Last Saturday Mallory played in a one day tournament with at team called No Name Necessary out of Zwolle, LA.  Many of the girls on this team I have coached before, as they picked up with our team on many occasions.  Their first game was at 9:15am - I'd like to think I could give you a play by play of every game - but they all started blurring together.  I'm going to do the best I can to recollect - the 9:15am game was agains the Diamond Cats - it was a pool game so the winning wasn't a necessity - but the girls won - Mallory went 1-2 with a nice slap hit.

Then the bracket games began and the tournament was on ... Our first round game was against the Lady Vikings ... yes - the Lady Vikings - it is the next wave of Airline players - so Mallory had to play against her high school teammates.  No Name jumped on top early - and dominated the game 9-2.  Mallory went 1-2 again and scored a run.

The 3rd round game was another interesting game for us - we were playing the Florien Fear.  This team is coached by one of Mallory's old coaches and friend Annalynn Birch.   She coaches many of the girls on the No Name Necessary team (her specialty is with pitchers).  She knew many of the strengths and weaknesses of the girls, so it made for a very well played game.  The game was tied at the end of regulation time, so tournament rules put an international tiebreaker in effect to find a winner.  The inning starts with a runner on 2nd base to better give teams a chance to score.  No name necessary scored one run in the top of the inning.  The bottom of the inning, the Fear failed to move the runner with a bunt and struck out for the first out.  The second batter hit a shot by a diving Mallory - the right fielder fielded the ball and came up firing to home plate.  The ball was cut off by the pitcher and got the girl who was on second base in a rundown between 3rd and home.  The catcher tagged the runner out and fired the ball to 2nd base where Mallory was covering the bag - and tagged out the girl who got the hit.  Double play - game over!

Game 3 was against the Titans - to be honest - I don't hardly remember this game ... sorry! But what I do know is that they won - and got a well deserved 1 game break.  So far - all of their games were back to back.

Game 4 was against the Texas Knockouts.  Another really good game - I got recruited to call pitches for one of the pitchers since I have coached her in the past several times.  I was hoping to just watch and enjoy - but the coach put me to work!  The girls played great - Mal went 1-2 with a sacrifice bunt - and they won 4-3 to advance.

Game 5 - by winning the last game, the girls got a 2-game rest and were playing in the winners bracket final.  By this time it was almost 8pm - and I had to work, so Julie had to relay the information to me.  The girls were playing the Southern Lightning out of Mississippi.  Mallory, of course, saved her best game for the game I wasn't at.  She went 2 for 2, and made two amazing defensive plays.  The parents of the other girls all mentioned how awesome she did when I talked to them later that evening.  No Name Necessary advanced to the finals with a 2-0 win.

No Name Necessary with their 2nd place trophy in the
Showcase of the Stars tournament.

The girls got another extended break, but because the games fell behind throughout the day, the final game didn't start until almost midnight.  I snuck out from work to watch part of the final game.  You could tell the girls from both teams were running out of gas - and our shortstop really struggled the last game.  The Texas Knockouts came back and beat our girls in a rematch from earlier in the day 6-2.  Even though it was a double elimination tournament - the final game did not require our team to lose twice (plus - another game that night would have been impossible!).  The girls had a great day, and we got a 2nd place trophy at sometime around 1:30am.

Sunday marked my game in "old man" baseball.  The Dodgers were playing the Diablos, and I started at shortstop.  After only 1 1/3 innings, our pitcher was pulled and I got put in relief.  We were down 5-0 and the bases were loaded.  I got the first batter to fly out - but the runner on third tagged up and scored.  The next batter got a hit and they scored another run, and then I got the next batter out.  Unfortunately, we were down 7-0 and had a big hole to dig out of.  I went 1-2 with a walk and scored our first run of the year.  My pitching was much better today - and I didn't give up a run for the rest of the game.  I ended up with 4 2/3 innings with no earned runs - AND I finally struck out a batter (actually struck 2 out for the game!)  However, we ended up losing 7-2.  My arm was shot - I also threw batting practice to Holden before the game to help him get ready for Airline tryouts ... it's a good thing I threw before the game, because I was out of commission for the next 2 days!

Monday and Tuesday marked the tryouts for Airline High School baseball Freshman team.  Holden was out there with a group of around 30 kids trying to make the team.  As you may have seen via his facebook page - the tryouts were successful.  Holden said he did well, said his catching throwdowns were spot on, and his hitting was pretty good, too!  Here is the official announcement  - http://www.airlineathletics.com/news/2012-freshman-baseball-team/.  It was fun to see alot of the boys I have coached over the years on this list (9 - including Holden).  I told Holden that was the easy part - now we need to work hard this summer to get him on the field!

Friday, Julie and Mallory left town to head to Greenville - Mallory went to participate in the softball camp at Furman University.  The camp started on Monday - but, this gave her a chance to hang with the grandparents before heading off all day long at the camp.  I'll get the details and post them here when she gets back.

Holden and I have been on our own for the week so far, and the house is still standing ... no major activities other than another old man baseball game this past Sunday.  The game, unfortunately, was at 2pm - and here in Louisiana, it was 100 degrees at 2pm.  This time, I got the start at pitcher.  Our team jumped out to a 3 run lead to start the game.  I struck out my first time up.  The first inning, I was a little wild - really struggling to find the strike zone.  I gave up one run in the inning - unearned (the third baseman made an error that led to their run).  The second inning, I again was struggling with my location, and committed an error as well - but held them to 1 run again.  The third inning, I beaned two guys and they scored 2 more runs on errors by our team.  I hit a double in the top of the inning, but got stranded on base - so after 3 innings, we were down 4-3.  We rallied back in the next inning and got up 5-4.  I finally threw a good inning and kept them scoreless.  I got another hit in the top of the 5th inning but couldn't get another run in.  Another scoreless inning and the score stayed the same.  I was just starting to find my groove - and threw a couple of strikeouts and we were still up after 6 innings 5-4.  We failed to score a run in the 7th - I grounded out with a runner on third.  So - we were in the bottom of the 7th - all we had to do was shut them down ... but I was tired!  The first batter hit a double into the outfield.  I left the pitch up too high - all game long, I was keeping the ball low - to keep them hitting balls on the ground - mainly because we had been playing all game long with only 8 guys ... so with only 2 outfielders - I was pretty happy with keeping them to minimal damage.  Getting tired and missing locations cost me a run, as the next batter hit a ball to the outfield and score the runner tying the game.  Both of those balls would have been caught if we had 3 outfielders, so it was a little depressing.  They got a runner on base with an error on our 1st baseman, before I got the first out of the inning on a ground out.  I walked a runner to load the bases - but the next batter hit a ball by our third baseman - and they won the game 6-5.  A good game - but wish we would have won!

Holden and I celebrated our night as bachelors with a meal at the Japanese restaurant called Shogun.  We had sushi and rice.  Holden tried tempura shrimp for the first time and liked it - I had gyoza ... not as good as Mom's - but it hit the spot!

Anyways - that's all we have for now.  Holden and I are going to try to head out to Dallas and go to In-N-Out Burger and maybe go to Six Flags for the day.  If that happens - you can be sure to see some pictures posted!

Hall-iday!

For the first time in a long time ... we have a full week off of kid's sports and activities.  The school year just got out, Mallory's tournament season had a weekend off, and Holden's baseball season is over.  So the weekend was filled with ... peace and quiet!

Well - maybe not entirely - but we had no rushing to sport events.  Mallory had a practice last Sunday with her new team - Magnolia Steel.  They will be playing this weekend in a big Memorial Day Tournament.  They are a pretty solid team - so I hope they play well!  I had a baseball game with the "old man" baseball team.  I was happy that the team changed from being the Tigers last year, to the Dodgers this year!  We lost 8-0.  I went 0-2 for the day, however, I had to come in and pitch.  CRAZY!  I have not been on the mound in a game since I was 12 ... and even then - I didn't pitch a ton!  The starting pitcher gave up 5 runs in the first two innings.  I came in and pitched 4 innings - gave up 3 runs - all unearned (the Dodger infield made quite a few errors) - and I struck out ... well - nobody!  I don't throw quite hard enough, yet (not sure that I ever will) - and my breaking ball ... well, it's coming around.  I finally started throwing the slider for strikes ... I just cant get it to bite ... it moves more side to side instead of sideways and down.  I need Holden to teach me, because his slider is just plain nasty!

Kenji "planking" on the roof of the house ... no one else
wanted to paint the trip near the roof!

Other activities during the week included me painting a house on Saturday with a group of workers from the property.  The event held locally is called "Paint Your Heart Out" where several teams paint houses in the community for people who are unable to paint for themselves.  The lady who owned the house - Ms. Adger, was incredibly grateful, and we had a good time doing it.

Tuesday marked the end of the school year ... which means - end of school year party at the Hall house.  Incredibly - this thing seems to get bigger and bigger every year.  4 hours of kids everywhere!  I think there ended up being around 40 kids here.  The hot spots being the volleyball court (for the boys), and the pool (for the girls).  Hot Dogs, Soda, Gatorade and Chips aplenty - but everyone had a good time.  It's nice to have the party at our house ... except cleaning up really sucks!

Holden and Mallory are still practicing - making good use of the tee and the net for their hitting.  Hopefully it pays off for Mallory this weekend, and Holden for his High School baseball tryouts early next month.  We will keep you posted on the activities as they happen!  Until then - that's all from Bossier City, LA!  Hopefully, we can continue to avoid all these crazy tornadoes hitting the middle of the country!

Instant Update!!

Check this out - breaking news!

Tigers played the Diamond Kings tonight in a fight for 3rd place in our league.  We had beat them early in the year and they beat us once as well.  The Tigers and Diamond Kings battled back and forth throughout the game.  The score was 0-0 after two innings.

The Diamond Kings put two runs on the board in the top of the third - unfortunately, the got a little help from the umpires - Holden threw out the runner stealing - but the runner was called safe.  This would prove to be the story of our night.

The next inning - we got caught stealing on a play that our runner not only slid under the tag - but beat the ball to the bag as well.  We put one run back on the board and were down 2-1 after 3.

No runs for either team in the 4th - and the DK's picked up one more run in the 5th to take the lead 3-1.

The Tigers continued to leave runners on base throughout the night (almost two every inning) - and looked at too many called third strikes.  Our pitcher used up his pitch count - so our relief pitcher headed into the game - and gave up one run to extend their lead to 4-1.  We mounted a rally - but were stopped short again by an umpire call - the first baseman dropped the ball on a force out at first - but the umpire called him safe.  We managed to only get 1 run in and lost 4-2.

Holden had him a great game tonight, though - as he threw out a runner at 2nd (that was actually called), threw one out that wasn't called, and made some key stops behind the plate.  He got to play in the field for an inning as well - and we missed him that inning at catcher.  Possibly one of the runs came across because they stole 3 bases on our other catcher (including 3rd).  Holden and I have been working with hand weights to get our hands through the ball swinging for the past couple of days - and it paid off today.  Holden went 3 for 3 with two singles and double.

Freshman High School tryouts will be in a couple of weeks - so, he will need to keep his hitting sharp.  I'm never worried about his fielding anymore - so we have some hard work in front of us between now and then.

The weekend brings us zero in the form of sporting events for the kids (I have an old man game on Sunday).  School is just about done - so the kids will be very happy.  If there is anything exciting - I'll keep you posted!

An Eventful Uneventful Weekend

OK - when I last wrote - we were on deck for a crazy busy weekend ... but as always - schedules and events are subject to change.

Thursday's PRIDE awards for hospitality went great - it was hosted at our property - and we had 9 people chosen as finalists.  We ended up with 4 winners - and the event went off without a hitch.  Unfortunately - none of the winners were my team members - but I'm still proud of them.

Friday was a long day at work - as it was our Employee Crawfish Boil.  Lots of fun - lots of crawfish, and an impromptu duet with my friend and HR Director Karl singing - "If I Had a Million Dollars".  I am quite sure it will end up on the internet somewhere ... I don't think you will find a link on this blog, though.  I'm sure it was brutal - but we still had a good time.  All in all - I think the team had a good time.

Saturday - Mallory ended up not playing in the tournament this week.  The team played, but Mallory chose not play with the Heat this week.  It is a long story - but let's just say, I'm proud of Mallory staying true to her friends and morals.  Unfortunately - it left the day wide open ... so the family went out to the fields and had our own practice.  Holden and I both had practices on Sunday - and it took me a day and a few bags of ice to recover from mine.

Mallory Hall displaying her awards
from the 2011 Softball Season

Monday was the Airline Softball banquet.  I was so proud to be Mallory's dad - and proud to be a coach to many of the girls on the team.  Mallory was chosen 1st team All-District Infielder - this was her 2nd straight 1st team All-District honor.  Also - for the 2nd straight year - Mallory was an Academic All-District honoree.  I hope she works hard on her off season regiment and continues to improve her skills - and I hope she can get her a state championship like her 2nd cousin Zach Gibbons did for Saguaro High in Arizona.  It was a great finish to a nice season for Mallory.

Monday also resulted in a 7-1 win for the Tigers against the Yankees (again).  Holden played a few innings at catcher, an inning at 3rd and one at shortstop.  He went 1-2 and made what he believes to be an error in the field.  We have our last game of the year on Thursday against the Diamond Kings which is going to be a tough game for our Tigers.  They need to have their game faces on for the big game.  Until then - keep rooting on the Tigers!

Another week of Ball in the Books!

The weekend started off with Mallory heading to Alexandria to play in a tournament with a travel team out of Rayville, LA called "The Heat".  This is the same group she played with last year for part of the year.  We had an early game - and Mallory and I headed to Alexandria around 6am.  The first game was against St. Mary's - our team handled them easily for the pool game and we won 8-0.  Mallory went 0-1 with a walk and a stolen base.  Played 2nd and SS in the field and got no action!

The second pool game was against a team called Diamond Dust.  Our girls played well - but came up just a little short and lost 6-5.  Mallory got a little action on defense - again - went 0-1 with a walk ... and a stolen base (showing off her wheels!)

The first bracket game was against a team called the Louisiana Angels - a nemesis of the Lady Vikings that I coached for the past few years.  The play a lot of "small ball" - using bunts and aggressive baserunning to get their runs.  My teams in the past were better prepared for this type of team - but this team had some infielders playing in positions they weren't used to - and we committed a bunch of errors (6 to be exact).  It's pretty tough to come back when you make that many mistakes.  We ended up losing 6-1.  Mallory was part of a spectacular double play ... a bunt was fielded by the pitcher - Mal was a little late getting to the bag - and the pitcher threw it high and to the right of the bag.  Mal caught the ball while backpeddling over the bag - and fired home at the baserunner trying to score.  The throw was dead on - and the runner was tagged out by the catcher.  That was the only highlight for our team ... Mal did get on base with a walk - and stole a base ... so identical stat line as the other games. (0-1, BB, SB).

Unfortunately, that ended our portion of the weekend in softball - as the next game was on Sunday afternoon - and Mallory had a scheduled shift at the Tennis Center and couldn't play the next day.  The tournament was originally scheduled to be a one day tournament - but turned into a two day tournament at the last minute.

Holden had two games this week - and both happened to be against the Yankees.  Monday's game was one of the worst games we have played.  Unfortunately - Holden was the starting pitcher.  The first inning the Yankees scored 3 runs on Holden - Holden allowed a couple of costly walks in the inning - but only after we made 3 errors in the inning.  This seemed to be the story of the day for our team.  Holden ended up pitching 2 innings giving up 5 runs - all unearned because of errors.  With the game being close - we turned over catching duties to Holden.  After the two innings we were tied 5-5.  Holden hit a 2 RBI single for his first at bat - with a shot between the LF and CF.  The Tigers continued to boot the ball around - and we kept giving the Yankees a chance to win the game.  Even though we had 7 errors in the game and numerous baserunning errors and missed signals - the Yankees had 8 - and allowed us to take the win home 10-8.  Holden ended up 1-2 - the 2nd at bat was a long fly ball caught by the centerfielder.

The 2nd game of the week was the same result - but a much better performance.  Our other catcher came back and caught a couple of innings - allowing Holden to get a break and play a little Shortstop.  This time - both teams played sharper on defense with only 1 error by the Tigers and only 2 by the Yankees.  The Yankees pitcher kept us on our toes - holding us to just two runs in the first 4 innings - both of those runs brought in by a single by Holden that went up the middle.   The Tigers added some more runs in the 5th and stayed out in front for the rest of the night - as they prevailed 7-4.  Thankfully - we get a much needed rest - and will get the rest of the week off.

On deck for the Hall household ... PRIDE awards for the best in hospitality in Shreveport Bossier is Thursday - where I have five of my team nominated.  Friday night is the Employee Crawfish Boil - so I'll be hanging out at work for the night!  Saturday - Mallory is playing with The Heat again - so she will be busy both Saturday and Sunday.  Sunday - Holden has a practice and I have an "old-man" baseball scrimmage.  Monday - Holden has a game, and Mallory has the Airline Softball Banquet - (Jules had the date wrong - so you'll have to wait until next week to hear what awards Mallory won .... and I can tell you now - there is one I am already proud of - but you all will have to wait until the next blog!)  Always busy here in Shreveport/Bossier!  Next week might even include pictures from the banquet!

Another Week of Baseball - 3 Great Games - 1 Great Outcome ...

OK - I know I said I was going to post after each game - but .... here we are at the end of the week - and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Monday brought a really cold, misty game against the vaunted Astros ... for some reason - this team is or Achilles heel - but we thought we would have a better chance tonight.  We got one of our players from last year back - as his high school season just finished - and he started the game in the mound ... but control issues from the start and some key hitting from the Astros (and what disastrous inning wouldn't be complete without an error as well) - and we were down 4-1 after one inning.  Holden did not have a good first at bat - and went down swinging.  We switched pitchers and stopped the bleeding playing good defense and had some solid pitching.  Holden was catching the entire game (starting to become the same story over and over).  However, we could not get any hits.  Going into the top of the last inning - we were down 6-1.  We rallied back and got 3 runs - but fell just a little short losing 6-4.  Holden had one more at bat during the game and drew a walk.  He was on deck when the game ended - would have been fun if he had a shot to hit with the game on the line.

Tuesday, we played the Bucs - similar crappy weather - just no rain.  We've beaten this team twice before, so we were hoping to jump out to a lead and give a chance to get Holden on the mound.  Another less than stellar day at the plate for our team - and another slow start.  The good thing was our pitching was on - and we had a low scoring start to the game.  The Tigers jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead - Holden hit a weak grounder the first time up (ugh).  After a few scoreless innings, the Tigers gave up 3 runs in the 4th inning and trailed 3-2.  The Tigers picked up two runs in the bottom of the 4th and two more in the bottom of the 5th.  The Tigers held the Bucs scoreless the rest of the way and won 6-3.   Holden got a single and but didn't score (and ended up being called out on a play that he was obstructed - terrible call by the ump) and flew out to the Left Fielder in his other two at bats - and unfortunately - because it was a tight game - he had to catch the entire game.

Holden was not happy with his hitting performance - so on Wednesday - he and I went to the field for some live hitting practice at the field... I can assure you that my arm will take some time to recover!  But - I think we got some things worked out.  Also had a good throwing session with Holden - and he got to work on some new form with his fastball and slider.

Today (Thursday) - brought us the hated Diamond Kings.  This team has some of our rivals back from little league days - and they came ready to play.  We started off with a 2-0 lead in the first inning - as Holden had an RBI single with a nice hit through the infield.   The score remained 2-0 for the next two innings - and the bottom of the third inning the Diamond Kings struck back with a string of errors by one of our outfielders.  After three innings, we trailed 3-2.  The top of the 4th we picked up two more runs, and added another in the 5th.  Holden hit a ground ball to the left side in the 5th that should have scored a run - but was called out on a brutal call by the umpire.  The top of the 5th we added one more to take the lead 5-3.  The top of the 6th we had another runner called out by the umpire who was out of position - this also cost us a run - as Holden CRUSHED a ball over the left fielders head that bounced to the fence - and ended up with a stand up double - but was stranded on base.  The bottom of the 6th came and another error and another bad call ... and unfortunately - the Diamond Kings mounted a two out rally and beat us 6-5.  It was a good game - but would have been nicer if we would have come out winners.  Granted - we had some bad calls in this game (as one of the umps was the same one we had against the Bucs) - but the team made too many mistakes to win against a team of the Diamond Kings caliber.  They should have never been close enough to make calls like the ones we had effect the outcome of the game.

At least Holden ended the week making solid contact with the ball - and played every inning of every game.  That is the one advantage of being the only experienced catcher.  Next week - we hope to get him out from behind the plate and maybe on the mound ... that game is Monday - and unfortunately - I will not be there to give you the play by play ... Mallory's end of year softball banquet is that night ... so I'm sure I'll have more to report.  The weekend has a tournament for Mallory - and some days off for Holden.  Until the next post ....