Into the first practice. It felt silly trying to enforce it since just about all of our 12 kids are all playing together and socializing outside of baseball anyways.

But one of the things that we have found is that "X marks the spot" actually works. For everyone. Even our most frustrating 15-16 year olds. If we put cones out on the sidewalk in the morning, each kid will stand by one.

Can you put out some extra benches, put Xs 1.5-2 meters apart, and tell the kids they can only sit on an X?

It is never going to be perfect--all of this is an exercise in cat-herding. Kids can't do social distancing--they don't mean to do it wrong, they just can't get their heads around it. But anything you can do to help will actually help.

players to look at each other and say something instead of the robotic "good game, good game, good game."

We also have no bleachers -- they removed them, and the parents are supposed to sit in their chairs down the baselines. They all end up where the bleachers used to be, though.

I kept the kids with their parents for a game or two, but they were totally out of it -- not paying attention to the game, not ready to bat when it was their turn, etc. I told the parents to do what they want -- if they want to keep their kids with them, great; if they don't mind them in the dugout, fine. I don't want to play police on that.