Token playing time for weaker players in youth ball

[tominct]

Forgive me in that I haven't educated myself about how to do all the technical things involved in properly quoting others.



And you've got to be careful because, if kids sense that it's a need that you have, they'll use it as a bargaining chip. You know, "Okay, Dad, I'll go to the batting cages with you if we can get a double scoop cone on the way back." What'n'ell is that? When I was a kid, I would have crawled through a mile of broken glass to go to a batting cage!

I actually recall spending $1.50 to take a buz ride to the cages and back, and three-town excursion that took over an hour each way, so that I could hit 5 times with the $1.50 I had left over!



And, according to the dad, the kid says he's not interested, and he in fact hasn't picked up a ball since July. The dad brought in a semi-pro pitching coach to work with him, and the kid insisted on doing things his way, wasting the dad's money and driving the coach bananas. What do you do with a kid like that? Sigh.

This is just another way the baseball gods weed out the pretenders from the contenders. One can have all the talen in the world, but that is only PART of the equation. Baseball isn't hoops, where one genetic trait can get you a free college education. Baseball takes work!

[Jake Patterson]

Size does matter

Baseball isn't hoops, where one genetic trait can get you a free college education. Baseball takes work!

Hmmm...Ok Tom..... I also coach basketball and just being tall (genetic trait) doesn't cut it anymore, it just gets you in the game.... I watched Andrea Buck from Stonington, CT last night. She is one of the topped ranked HS sophomores in the country. At 6'4" she handles the ball like a point guard and can shoot lights out. But... just because she's tall won't get her a look at UCONN.

Baseball is similar now... College scouts I speak with want all their ball players to be 6' 2" - 210lbs, and fast and that's before they look at the numbers.

Checked out UCONN's baseball roster. They currently have 34 players on their roster. The average height is 6' 1" and 196lbs (I believe there are 11- 6'3" or taller). Out of the 34 they only have 5 are smaller than 6' and no one shorter than 5' 9" and several of them may get cut. And as you know they do not have a baseball power house. If we look at the average D1 baseball program, you won't find too many 5' 7" 135lb players and I have seen many great small players at the HS level.

[Ursa Major]

Tom, to quote a passage, just paste it into your reply window, then "block" it (say, by dragging your cursor across it with your left mouse button down, or by left clicking at the beginning of the passage to be quoted and then clicking at the end of the passage while holding the SHIFT key down). Then, on the list of icons just above your window, click on the "Quote" icon that looks like this: . That will put what you've marked into the quote box so it looks like this:

One gentleman rarely neglects to mention, in endorsing his own coaching ability, that his C-P team actually shut out another team! He actually thinks this makes him a superior coach! "The kids were so pumped!" he would say. IN fact, he played the same player at first base each inning, and he played the same five players in the infield each inning. "I can't put a kid in the infield who's going to get hurt," he would argue.

Contrarily, I coached a team composed primarily of 7 year olds and would show up at the field with a spreadsheet listing each player's name and the position each woudl play in each inning. I felt obligated to play all of my players in the infield and the outfield.

We had a skakeup this fall in terms of leaderhip, but the gentleman to which I referred earlier was our league's C-P commissioner last year, and is an "E-Board" member and highly resistant to any proposed changes in the system.

It stinks!

My son's coach was the same way in C-P, and the damnable thing is that I felt I would be a "whiner" if I complained about it. My son didn't play in the infield (except for catcher, which is worthless) all season. The crapola about kids getting hurt is just that: I assume the team uses some kind of soft-cover balls at the level. And, even if they don't, the ball isn't hit hard enough to do serious damage. Certainly, the risk of collisions is no big whoop; you ever watch 7 year olds play together? They're rough!

You've got two choices here. First, marshall some parents (particularly moms, who hate that attitude). You'd be surprised how willing they'd be to march on the "commissioner". Remember, parents who run those leagues by and large are the zealots who think their kids are budding MLB stars and who focus the leagues to make sure their kids get onto the All-Star teams, which suck money and attention away from the kids who aren't lucky enough to have their dads work their way into the league hierarchy. Don't let them run roughshod over you.

Second, most areas have several different leagues for kids that age, and some usually have a reputation for being less competition oriented than others. Pull your kid to the leagues where he can have fun, keep teaching him, and bring him back in when he's ready to kick their butts.

I know it would be frustrating, but you might think about running for the board yourself. Most leagues barely have enough candidates and very few people vote. If you round up a few parents and tell 'em what you've heard from him and intend to combat it, you'll get plenty of votes. Maybe even enough enraged parents to form a slate with you.

I actually recall spending $1.50 to take a buz ride to the cages and back, and three-town excursion that took over an hour each way, so that I could hit 5 times with the $1.50 I had left over!

I hear you brother. I woulda done the same thing if there was a cage near us. I bet I never got to use a machine five times during my youth career. Then again, my best friend's dad would take us out every couple of weeks with a three or four balls and pitch to us as long as we wanted, with he and I shagging for the other. And this often was in the 100+ plus degree heat that my home town often enjoyed. He died suddenly about twenty years ago, and I never was able to go back and thank him for all he did for us. (My dad was never into sports...)