Yesterday, Logan decided he wanted to play catcher for his travel team. I was opposed to the idea for a few reasons. One of them is that his team already has 2 kids who want to play catcher. The other is that I'm worried about his knees. Not sure if that's an old Dad's tale or what, but I've always believed that catchers blow out their knees early and have shorter careers than other positions.
Not that I expect him to have a "career", I just don't want him walking with a cane when he's 35 because he played catcher in High School. Still, he wanted to do it. The nice thing about playing catcher is that you're involved in every pitch. If you have some talent, it's probably one of the better positions to play. Teams always need a lot of pitchers and catchers.
I talked it over with the dad of one of the other catchers and he said that most teams want 3 or 4 catchers, not just 2. The logic is that it's a physically taxing position to play. You're throwing as often as the pitcher is. You have to chase balls to the backstop. You're wearing a ton of extra gear. Baseball is usually played in Summer months, so it's hot when you're doing it. Apparently, it's easy for kids to get worn out playing catcher.
So, I figure if he catches one game on a tournament weekend, no big deal. We went out and got him his gear. The team would have provided gear, but this way I can make sure it all fits, that he can work out with it whenever he wants (instead of whenever it's available, etc.) It was also less expensive than I thought it would be. We also got him a catcher's mitt, which is a big adjustment for him.
I told him he's going to be one of the fastest catchers to ever play the game, but the team's main catcher is fast and athletic, too. Go figure. Logan may very well be the only Catcher / Shortstop / Center Fielder in the league.
Today was his flag football game and wow, did Logan shine. He was everywhere on defense. The other team we played was the 2nd team from his elementary school and it has a lot of talented athletes. Logan did a great job of stuffing everything. The other team didn't score once on offense while Logan was playing. I should have taken a movie camera, because his performance on defense was every bit as amazing as the day he went 4 for 4 with 2 homers in a baseball game.
Didn't matter where the play was. Logan got to the runner and tore the flag off. He was on fire.
Because this is rec league, Logan played as much line as he did linebacker / cornerback / quarterback, and had to take a rotation off the field. He only sat out 2 plays and on those plays, the really talented kid on the other team scored a touchdown and ran in a 2 point conversion. Logan had kept him at bay all day, but once Logan was off the field, nobody could match this kid's speed and agility.
It'll really be a pleasure to see them play on the same team someday in football. They both play on the same travel baseball team.
Late in the game, Logan played QB and had one gigantic run of about 40 yards, but outran all his blockers and couldn't get the one block he needed to spring him for the score.
They really need to work on offense, but that's tough to do in a league where all the kids play all the positions. Really, to develop an offense, they'd need to assign kids to the positions they're going to be best at and let them really learn those positions. Hard to do, though, because these kids are too young to want to play interior line, for instance.
Rec league really is its own universe. Participation is the emphasis, and with kids who are only 8 or 9 years old the coaches have done a great job of making sure everybody gets to play everywhere.
Even so, no matter where Logan played on defense, he was a force to be reckoned with. Honestly, I regret not getting film, because he was a one-man highlight reel on defense. I'll try to get some footage of the next game.
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