I'm a not-quite-baseball coach

Unlike in most Latin American and South American countries, Brazilians do NOT play baseball. I say that emphatically. Don't get me wrong... there are baseball leagues here. Relatively low-level ones. But the only people who play in them are Japs (I don't use that term derogitorily... that's what Brazilians call people from Japan, and it is NOT politically incorrect here) and Americans. At least as far as I know.

But this semester at the famous American School of Sao Paulo, I have been recruited and accepted the position of high school varsity SOFTball coach.

Excuse me for a moment.

Ok, I'm better now.

I can't say that the transition from playing BASEball to coaching BASEball to now coaching softball has been an easy one. Perhaps if I had a SINGLE player who had previously played softball down here I would be able to understand the game better. Perhaps if the didn't pitch a gigantic ball underhand....SLOWPITCH at that....to the plate, I would recognize the game as similar to baseball. And perhaps if I had more than TWO players who know what the HELL they're doing out there, I'd accept the game more willingly. But alas, this is my fate.

So tonight was the first game. We played PACA - the Pan American Christian Acadamy. We lost 16 to 10, which is fine. I have a team of 21 players. 11 freshman, 8 sophomores, 1 junior and 1 senior. I have one player who just moved here from Michigan who is a solid baseball player. I have one freshman who knows what he's doing and can hit the ball hard. I have a junior who couldn't play last year due to back surgery, but is a solid player. And I have a pitcher who I'm pretty sure has never touched a large fruit in his life, let alone a softball. And they're my top-4. Wooo-hooo.

So now I'm a *cringe* softball coach. And it's not quite baseball.