Thanks guys for advice of shooting from a different angle, this helped tremendously, I'm posting one of the better ones. With his delivery, I'm pretty much limited to the split second span of time BEFORE he brings up his arm to get a good facial shot of him. I talked to the coaches today about this young boy, everyone of them tell me it is in fact a sidearm pitch.
I did very extensive testing today of the 120-300. Most of time time, autofocus of the lens wouldn't engage. It was so weird, I would have to use the manual ring a bit, and then, sometimes the autofocus would kick in when pressing the back focus button (yes, yes, the AF switch was in fact engaged - it was not accidentally on MF). I know the 120-300 is supposed to be a touch slower in autofocusing than the canon, but it is supposed to reliably engage without needing to touch the focus ring. This just isn't happening to me today. I'm pretty sure that a trip to Sigma is going to happen. I'm hoping it's just a calibration issue and nothing more serious. I live about 75 miles away from the Ronkonkoma, NY service center, so I might even drive it in and wait. I've heard alot of good things about the Ronkonkoma service center on this board. I'm hoping for the best.
