Our Coach Pitch baseball team just played the first game of the season. We had a very good game; the other team had a slightly better game. Everyone had fun, though, which is the key. A few quick thoughts on baseball and the 5-8 year-old group:
1: Before our next game, I'm going to make a recording of myself yelling "Play your own position!"
2: I'm going to make a recording of "Throw the ball to the pitcher."
3: At practice tomorrow night, we're going to spend most of the time working on the infield routine. The emphasis is going to be on throwing the ball after you catch it, with a secondary focus on throwing it to the right place.
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You should assign Watching Baseball on TV, or better yet, watching baseball at least 3 levels up, for extra credit.
At age 7 my son always knew what to do with the ball if it came to him, from years of watching his big sister play travel and varsity softball.
In my mind, you suck so bad at pitching that the 5-8 year olds are restless to take your spot on the mound.
That's why you are yelling "play your own position," and why they're so confused about throwing the ball to the pitcher (you more closely resemble a belly-itcher). Throwing the ball to the right place? It'd help if their coach-pitcher could hit the strike zone!
I should also note that I would be terrible at coach-pitching. I'd get all competitive, and would probably be the first coach-pitcher to introduce the beanball into the realm of the 5-8 year old player. Which, granted, is a lesson they need to learn, but probably not at that age.
Maybe you can apply the technique of the "All the jokes in prison are so over told that they just have numbers" joke.
Just give the various phrases numbers:
"Number 32 team, number 32!!!"
You forgot to hitters: "Don't watch the ball; run to first!"
I referee youth soccer and we have our own versions of these. The U-littles (kids under 8, usually) have trouble with positional playing, so we end up with "bumblebee ball" -- a swarm of kids following the ball around. Then you get the Wrong Way Corrigans who either line up on the wrong side of the field or play the ball in the wrong direction.
It's tough, sometimes, not to laugh!
I guess you might not remember my foray into T-Ball coaching...
I was very frustrated at the kids acting like it was "capture the ball"...and kept repeating to them...."stay in your postion".
The following game, after another pep talk about keeping their positions....the opposing team's batter hit a line drive up the middle....and our team just stayed where they were! NOBODY MOVED!!!
I cried but praised them....since they stayed in their positions....lol...they were listening!