My sister Carla, brother-in-law Randy and I – veteran softballers – all love to watch my nephew Kyle's Little League team, the Moreland Red Sox, and to critique various plays in a manner that has begun to seem oddly familiar:

Me: Yo Dawg! Whatchoo swingin' at a three-and-oh pitch for? Dag!
Carla: That's all right, honey! You made your best effort, and we're behind you a hundred percent!

Randy (speaking for no apparent reason with a British accent): That was an abomination of batting. I have never seen such a pathetic, ill-thought swing in my life. You have ruined baseball for me forever. I hope you're happy.

Thankfully, this analysis is usually conducted with our "inside" voices. Otherwise, I'm sure the rest of the parents would have driven us from the arena with torches and pitchforks. It has given me a very interesting thought, however. Because Little League is performed by players who, after all, are still learning the game - and making plenty of mistakes along the way. It's however, an excellent forum for more senior players to hone their strategic softball skills. It doesn't hurt that admission is free, and the hot dogs only cost a buck. Let me give you a few examples of recent Red Sox flubs, and see if we can garner anything from them.

1. The player in our first example came up with bases loaded, one out, and our team behind 9-1. After watching three balls in a row, he swung at a 3-0 pitch and hit a weak pop-up. I'm all for aggressive batting, but, given the situation, you have GOT to take that pitch.
2. The very next batter - bases loaded, two outs, losing 9-1 - worked it to 1-2 and then took strike three. Same idea as above, in reverse - you have GOT to put that ball in play!
3. The very next inning, our opponents had men on first and second, one out, and the next batter laid down a bunt to the third-base side. Our pitcher fetched it, spun around and made a fantastic throw to third for the out. Now, don't get too results-oriented here. You're behind 9-1, the other team is giving you a free out; it's better to throw the ball to first and say thank you. Incidentally, the next batter also laid down a bunt - with two outs - making it obvious that the coach was using this lopsided game for bunting practice. A very wise move on his part, because there's nothing like an actual game situation to hone skills you might need later.
4. Earlier in the season, my nephew Kyle was stuck on an old idea. Playing in the minors last year, he would use his remarkable speed to run the ball in from the outfield rather than trusting one of his infielders to actually catch a throw. It wasn't a bad notion, but a month into the 11- and 12-year-old bracket he hadn't yet adjusted to the higher level of play and was still making that mad dash to the infield, to the consternation of all. In an effort to give him the courage to hurl that ball diamond-ward, I told Kyle something like the following: “As a shortstop, I always took it on as my responsibility to track down anything the outfield threw at me. After all, as an infielder, I'm expected to handle grounders, line drives, over-the-shoulder pop flies, and to take bad hops off various body parts. When I play outfield, then, I hurl that ball in fast and I expect my infielders to do the same thing I would do. After the throw, the ball is no longer your responsibility. The important thing is to get the ball in as quickly as possible.” Between the three members of the Moreland American Idol panel, we seem to have convinced him, and he is now happily chucking the ball in to his mates, showing off the mini-Howitzer arm he inherited from Dad. (A side note: it's actually not a bad idea to rush toward the infield, provided you're already close, and you're trying to freeze the runners).

Simon... er, Randy and I agree that the most irritating habit of Little Leaguers is this constant dancing off the base after the pitch: "I'm gonna go! Watch out! Here I go! Any minute now!" And often this is the runner on first base in a bases-loaded situation. I wish to heck that more of them were thrown out. But as Paula... er, Carla says, "I think they're just bored, and all the dancing gives them something to do."

My apologies for being an inconsistent contributor to these pages this year, but I had to admit that I've written so much about softball I was running out of ideas. The editors have graciously allowed me to wait until that invisible light bulb goes on over my head.

Feeding into my lack of material is my lack of softball. At 46, I have discovered that the reason for this paucity of playing opportunities is not so much a waning of skills or (knock on wood) health, but the fact that most of my contemporaries no longer play, and the younger kids are tired of having some old-school dude talking about how in my day we used to play in snow drifts three feet high and we had to skin the cows ourselves to make our gloves and a PDA was a public display of affection, darnit, and we liked it that way!

Where was I? Oh yes, and the manager of my usual softball squad, the Bell Plaza Bums, lost his father this year, so we're not playing in the spring league. But I hope to be patrolling the grassy acres of left field soon.

Speaking of, I was recently editing a business book by a British friend who was trying to use American expressions whenever possible. This included "...although this idea would seem to come out of the left field." Funny that a single "the" can make something sound so lame.
Michael J. Vaughn is the author of the softball novel "The Legendary Barons" and, more recently, the comic sex mystery "Double Blind," both available at amazon.com.