Welcome to the unofficial home of the HP Hawks' (Howick-Pakuranga Baseball Club) T Ball program!
The purpose of this blog is to provide an online home for the "Sluggers" and "Junior Sluggers" T Ball program. It's a place where information about our program will be displayed, and hopefully it will also act as a resource space for interesting coaching videos and articles as they come along.
Key information about our T Ball program follows. This is how our program has run each year to date, but may be subject to change:
We will have at least one parents meeting in the week leading up to our season start - once my other baseball commitments are in place I'll confirm the night/nights here and via email.
Our first training night will be 31 October 2014 from 5 - 6pm at Lloyd Elsmore Park. This will be a whole grade training night and a chance for the players to get to meet their coaches before the game the next morning.
Registration for the 2014/15 season is open! Club registration site here.
Where are we: Lloyd Elsmore Park, Pakuranga. Entrance off Cascades Road (opposite Cascades Fruit and Vege / Cascades Road shops). Here's a map!
Ages:
HP Junior Sluggers grade ages 5 - 6 (although we do accept 4 year olds turning 5 during the season)
HP Sluggers grade aged 8 or under as of 1 January 2015
Players aged 9 as of 1 January 2015 play U11s baseball.
Please note that due to player numbers we may need to move players up or down between these grades in order to get complete teams. We'll do our best to work with the parents and players to make this work for everyone, but we do ask for your understanding as it's often a no win situation putting the teams together where the player numbers don't cooperate.
Season runs: November - March with a break over the Christmas period.
Season dates: 1 November - 12 December 2014, 7 February - 28 March 2015
Games: Saturday mornings 8:30am - 10am
Training times:
Junior Sluggers - Friday 5 - 6pm
Sluggers - team coaches to advise
Cost: $90 for the first player (discounts apply if you have more than one player registering for the season).
In order to help the Club with collection of fees, registration fees must be paid before the player will be allocated to a team for the season. Our fee covers all costs of putting a player on the diamond (ie cap, shirt, affiliation fees) on a break even basis. As such, we can't provide discounts for players wanting to play only part of a season, nor can we issue refunds once the season has started as the costs have already been incurred and can't otherwise be recovered.
What you need: Shoes/sneakers, socks and undies - we supply everything else! (ie pants, shirts, baseball caps and all playing equipment). Every player is even given their own soft core baseball, and the shirts and caps are for the players to keep - you only need return the baseball pants at the end of the season. Running/casual shoes are acceptable (at this age we don't want kids wearing cleats so as to avoid injuries to other players), but no jandals, sandals or bare feet please.
Please don't be afraid to visit and like our facebook account:
HP T Ball facebook page
Also, here is a link to the HP Hawks main website:
HP Hawks
If you listen carefully, you will hear it: Summer is coming....
Update 9 December 2014
- confirm second half opening day next year will be 7 February 2015
Update 13 October 2014:
- general revision of all information,
- addition of notification about parents meetings (days/times tbc).
- addition of first training night 31 October 2014 at Lloyd Elsmore 5 - 6pm for the whole grade.
Tuesday 30 September 2014
Thursday 4 September 2014
Hitting stuff is fun
Hitting a small round ball can be tough to learn, even when it's not moving anywhere! If you're looking for a fun way to help your kids with hitting, here is a drill my kids would call their most favoritist.
Step 1: Get a baseball bat, long stick, old broom handle, an old vaccuum cleaner handle or anything similar.
Step 2: Go to your recycling bin and pull outthe plastic bottles.
Step 3: Tell your kids to go to town.
For this drill we're not worried too much about the technical side of batting - this is all about developing confidence and hand - eye co-ordination.
You can vary the drill by having bottles on a pedestal/wall, hanging the bottles from a clothes line or tree and by throwing the bottles in the air to be hit. From here you can move to hitting things like rugby or footballs, smaller balls and end up giving them baseballs or tennis balls to hit.
Have a go and let me know how you get on!
All the best.
Paul.
Monday 1 September 2014
A couple of tips for parents new to baseball / T ball
Hi folks
If you're looking to learn a little about how to help you T ball aged children learn about playing baseball / T ball, here are a couple of things you can use.
Firstly, watch baseball games! Even if it's only an inning or two or a couple of home run highlights, watching a bit of baseball on tele or online can really help. Sky Sport are now broadcasting ESPN and ESPN2 so if you're lucky enough to have a Sky Sport subscription you can watch MLB regular season games and condensed game replays of the final month of the regular season and the post season during October. mlb.mlb.com has video highlights of games and lets you follow what's happening in the various leagues.
If you're looking for drills to run with your child, there are a couple of good options.
The first thing I'd recommend is spending $10-$15 on this book by Marty Schupak: T Ball Skills and Drills. I've found it really helpful in understanding the sorts of things you need to focus on with the kids as their motor skills develop.
In terms of online videos, there are tons! But as a starter, the following are pretty useful for teaching kids playing T ball for the first time some fundamentals on how to catch and throw. Don't forget we will give each of the T ball kids a soft core baseball at the start of the season (ie a baseball where the surface has some give and is therefore softer and easier for kids to learn with - they're the same type of balls we use all the way up to U11 baseball). If you don't have a baseball yet, you can always do these drills with tennis balls in the mean time.
This catching video is helpful to teach kids struggling to catch the ball using the correct technique - which even for our 7, 8, 9 year olds can be a problem. For the younger kids, the throwing videos give you an idea of where we're trying to get them with their throwing technique, and for the older kids the three step throwing program should be something they do every time they go out to throw a ball as a warm up!
How to teach baseball catching to 5 - 7 year olds
Here are a couple of videos on throwing technique. The two video series by "Mr Baseball" is one that provides a useful throwing warmup for kids, and can be used for ages 4+, but is probably better used as they get to 6 - 7:
Throwing technique with Mr Baseball part I
Throwing technique with Mr Baseball part II
Here are another couple of videos with a slightly different method to the same end, and are probably more useful for teaching the younger kids - particularly the first video:
How to throw a baseball (5&6 year olds)
BFTGU.com - Youth Throwing Drill (for 5-8s)
This is merely a start and but a scratch on the surface of the resources available to teach our kids how to play baseball properly. If you want any further tips or places to look, keep an eye on the blog or better yet comment and let me know what you've found useful or what further things you'd like some direction on!
You can also post directly to our facebook page and I'll see the comments there as well. Here's hoping the spring gives us some fine days / weeks and lets us get outside on some dry terra firma!
If you're looking to learn a little about how to help you T ball aged children learn about playing baseball / T ball, here are a couple of things you can use.
Firstly, watch baseball games! Even if it's only an inning or two or a couple of home run highlights, watching a bit of baseball on tele or online can really help. Sky Sport are now broadcasting ESPN and ESPN2 so if you're lucky enough to have a Sky Sport subscription you can watch MLB regular season games and condensed game replays of the final month of the regular season and the post season during October. mlb.mlb.com has video highlights of games and lets you follow what's happening in the various leagues.
If you're looking for drills to run with your child, there are a couple of good options.
The first thing I'd recommend is spending $10-$15 on this book by Marty Schupak: T Ball Skills and Drills. I've found it really helpful in understanding the sorts of things you need to focus on with the kids as their motor skills develop.
In terms of online videos, there are tons! But as a starter, the following are pretty useful for teaching kids playing T ball for the first time some fundamentals on how to catch and throw. Don't forget we will give each of the T ball kids a soft core baseball at the start of the season (ie a baseball where the surface has some give and is therefore softer and easier for kids to learn with - they're the same type of balls we use all the way up to U11 baseball). If you don't have a baseball yet, you can always do these drills with tennis balls in the mean time.
This catching video is helpful to teach kids struggling to catch the ball using the correct technique - which even for our 7, 8, 9 year olds can be a problem. For the younger kids, the throwing videos give you an idea of where we're trying to get them with their throwing technique, and for the older kids the three step throwing program should be something they do every time they go out to throw a ball as a warm up!
How to teach baseball catching to 5 - 7 year olds
Here are a couple of videos on throwing technique. The two video series by "Mr Baseball" is one that provides a useful throwing warmup for kids, and can be used for ages 4+, but is probably better used as they get to 6 - 7:
Throwing technique with Mr Baseball part I
Throwing technique with Mr Baseball part II
Here are another couple of videos with a slightly different method to the same end, and are probably more useful for teaching the younger kids - particularly the first video:
How to throw a baseball (5&6 year olds)
BFTGU.com - Youth Throwing Drill (for 5-8s)
This is merely a start and but a scratch on the surface of the resources available to teach our kids how to play baseball properly. If you want any further tips or places to look, keep an eye on the blog or better yet comment and let me know what you've found useful or what further things you'd like some direction on!
You can also post directly to our facebook page and I'll see the comments there as well. Here's hoping the spring gives us some fine days / weeks and lets us get outside on some dry terra firma!
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