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Show Bronco and Mustang League baseball in the 1980's is a lot different than it was in the mid-sixties. One of the differences dif-ferences deals with what the bat is made of. Bats in the 1960's were made of wood and many broken bats were claimed and fixed by the young baseballers, but many of today's bats are made of aluminum. The only way these bats are broken is if a Sherman tank runs over them. During the Dodger-Cardinal game in the Bronco League, Thursday, Gene Gurr, coach of the Dodgers, shouted to his son to get some wood on it. Gene's son, David Gurr, remarked, "Get some aluminum on it". Another item that is fairly new to the youth baseball scene and was unheard of in the 1960's is the pitching machine in the Mustang League. The ball is hurled hurl-ed to the youngsters by the pitching machine. The batters don't have to worry about a wild pitch knocking them down and they get a chance to connect with the baseball. The pitching machine delivers the ball to home plate and a baseballer plays on the left side of the machine. He tries to stop balls hit up the middle. The pitching machine struck out a batter in the Mustang League game between the Cardinals and the Yankees, and the coach shouted to his middle infielder, "Way to pitch the ball". However, the pitching machine hurled the ball to the batter for the strikeout and not the middle mid-dle infielder. Bronco Leaguers do a good job of catching cat-ching fly balls in the' outfild. One ching fly balls in the outfield. One came up with the ball for the out after runnings good distance. There seems to be a lot more one-handed one-handed catches in the outfield than there were in the mid-sixties. This is due somewhat to the one-handed catches cat-ches by the major leaguers on television. televi-sion. However, since these youngsters are just learning to catch the ball they should try to catch the ball with two hands so that they don't suffer the embarrassment em-barrassment of dropping a ball that they would have caught if they had used both hands. Some of the present day Bronco League pitchers appear to have better control than a number of hurlers had in the mid-sixties. Many of the pitchers in the sixties were fast, but they were . wild. Most of the batters never knew if the ball was going to sail behind them or in front of them. The games had a lot of walks because sometimes all a, batter had to due to get on base was to stand still and not swing at a pitch because most of the hurlers couldn't get the ball over the plate. However, there were outstanding pitchers in the youth baseball program in the mid-sixties, but some of these hurlers with blazing fast balls were usually burned out by the time they reached high school. A number of pitchers in the Bronco League can get the ball over the plate, but they still fire those mile high and behind the bat pitches to the batter at home plate. Leads are never safe in Bronco League games. The Dodgers had a 14 to 1 nnA rtnin ft infr, thtt finol inniTKJ hilt thP I iau gumg tw wiv ........ , Cardinals scored six runs. The Dodgers won the Bronco League game, Thursday, Thurs-day, but they won it by only one run, 14 to 13. The Bronco and Mustang Leaguers put a great deal of runs on the scoreboard. A number of the runs are scored due to errors, but the youngsters also smash the ball for base hits. Twenty-two runs were scored by the Mets in a Bronco League game on May 20, but they lost in extra innings to the Braves. The Braves scored 32 runs. The . Dodgers gained 16 runs in a Mustang League game on May 14, but the Angels won the game with 37 runs. |