Clearly, the weather forecast calling for rain on Sunday morning was waaay off!  What a beautiful day, perfect for baseball.

The 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders immediately started playing a baseball game.  Those who arrived a bit early enjoyed some extra batting practice, which lasted until we had enough players to get a game going.  John Kalkau, our professional coach from Long Island Baseball Academy, instructed the players as the game went along, and pitched (overhand!) to them. 

The kindergartners, 1st, and 2nd graders warmed up with our new coach from Long Island Baseball Academy - Chris Sipp.  Then, after some skills based instruction, they broke out into separate fields to play a game.  The best part of the day was watching the kindergartners hit live, overhand pitching!  They've truly come a long way since the beginning of the season.

Pictures this week were taken by Jason Floumanhaft, 4th grader.  Thanks, Jason!


A note about sportsmanship: It is critical that we teach - and reinforce at home - the concept of sportsmanship among our players.  Wikipedia defines sportsmanship as: "In general, sportsmanship refers to virtues such as fairness, self-control, courage and persistence and has been associated with interpersonal concepts of treating others and being treated fairly, maintaining self-control in dealing with others, and respect for both authority and opponents."  We want our players to be assertive: good swings when at bat, run after ground balls, run the bases as quickly as they can.  However, we don't want them intentionally pushing other players out of the way (e.g. as a way of getting them off base so they can be tagged out), running into defenders while running the bases, intentionally throwing the ball away from a defender, etc.  We'll do what we can to reinforce these concepts on the playing field, please do reinforce them at home as well.

See you all next Sunday.