My second year of teaching I was asked to volunteer to help with our basketball team at Waynesboro Area High School. With no obligations in life yet and my wife's blessing, I began to coach. After a successful basketball season with the JV coach, he asked me to join him on the baseball field too. Again, I was more than excited. Baseball has been a LOVE of mine since I can remember watching Phillies games with my dad in our basement. By my third year, I was the head JV baseball coach when the previous coach moved up to be the Varsity assistant.

There is more strategy involved at the high school level than most would ever realized. You have to judge the other teams talent to decide whether to bunt, steal, go the extra base, or trust your hitter. There is a lot of pitch calling from the coach to the catcher who relays things to the pitcher. There are "special" plays you run with runners on base and in scoring position. Defensive strategies, positioning, and again "special" plays we run to get an out or help the other team make a mistake.

You need all nine guys to play together to get a win. A great pitcher can only go so far, he still needs a good catcher, good defense, and good hitters to give him a few runs. A great hitter needs other hits because he is only up one time out of every nine hitters. A strikeout to end the game will overshadow the error in the first inning that allowed the only run to score but a true team will remember it all and come back the next game and go at it again.

To be able to hit an 80 mph fastball where you want to and when you want to. Probably the most difficult thing to do in all of sports because in the MLB the guys are throwing 100+ mph.

Baseball is one of the few sports where size does not matter. Don't get me wrong, there aren't many short guys in the MLB. But if you can hit, run, and field then you play. If you can throw with speed, accuracy, and consistency then you play.

I love looking out and seeing a crowd full of people cheering on your team. Yes, even at the high school, JV baseball level, we got some great crowd sizes in Waynesboro.