Kid-pitch baseball

Kids suck at sports... At least until pretty much high school. I feel for you parents that have to sit through all this crap and pretend it's exciting and cheer them on... At least you get pizza or something afterwards sometimes...
 
bigfelipe said:
Kids suck at sports... At least until pretty much high school. I feel for you parents that have to sit through all this crap and pretend it's exciting and cheer them on... At least you get pizza or something afterwards sometimes...
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Not all kids suck at young ages. I’ve seen some really good 8-12 year old play sports. But they are a little rare. A lot depends on when they start. Big brothers and sisters really help.
 
Two words.
Basket.
Ball.

My youngest played from 6th grade though 11th. It was a blast to watch.
 
My grandson just had his first karate tournament. He's five. Talk about boring, sit through 4 hours to get to your kids 4 minutes. He won his forms competition and both sparring matches he was in!
 
Chdamn's Wife said:
Enjoy coach pitch while it lasts.
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What in the sam hilll is coach pitch? When I played little league we pitched and all the other spots too. The coaches just coached.



CZfool68 said:
Not all kids suck at young ages. I’ve seen some really good 8-12 year old play sports. But they are a little rare. A lot depends on when they start. Big brothers and sisters really help.
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That's because the coach is pitchin.
 
CZfool68 said:
Not all kids suck at young ages. I’ve seen some really good 8-12 year old play sports. But they are a little rare. A lot depends on when they start. Big brothers and sisters really help.
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My son has a very young team which doesn’t help things. I imagine things will get a little better as he goes into his third and fourth season in kid-pitch.
 
Chdamn's Wife said:
My son has a very young team which doesn’t help things. I imagine things will get a little better as he goes into his third and fourth season in kid-pitch.
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In our system they do a good job of keeping kids together. So the first year is tough because they are all young playing against older kids, but the same kids will be together the following year and can really compete with the other schools. Just pray he doesn't get good enough for travel ball. Out of town tournaments every weekend.
 
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Took my son to play baseball one year. He hated every minute but luckily the rec department was a failure and there were only 6 games for the season. He was bored to death. Busting heads made him happy so he played football and wrestled.

I love it when parents spend their kids college funds on traveling baseball. There are 12 scholarships per team in college. Chances are if you’re a legend in the high school conference you still ain’t getting s..t to play in college.

The most ugly acting parents I have ever seen are baseball parents. By FAR. Never understood why such a slow paced game brought on such anxiety. Maybe the boredom brings out such ugliness.
 
Schattenreiter said:
What in the sam hilll is coach pitch? When I played little league we pitched and all the other spots too. The coaches just coached.

That's because the coach is pitchin.
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My father coached LL Baseball for 12 years. Never once pitched other than BP. Kids pitched under certain rules, no more than 6 innings in a week. Usually there were two decent pitchers on a team. I played in an advanced league, there were two leagues. I threw 2 no hitters when I was 12. Struck out once that year. The pitcher that did it was a girl. A high hanging curve ball that looked like a watermelon in my wheelhouse, then disappeared. She went on to an All American college career and pro level womens fast pitch softball.

I will say this about kids pitching. DO NOT ENCOURAGE JUNK PITCHING. They are still developing. Throw the ball and even let them hit it.:eek:

Note to coaches...read the rule book and understand the strike zone. You can't send a three foot tall kid to the plate and tell them to squat and draw a walk expecting to get away with it if you have a plate umpire that understands the rules.

Now on to umpiring. We had a paid system that I became a part of when I was old enough to ump LL games. 13. We were trained and tested. NO parents or coaches calling balls and strikes. I worked as an umpire until I was in my 30's. State certified in Illinois doing HS, college games and advanced summer leagues.

I couldn't wait to get out of the LL system while doing that. A 2 man crew and unpredictable plays can be a beeotch. They are liable to throw the ball anywhere. I can't tell you how many times I rolled an ankle having to change directions because the kid in right field didn't make the play he should have. Had to hit the dirt a couple of times as well after turning and seeing a ball sailing in my direction! That and they're tiny! The knees get a work out when working behind the plate.

In the end, I would like to encourage any baseball parents to just let the kids have a good time. It doesn't need to get serious at that age. As an ump we had levels of crap that we would tolerate from players, coaches and fans(parents mainly). LL was a zero tolerance scenario. It only takes one jackass parent or coach that can see better from a hundred feet than an umpire can see from a few feet to ruin an otherwise pleasant evening.
 
BlackGun said:
The most ugly acting parents I have ever seen are baseball parents. By FAR. Never understood why such a slow paced game brought on such anxiety. Maybe the boredom brings out such ugliness.
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and teachers can pick these kids and parents out on the 1st day of class at a new school. They think they're special, and usually they are.
 
Schattenreiter said:
What in the sam hilll is coach pitch? When I played little league we pitched and all the other spots too. The coaches just coached.






That's because the coach is pitchin.
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So when I was growing up there was no tball or coach pitch and you didn’t start playing baseball till 8 or 9 years old. 99.9% of kids do not have the strength or skill to pitch until that age.

So now kids start playing tball at 5. Then they play coach pitch 6 or 7 and finally the kids start pitching at 8-9.

It’s a way to develop kids younger and get them interested in the game.
 
I've played baseball and softball up until I was 40. I went back in my 50's just to play one year with my son and nephews. I have seen 1000's of players and some were great compared to others but I have only seen 1 that will make it to the major leagues. He plays for Garner High School now.The list of offers from colleges in baseball is too long to list. This year his Jr year he has already been offered Baseball/Football scholarship. He will never play in College. He will be a 10 MLB pick next year coming out of High School.
 
Majicmike said:
I've played baseball and softball up until I was 40. I went back in my 50's just to play one year with my son and nephews. I have seen 1000's of players and some were great compared to others but I have only seen 1 that will make it to the major leagues. He plays for Garner High School now.The list of offers from colleges in baseball is too long to list. This year his Jr year he has already been offered Baseball/Football scholarship. He will never play in College. He will be a 10 MLB pick next year coming out of High School.
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I played with a guy like that. Was a great player in our early teens, but I never expected him to go pro. He hit a major growth spurt in high school and got drafted and is pitching for the marlins now I believe.
 
dman24 said:
I played with a guy like that. Was a great player in our early teens, but I never expected him to go pro. He hit a major growth spurt in high school and got drafted and is pitching for the marlins now I believe.
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They are a rare breed. 30 yrs ago I played some pick up basketball with a local guy that guy a scholarship to play at UNC. He was one of the guys who came in in the closing moments with Carolina had a big lead. So of coarse all of us local talked shit wondering how he played college ball. After about 10 minutes we realized he was on a different level than the rest of us, lol. It made me look at things different. If this guy who is making us look like fools can't even get playing time on a colleges team how good the guys who start are. Then it hit me that most of the starters are not good enough to play pro. It gave me a whole new perspective of pro athletes.
 
Majicmike said:
I've played baseball and softball up until I was 40. I went back in my 50's just to play one year with my son and nephews. I have seen 1000's of players and some were great compared to others but I have only seen 1 that will make it to the major leagues. He plays for Garner High School now.The list of offers from colleges in baseball is too long to list. This year his Jr year he has already been offered Baseball/Football scholarship. He will never play in College. He will be a 10 MLB pick next year coming out of High School.
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I certainly hope he's careful. MLB allows teams to lock in a player, more or less own them. Many of them never get used and fade away.

If his coach is a decent human being, and his parents aren't starstruck, they will encourage him to get an education. The odds are against him, no matter how you slice it.
 
TripleO7 said:
I certainly hope he's careful. MLB allows teams to lock in a player, more or less own them. Many of them never get used and fade away.

If his coach is a decent human being, and his parents aren't starstruck, they will encourage him to get an education. The odds are against him, no matter how you slice it.
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His parents are good people and they are leaving everything up to him. A top 10 pick will get a multi million dollar signing bonus.
He made the cut last year for the top 40 players for the USA national team. This summer they will cut that too 20.
 
I helped coach a little league team. Majors I think? 13-15.

Was a tough deal. Big disparity between a small unsure 13 and a exceptional 15. We had one kid that was so good at pitching that I felt guilty for the other team! He’d just strike everybody out. I swear he could throw a 90 fastball. Terrified the coaches so imagine the 13 year olds?
Imagine the anger when I didn’t pitch him hardly.
But he was an even better catcher. He would gun people down from the crouch all day long. And at shortstop he looked like a little pro. Barehandimg balls and lasering these poor guys.
If it were up the the other parents and kids his arm would be trashed by HS.
I thought he was going places and could put himself through college and that was more important than him winning little league games.
But meh, there’s better coaches no doubt. Heh.
Man a lot the parents sucked but I loved the kids. Super rewarding to see one of these scared 13 year olds get better and more confident.
 
I coached kid pitch last fall but am back to coach pitch with my youngest this season. You're right, it goes from a lot of fun to a lot of misery.

Couple things that make kid pitch not so fun:
1. there's a growing divide in player skills. There are the "we think we're gonna be pro one day" kids that are kinda good, and then there are the rec ball kids. The team with more "pro wannabes" has the greater chance at run-ruling the other team every inning.
2. Pitch counts. As a retired high school pitcher with a totally worn out arm/elbow myself, I respect what they're trying to do. But when I actually get a kid who can pitch halfway descent, and therefore you want to use him more often, god forbid you approach the upper limits of count thresholds. Then he needs to sit out something like 5-6 days...or one or two games, inevitably. What would really save kids' arms is prohibiting curve balls until a later age. I see so many 9 year olds who learn the neat trick and throw it like it's going out of style. The really infuriating thing is the dads and coaches who let it continue. I used to be the curveball master--I'd make a batter look like a fool with my hook. But I paid the price with tendinitis that recurs all the time now. I'd go as far as to say it kept me out of college ball.

Parents need to quit living the falsehood of travel ball and what has become essentially prep school for higher baseball. It's a damn game. Have fun. GO home and be a kid. Don't play baseball 11 months out of the year, and don't wear the kids down. Lastly, give your local Little League and/or rec ball league priority. Stop the stupidity of paying $1,000's for travel ball and leaving rec ball with the leftovers.

Dang it, woman...you've gone and gotten me all fired up!
 
9outof10mms said:
Parents need to quit living the falsehood of travel ball and what has become essentially prep school for higher baseball. It's a damn game. Have fun. GO home and be a kid. Don't play baseball 11 months out of the year, and don't wear the kids down. Lastly, give your local Little League and/or rec ball league priority. Stop the stupidity of paying $1,000's for travel ball and leaving rec ball with the leftovers.

Dang it, woman...you've gone and gotten me all fired up!
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This. Should be gospel.

We've watched all our friends play this 'my kid is the greatest' blah blah blah for nigh 20 years. Probably 20 families doing the tournament ball. I can count on 1 hand the amount of kids that actually went to college and played ball.

Those kids missed alot of invites to go fishing camping canoeing hunting shooting 4x4'ing and other fun things my kids did a metric-ton of all because "we got a ball tournament this weekend".

My wife's cousin has an obnoxious 18 year old son who has almost zero people skills, and finally got a sports-ball scholarship to a local NCAA D-III school to play sportsball. Sure hope he makes it to the minor leagues because he
has zero anything else skills. They were the proto-typical sports-ball parents who ended up splitting up when the Dad got caught looking at porn at his job his FIL got him, and got kicked out of middle-school sports tournament football since he was caught cheating while coaching his kid's football team.
 
Bailey Boat said:
Two better words, Birth Control.....
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Why don't you get out of a thread discussing member's kids.
You have nothing worthwhile to contribute.
Zero.
 
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Ya' know...

All my kids played on youth ball teams. Though I suffered a few sprains and chipped bones practicing with them, I wouldn't trade a minute. Watching them learn to work hard and work together was pure joy. (Of course the tiny 'tini's on the sidelines didn't hurt.)
 
I played baseball from 9 y/o to 15 y/o & finally just gave up in frustration. Coaches' kids got the plum positions. I was a much better short stop than our starter, but got stuck in center field 'cos between the truly gifted players & the coaches' kids, that's all that was left. Well, that & I was the only outfielder who could rocket the ball into home plate when necessary. It was kinda fun, I guess, but I was never that good & by that age, girls, motorcycles & weed were ever so much more interesting to me.

I took a mean fastball to the ribs once. That shit'll make ya pucker a little, steppin' up to the plate. Yowch, that shit hurt.

My sister's first husband was a truly gifted athlete & was offered full ride scholarships for both golf & baseball. He was an awesome pitcher & got picked up by the Milwaukee Brewers' farm team. Signed the paperwork & destroyed his rotator cuff in practice. Said he sure wished he'da gone with golf.

I was never really good at sports. I was all kinds of strong, fast, etc., but no skills whatsoever, socially awkward AF & just not that damned competitive. I tended to prefer more 'solitary' sports like running cross country, mountain biking, or skiing. Always loved playing soccer, but in rural KS, soccer didn't become a thing till I was in high school & then only rec leagues for much younger kids.

As long as the kids are having fun, that's all that matters. When it's not fun anymore though, let 'em quit & move on to something else they do like.
 
No plans for travel baseball in our future. We like baseball but not enough for it to dictate our every weekend.

Not sure if our son will ever play beyond rec baseball. He is a quick thinker and can make plays fast on his feet. When he is on he will stop a ball come hell or high water. Once got a bad bounce on a ball and it hit him in the face. He shook it off, stood up and chased the guy down at second base and got him out.

Hitting is where he lacks. He was finally just starting to really excel in that, too, but then when it switched to kid-pitch it seems to have rocked his world and he seems hesitant to swing now.

We’ll see. This is just his first season in kid-pitch. I am sure he will get more comfortable as he enters the second and third season.
 
I've got a lot to say on this subject, been through it with my own son ( who's now a member of this forum ) and quite a few other young ball players.





But all I'm gonna say is, the younger the kids, the worse the parents are.

.
 
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