Tee is for Teaching

If you’re going to sit around swatting at black flies anyway, you might as well go take in a tee-ball game.

Think about it. If you watch the Red Sox, the same thing happens every inning. Players shuffle to the batter’s box as if on their way to see an oral surgeon. Ground balls get fielded and thrown to first, almost always without error or emotion.

If you know the situation, you can more or less figure out what each player will do.

Tee ball, on the other hand, is completely unpredictable. After hitting the ball, players run to first base… sometimes. Often they skip first base and scamper directly to second.

Players who remember that they’re supposed to be fielding will scramble madly after every batted ball, pig-piling on top of each other. What fun!

(You’ll occasionally see base-runners lunge after ground balls, as well, which is something you would never see in a Red Sox game now that Manny Ramirez is gone.)

Eventually, someone emerges with the ball, and everyone starts yelling for him to throw it to first base, even though the batter made it safely to first about 45 seconds ago. But the fielder is understandably reluctant to give up the ball so soon. He just picked it up, for crying out loud.

At the end of a recent game, my four-year-old daughter got confused and went into the opposing team’s huddle.

And they let her stay.

On the count of 3, they all shouted, “tee ball!”

Tell me where else you’re going to see that.

The coaches deserve a lot of respect and support for volunteering their time, although they do make me shake my head sometimes.

My daughter’s coach begins each at-bat with a five-minute lecture to the batter about hand positioning, foot positioning, bat positioning, head positioning, spleen positioning, etc.

He will go so far as to grab a player’s foot and move it about an inch in one direction or another, as if the 500-foot home run that will result from this adjustment justifies the delay and the invasion of personal space.

Actually, I do understand the reason for all the fuss. It is much easier for kids to succeed at baseball or softball later on if they’ve developed good habits.

But my daughter routinely smacks the ball with authority when we practice at home, where no one overwhelms her with advice and directions. I stand about 15 feet from the tee, and I can’t get out of the way fast enough to avoid the ball rocketing into my gut. The joy she gets from this is why we signed her up for tee ball.

During the game, however, she hits weak little ground balls, like Julio Lugo.

Granted, part of it may be the clunky, basketball-sized batting helmet she has to wear. It’s only there to make the kids look cute, because it is physically impossible to hit a ball from a tee and have it strike your own head.

Again, it must be about starting the right habits while they’re young.

I just hope she stays interested long enough for them to become habits.

An All-Out War on the Red Sox

I have a bone to pick with the Red Sox.

It was bad enough when they still had Manny, someone who knew baseball was just a game, and wanted to take it easy and let it all hang out.

Now they have boring, straight-laced Jason Bay, whose arrival signified the final nail in the coffin of the “Cowboy Up” Red Sox we loved in 2004.

Unlike Manny, Bay gives 110% on every play. But Manny has way more entertainment value, and he understands that the game is supposed to be a fun.

Now that he's gone, there's nothing to distract me from the horrible writing, reporting, and play-by-play calling that you have to put up with as a sports fan.

The Clichés drive me stark raving mad. In my own writing, I avoid them like the plague. I don't want my readers to become bored to tears, after all. But even I occasionally fall asleep at the wheel and allow some to slip through the cracks.

At least I'm not Bangor Daily News columnist Gary Thorne, who recently described the Manny situation as a “saga.”

Please. We already had the Brett Favre “saga” and before that, the Terrell Owens “saga” and the Barry Bonds “saga.” Let's leave the “sagas” for daytime TV, shall we?

Those who write for newspapers often fall prey to clichés because we work under pressure, day in and day out. At crunch time, when you have to pull out all the stops, the trite, convenient phrases readily work their way to your fingertips.

And then we wonder why newspaper circulation continues to spiral down the tubes. Before long, print journalism will have gone the way of the dodo.

A new approach to writing would come as a breath of fresh air to the newspaper industry. More time to devote to the craft of storytelling, rather than the mechanical pursuit of information, would seal the deal. A newspaper that can deliver the flavor of life to your doorstep is worth its weight in gold.

Unless you're reading a complete rag with no integrity, like the Portland Phoenix or the New York Post, your newspaper is probably reluctant to take a walk on the wild side. Eventually, they will wake up and smell the coffee, or they will pay the piper. Take your pick.

But newspapers are not alone in this farce. I'd like to put the hammer down on NESN every time I hear Don Orsillo declare that a pitcher “is in the midst of a meeting with himself.” Why not just say that he's “meeting with himself,” or, even better, that he's “leaving the mound for a short break,” or that he's “secretly plotting the destruction of the human race.” ANYTHING different would be wonderful.

And if a batter “goes down by way of the K” one more time, it will be the last straw for me.

It just dawned on me that we ought to have a hard and fast rule against clichés in the media.

What, you think I'm out in left field? You nay-sayers out there can just talk to the hand. Anything is possible, and, as you know, stranger things have happened.

It would be fun to try to watch Boston broadcasters and sportswriters come up with stuff to keep me from drifting off into la-la land for a change.

(There. That's enough ranting and raving for today. I hope I got it out of my system.)