Geared up

Thursday night brought a very important event to the West Raleigh 7U team: the first load of gear was handed out. This is always a very exciting event for the dads kids. Thursday's haul, which came after several players had gathered for a couple optional rounds of hitting, included shoes, pants, socks, belts, batting gloves, t-shirts, game jerseys for this weekend (the navy Dri-Fit shirts), an EvoShield t-shirt, and an EvoShield wrist guard. If you didn't get something on that list, call Coach Sean's personal cell phone between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Saturday morning. That is when he is at his best answering equipment questions.

A few quick notes about the gear:

Navy West Raleigh shirts: At the moment, the plan is to wear these in the games this weekend. The rest of the jerseys are not in yet.

Shoes: Come with the Under Armour logo in yellow. Slide the blue logo in place of the yellow before Saturday's game.

Wrist guards: The shield part of the wrist guard has to mold to the player's wrist. You probably don't want to try and do that for the first time on Saturday morning at 7:30.

Coaches: Have a long way to go to look as cool as the players.

Whether or not any of the gear actually assists in playing baseball is debatable, but the first test will come on Friday afternoon when the team hits the practice field for the first time. Practice is from 4:30-6:30 at West Raleigh.