Jack made the 2012 Thunderbird Little League Baseball All-Star tryouts on June 16th. He was in the top 22 10 and under players in his Little League. The tryouts were two hours long. In the first tryout, Jack did fielding and hitting, followed by a scrimmage, which was 9 players on 9. On the day of the second tryout Jack did fielding ground balls at 3rd base and Shortstop. He also did outfielding in all 3 positions. They also pulled people out during fielding to do pitching, and did batting.
13 people would make the team. The coaches would call you Monday afternoon to tell you if you had made the team. There would be practice for 2 straight weeks, for two hours and then a tournament afterwards. The tournament was double elimination, so if you lost twice you would be out of it. If you managed to last to the finals you would have to win for about 7 straight days. The 10U Thunderbird Little League had not ever won a game, they were 0 - 10 in this tournament. This year that would hopefully change that.
On Monday, June 18th, Jack got the call. Nick Stay, the manager of the team, told him that he had made the team! There was even practice that night. After all of the fourteen two hour practices, game time was here. At the start of the game they had a "ceremony," when they announced our names from a box above the field and behind home plate. The names were in the batting line up order and the subs were just random after the line up. Jack thought that it was cool having them say your name.
In the first game, both teams were tied at 1 entering the third inning. In the third inning, Thunderbird rallied and scored 7 runs! Later in the game, Kirkland National got two runs, but it wasn't enough... Thunderbird won 8 - 2! The Thunderbird 10U All-Stars had finally won a game! Jack went 1 for 2 with an RBI that was the first run Bellevue Thunderbird scored. He played Left Field, and played for 4 innings!
The second game would be against Snoqualmie Valley. Bellevue Thunderbird won 8-1. Jack got to pitch the last inning. He gave up no hits striking out two of last three batters.
Click Here to see him pitching to the last two batters! There were now undefeated after two wins. They would now play Eastlake.
This would be the third game for Thunderbird, coming of two great wins. Thunderbird was defeated 12-1, it was Thunderbirds' worst game by far. They were now in the losers bracket, and would have to win 5 games to win it all. Their next (hopefully not last) game would be against Mercer Island.
Mercer Island was pretty good, the only reason they were in the losers bracket was that they had played a very good team. The score at the end was 13-7, and the only reason they hadn't been beat by more is that they scored about 4 runs in the last inning. Jack pitched for 21/3, giving up only 2 runs. In the first inning he pitched, he gave up no runs. In the second inning he pitched and gave up only 1 run. In the final inning he managed to get one out but after that they hit him hard, he left with runners on second and third. We were done, it was double elimination and they had lot their two games.
Mercer Island lost there next game knocking them out, but Eastlake won it all. The Bellevue Thunderbird All-Stars' final record was 2-2, not bad considering there were a few teams finishing 0-2. Eastlake beat Bellevue East in the championships, having just coming of beating Bellevue East, sending them to the losers bracket and then they beat Mercer Island and lost to Eastlake again. Thunderbird came in about 5th place in the tournament out of 12 teams.
-Jack
