Future MLB Allstars?

This spring brought another year of baseball for the Hulbert boys. Ryan moved up to the "Majors" where he was facing kids that could really throw hard and play defense well. The number of hits were not as plentiful as last year, but Ryan still managed to get the bat on the ball quite a bit and didn't strike out looking very often. Near the end of the year, Ryan had his 2 best games of the year. In one game, he managed to hit two balls to the outfield grass in the air for singles and crushed another ball that the opposing shortstop made a great play on. Also, he snagged a line drive at third base with the bases loaded and doubled off the runner. In the next game (a playoff game), with the game in extra innings, Ryan made a miraculous catch in center field; coming in and then quickly taking a couple of steps back and catching the ball above and behind his head, falling to the ground while still holding onto the ball. One of the highlights of the game! Ryan had a lot of fun this year and the games were enjoyable for the adults to watch as the kids are getting to the point where they are actuall playing baseball; pitching, hitting, fielding... Ryan was able to pitch in one game this year and didn't do too bad.

Even though Brett was age-eligible for another year of Minors (pitching machine), we moved him up to Little Majors so he could have an extra year to face live pitching. After explaining to Brett that he likely wouldn't get an opportunity to pitch since he would be one of the youngest players in the league and needed to work on his arm strength, the coach amazed us by pitching Brett in the very first game and subsequently nearly every other game. Brett developed into one of the most consistent pitchers on the team, yet still needs to work on arm strength to get some speed on his pitches. Hitting proved to be a bit more of a challenge for Brett. He started the season hitting the ball fairly well, but as the season progressed, the hits came more and more scarce. It was a good building year for Brett as he was one of the teams better fielders and also caught a couple pop ups in a couple of games; just like his big brother.