Our little MVP - Baseball Camp #1

Brody spent Monday thru Thursday this week from 8-11:30 am at MHS baseball camp.  He wasn't really old enough for the camp, but since he's played ball the past 2 years they said he could attend.  I was more than a little nervous dropping him off the first day.  The camp is for 1st-9th graders and there were tons of boys there milling around the stadium.  None of them were sitting with their mommy, so I walked B up to the stadium, instructed him to sit and wait for a coach to give him instructions, promised him I'd be back at 11:30 to pick him up, and then walked away. 

When I picked him back up at 11:30 he was so excited!  He had so much fun and had learned some new baseball skills!  When I asked it if made him nervous when I left him alone (since he wasn't attending with a friend) and he said, "No.  I just started talking to the people around me and made some new friends!"  Whew!  That made me so proud!

On Wednesday he told me that he earned 2 gold stars (which he used to buy a popscicle at the concession stand).  He said that he won his group's home run derby.  He also said that he won the pitching competition.  He said they were throwing in the cages and his coaches were clocking their pitches with the radar gun.  He said his speeds were 42, 44, 56, 69, and 70 mph!  Wow!  I knew he could throw hard and far...but I never imagined it was that fast! 

In googling about pitching fast at a young age, I found an article that explains why I "throw like a girl".  Some of you might find it interesting, so I'll paste it here:
 
In order to throw a baseball, you need humeral retroversion (Crockett AJSM ’02), that is you need to achieve excessive amounts of shoulder external rotation, which is achieved by having a large amount of humeral retroversion. Studies have shown that throwers with excessive ER also have a corresponding amount of humeral retroversion. This develops when you are a child and you throw while your growth plates are open (Meister AJSM ’05). This is also why girls used to “throw like a girl.” Females did not participate in youth baseball in the past so they did not throw a lot while their growth plates were open. “Throwing like a girl” basically just means that you can not achieve a lot of shoulder ER. Sorry guys but males that did not throw a lot as a child will also throw like this. Crockett (AJSM ’02) showed this when assessing retroversion in a group of soccer players that did not play baseball when growing up. If you don’t have this retroversion and ER, you can’t throw a fastball.

Today was the last day of camp, so I went early to watch them play Tiger Ball for a little bit.  Daddy Steve had just gotten home from a business trip, so he and Barrett went with me to watch.  I was glad we went early because that meant we also got to see the coaches give out the camp awards.  There were 2 awards give out to Brody's group. 
1.) Best Attitude - Storm (one of Brody's new friends) got this award for talking to the other kids about baseball being more about having fun than about winning.
2.) Best Hustle - Brody got this award!  His coaches said they were impressed with how agressive he was in fielding and hitting and loved how he was able to make diving catches.  Again....so proud!

Coach Daniel, Brody, Coach Blake

 

 

It may be the end of MHS baseball camp for the year....but next week is LHS baseball camp!  Brody begged to go to the LHS camp too since Cade J (from his baseball team) will be going to that one.  I should've known that 4 days wouldn't be a long enough baseball camp for him.  I think he'd like to have camp every day all summer long!