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Fields of Screams: 2017 youth baseball/softball thread

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Starman, Apr 20, 2016.

  1. StaggerLee

    StaggerLee Well-Known Member

    Apologies in advance for somewhat of a rant, but I feel like it'll be therapeutic to maybe write it down and get it off my chest. And any comments are welcomed (even if you prefer to just DM me your thoughts).

    So, here's the deal. My 12-year-old son has been playing baseball for 7 years now. Three years ago, we made the choice to move him from the "rec" league to a more competitive league. Most of the kids there get private coaching, go to training academies, play travel ball. My kid is a backyard kid. He's gone to a couple of camps, had a couple of training sessions, but by and large has learned everything by doing it in the backyard or at practice. The season is winding down (one regular season game left, then postseason tourney) and it feels like he's actually digressing. He started the season with so much hope and excitement. Before the season started, we spent every Sunday at the ballpark, in the batting cage, on the pitcher's mound, in the field, and he worked his butt off. His primary goal this year was to make All-Stars. But that fire has died as the season has come and gone. Monday, he said he couldn't wait for baseball season to end. That kind of upset me, because baseball was the first (and for a long time only) sport he played. He's fairly decent at it. He's not an All-Star, but I think he has the ability to be one, if he put his mind to it. For some reason, he's not the same kid at practice and games that he is with me on Sundays. On Sundays, he hits lasers to the outfield, he's a vacuum on the infield and he has a rocket for an arm on the mound. Even one of his coaches sees it. He was watching him practice one Sunday and told me if he could bring that same passion to the games, he'd be one of the best on the team.

    I don't know what happens when he gets to the dugout. He's kind of a socially-awkward kid (in my opinion). He's a bit silly and goofy in a dugout full of 12-year-olds who think they're going on 16. He usually flocks to the worst player on the team, which in my opinion brings him down a notch. But the flip side to that is that he's amazing in that regard, because he has always been the kid that will talk to the outcasts. He's the kid that will walk up to the handicapped kid and strike up a conversation. He has a huge heart. I guess as a sports dad, I'd like to see that heart on the baseball field, not just on Sundays. At the start of this season, he was batting fifth in the lineup, holding down third base and was one of their top three pitchers. Inconsistency at the plate, as well as inconsistency on the mound has caused him to drop to last in the lineup and he rarely gets an opportunity to pitch these days. He's still playing third and he does that really well, but he wants to be a pitcher. He works on pitching more than anything, and he's not bad. He throws around 55-60 right now, and has good movement on the ball. But he had a couple of bad starts (walks, hit batters, errors in the infield) and I think his coaches have lost confidence in him.

    Anyway, last night as we were watching his game, my wife said to me 'Maybe he's just not as good as we think." Maybe he's not. Maybe I put too much pressure on him (although I will say I'm not one of those dads that beats him down when he does poorly). Maybe my expectations for him are too high. I don't know though, because he looks forward to those Sundays more than he does the games or practices with his team. And that's frustrating to me, because I love the time we spend together and I love seeing him make progress, but then we get to the field and he looks like he's never picked up a bat at times.

    I just feel like at his age we're at a "shit or get off the pot" point. Next year he will be moving up into the Juniors division and will be playing with 15-year-old kids. Just his maturity level alone will create some difficulty for him, let alone his own self-confidence to compete against kids two years older than him. I've always felt that this age is when kids truly decide what sports they're going to pursue in high school and I'm worried this might be the end of baseball for him. I feel like he's lost the passion for the organized aspect of it, but still very much has the passion for our 1-on-1 work. The selfish me doesn't want him to give up. I do see flashes of brilliance in him. His coaches have seen it too. Every coach that has had him has followed him, thinking that when he figures it out and realizes the arm he has, he will be tough. He's shown it a few times this year. He pitched against his old team earlier this year and threw two innings, struck out five batters and allowed only one base runner (on a hit by pitch). His old coach, who used to ride his ass harder than Mario Gutierrez on Nyquist, even ran across the field to give him a fist-bump when he left the game after two innings (pitch count). Next outing though, he walked the first three batters on 12 straight balls and was pulled.

    A couple of times this year I said to myself I'll just let the season play out and what happens happens. But then he sucks me back in with the way he works on Sundays, or the way he'll go out in the backyard and throw 30 pitches into his net. I don't know if I should sit down with him and have a talk and see if he even has an interest in playing. One parent suggested I get him on a travel team and see if that kind of environment sparks his passion. Maybe I should just stop overthinking it and let him be a kid. I don't know.

    Thanks for listening/reading, if you made it this far.
     
  2. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Oh, Stagger. I feel you. I'm about two years farther down the road, and I've experienced about everything you describe.

    So much to respond to, but this in particular:

    Get that out of your head. Now. The truth is going to be the exact opposite, as I'm sure those who have been at this a bit longer than us will attest. What you're going to see in the next two years is those travel ball players hit a wall emotionally and physically. This is because they've been playing way too much, in a way that's unhealthy to them (and not just for pitchers). We have one kid on our team who was all-everything at age 10 and 11, so-so at age 12, and now at age 13 is sitting out because of injury and frankly was having a terrible time of things even before he got hurt. My guess is he might play in HS but will never pitch again.

    Also: puberty. Things are going to change more than you ever dreamed. Some kids will shoot past other kids. And the testosterone creates a competitive desire that very often does not exist in younger boys.

    My son's worst and least enjoyable year ever was when he was 11. He was not much better at 12. Thought about quitting, a lot, but had the advantage that the travel team he was playing for was not an academy but just a group of families coached by some cool dads.

    Now he is 13, and since we're all doing some bragging, he has hit a level approaching lights-out as a pitcher. Threw a no-hitter a few months ago. Last week it was a 78-pitch complete game against a team that usually pounds us.

    Two things happened: 1) He has gone from being "one of the bigger kids" to being enormous. 2) We had dipped our toe into private coaching and soon realized what complete dicks the guys at the big baseball academy were. So we found a different coach, a former minor leaguer who just digs teaching ball and isn't really doing it for the money. They click.

    I have a feeling if I saw one of your team's games, I would recognize a lot of the browbeating and mental damage that I see in our academy programs around here. There's also an arrogance from these kids who have grown up saying they are "travel ball" players as if it's a different sport from the baseball that other kids play. That is typically an unearned arrogance and a sign of entitlement.

    That's a long writeup, too long, but a topic I'm passionate about. The tl;dr is 12/13 is way way way WAY too young to be declaring make-or-break time.
     
    Songbird likes this.
  3. StaggerLee

    StaggerLee Well-Known Member

    Thanks LTL, it's good hearing that. And I do agree with you about not knowing what will happen. I guess I'm just frustrated that my son doesn't want IT as much as I do. LOL That's a bullshit selfish thing on my part. I'm already seeing some burnout from kids he's played with for three years. And for what it's worth, his work ethic, or at least his desire to get better is strong. I admire that in him.

    Another thing is he just picked up a second sport this winter (basketball) and will try football for the first time this fall (I know it's really late, but we had concerns early on because he suffered seizures). I think more sports will help him mature. Baseball can be a silly sport, if that makes any sense. Lots of time to goof off in the dugout. Plus, more sports means more activity, which means more growth overall.

    Congrats on your son! I truly believe mine has that ability to get there as a pitcher too. Like I said in my post, his previous coaches love his arm. I just wish they'd quit messing with his mechanics. LOL (that's another post for another day)

    I need to chill out and stay the course and let things take care of itself. I won't lie, there's a part of me that looks around at my friends and their kids playing "select" travel ball every weekend and want to be one of those parents. But then reality is that they're all tied to academies and it's pretty much pay to play.

    One thing that I read in your post that I might try is getting back into the private instruction. There is a retired minor leaguer here that does it strictly for the love of the game. He's a good guy and he's actually worked with my son before during a camp. I'm not quite ready to go all-in and commit to a monthly membership at an academy, but I do know there's only so much old pops can teach his son before he just stops listening. LOL
     
  4. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Played the team we beat on Opening Day. Lost 14-9 though we certainly could have won. Down 5-0 then 7-2 but held them scoreless in 3rd and 4th while slowly fighting back to take the lead 8-7 going into 5th. Bit of a meltdown as they scored 5 in top-5 but we would have kept it to 4 by not flubbing a double play. Third baseman caught a liner with bases loaded but with everyone screaming she threw home instead of touching third for the back end and we ended up throwing it around. So they're up 12-8. We go down in the bottom half without scoring and worse, one of the studs melts down after striking out and now says she doesn't want to pitch again, or play the rest of the game. Sun fading fast, not much time left, so I put the pitcher who did well in the 2nd thru 4th back into the circle. If we can hold them to 1 run, we give ourselves a chance to have a max inning in the bottom half and it ends up a tie.

    They scored 1, we got 2 outs, and then they squeezed another run across to ensure a win, as it's 14-8. We could've stopped there but I wanted my girls to get live at-bats in. We scored a run but that was that. The girl who melted down left before bottom-6 began.

    Kudos to the other team (5-1) but this was our game. We're 2-3.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2016
  5. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    And we've had the same ump the last 2 days. He's god fucking awful and inconsistent and makes pitchers throw into a 2-millimeter box if they want a strike. I umped a game last week and told both coaches beforehand that I'm extending the side to side strike zone by 3-4 inches to 1) give the pitchers more ability to paint and get strikeouts and feel good about themselves while putting a little more onus on hitters to be aggressive at the plate. I may have miscalled one or two pitches by a few inches -- first time umping -- but both teams knew what to expect, and the game went by so smoothly. It's a ragtag girls league in Vermont and this particular ump is acting like he's a call away from the big leagues.
     
  6. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Yesterday my son's 13U team knocked the starting pitcher out of the game in the third inning after a whopping 88 pitches. But it was a crazy day with the wind blowing out, and we lost 13-12.

    I checked last night for the final tournament recap. According to the website, the kid we knocked out at 3:30 p.m. went five more innings in the 5:00 game. I sure hope that's an error, because if it's accurate he had a 150-pitch day.
     
  7. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    Good advice easily forgotten. I'll have to stash this one somewhere in that vacant lot between my ears for LilPern.
     
  8. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    LilPern had his first tee ball game on the big boy field last weekend. My inlaws and his cousins all showed up to cheer him on, along with a larger than usual crowd because the big field is used by other teams (the small field only has one game on it every week).

    LilPern, who is the youngest player in the league (he made the cutoff by a week) got nervous and refused to take the field or bat for the first three innings. It took a while to figure out why he wouldn't go out there, but he finally told me in about the third inning when I took him to the potty, where we had a little privacy.

    I sat with him in the dugout and encouraged him to cheer on his teammates while they were in the field. When they came in to bat, I left the dugout to let him be with his team (hoping they'd talk him into coming out onto the field). His coaches asked him to play, as did his buddy Hunter. I offered to take him for ice cream after the game. He just shook his head no.

    Finally, it was the last inning and he was on the home team, so when the team took the field, I grabbed his glove and told him I was going to play second for him. I went out to the infield, looked back and saw him at the fence of the dugout. I waved him out and he came sprinting out of the dugout. The crowd cheered, he waved and suddenly he was into it. He chased down ground balls, overthrew first, covered second base and generally laughed his butt off.

    The coaches let him hit first and last (last batter always "hits a home run," as they let the kids run all the way around to home). He stroked two solid line drives and jumped onto home plate after the second hit.

    In the car afterwards, I told him I was proud of him for getting through his fear and coming out to play. He smiled back and said "Just like Arlo!" (If you've seen "The Good Dinosaur," you'll get this). Good day for dad.
     
  9. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    We won 8-0 at home today, our first shutout in 2 years together.

    The pink-haired girl who had the meltdown the other day arrived on time but only her mom walked to the field. She looked at me with concerned eyes and said she has no idea why daughter won't get out of the car but spit out that daughter doesn't feel like she warms up enough when she pitches.

    So I make the long walk to the car and motion to roll down the window. She opens the door. I ask what's wrong. She has tears in her eyes but won't say even though we had a really strong practice yesterday. I open the folded piece of paper showing the lineup and who's playing where and point to "pitcher" and "1 thru 3" then point to her and tell her how much we all need her then encourage her to walk to the field with me. We walk in silence. I send her and an assistant coach to a far backstop to warm up for 30 minutes.

    Game starts. She walks the first 2 batters but only because the beer-belly ump squeezes her. She gets a strikeout, huge, then forces a grounder, then walks another to load 'em up. But she bears down and induces a comebacker, good throw to first, and we get out of it unscathed. She trots off with a big smile and it sets the tone for the rest of the game.

    Our lefty catcher leads off bottom-1 with a line-drive homer up the middle and our 7th-grader smacks a 3-run homer for a 4-0 lead. Their first two batters reach on flubs in top-2 but we pulled it together and escaped again, and then played beautifully the final 4 innings. Our lefty catcher threw out a runner trying to steal for the second game in a row, we turned a double play when the pitcher snagged a liner and threw back to first, and just kept making routine plays.

    I let the pink-haired girl finish what she started. She fought today. She got the game ball. She walked back to the car with mom, smiling.

    We're 3-3.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2016
  10. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    I think most coaches at some point hear some old baseball yarn about Willie Mays or DiMaggio etc etc playing shallow, scooping up all sorts of singles off the top of the grass and making even the old-time highlight reels with legendary over-the-shoulder sprinting catches.

    All that stuff is great if you're an MLB superstar with thousands of games under your belt, a great eye on judging the ball and of course the ability to make those sprinting backwards Polo Grounds grabs.

    But for kids up to and including HS varsity baseball, just judging the fly ball in itself is a challenge, so you want to get most of the variables on your side so you're in a position to keep your "worst case scenario" on most plays to be a single.

    One thing is that Sis15 came to softball very late. She never played at all until the summer after 6th grade year, so she's still playing catchup on a lot of the fundamentals/positioning/strategy things.

    She's got less actual game experience than a travel team player coming out of fifth grade.

    In addition to starting late, in kids ball most of the late bloomers are stuck in the outfield, because understandably coaches want their smartest/ sharpest / most experienced players in the infield.

    And in kids ball it's rare enough fly balls are hit to the outfield at all, it's pretty easy for outfielders to "drift" mentally and lose focus. Really, high school is the first level where fly balls are more than a freak occurrence.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2016
    bigpern23 likes this.
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    After two straight weeks of postponements due to weather, my kids finally got to play in Challenger League, for physically and mentally disabled kids, this weekend.

    Oldest was complaining he was tired because he'd already had a busy weekend. Youngest was showing more enthusiasm than he had in previous seasons and was worried that we would be late.

    We get there, and there were more kids who had signed up this year, like a dozen. Usually there's like 8 or 9. It's not like typical Little League. There is no actual game or opponents or scores kept. Usually, a different regular Little League baseball or softball team comes each week to volunteer to serve as buddies for each kid. The kids on the regular team help the kids warm up with grounders, help them hit at the plate, stay with them in the field and help them run the base paths. It's really nice to see. Unfortunately, for some reason, no team showed up this week, so we were on our own.

    Each kid gets a bunch of pitches to hit, either off the tee or the coach, who's a great guy, lobs some pitches. For the last hit, the kid runs to first, and upon subsequent batters, they run to each base until they reach home.

    So for this one, the Oldest was already in a cranky mood, and it got worse when we found out that the Youngest needed to use his glove because that glove didn't fit. I ran home and got my glove, but it wasn't good enough for him, because it's an old mitt, so he had a mini-meltdown, and ended up sitting in the car.

    The Youngest, meanwhile, picked up some slow rollers from me, and, when I gave him some short flips, managed to catch most of them. At the plate, he made contact on most of the pitches, getting them out to the mound.

    It went a little long, like nearly 2 hours, and some of the kids got a little restless. There were more physically disabled kids this year, so it took longer for everyone to hit and go get set up beforehand, plus it was the first week, so some newcomers were learning how things are done. Usually when there are helpers, it goes more smoothly.

    Finally at the end, the coach agreed to pitch a few more for the older kids, a couple of whom have some real athletic ability. Last year, the Oldest hit a ball to short, started running to first, one of the athletic kids picked it cleanly and threw it to first where the other kid caught it right before the Oldest hit the bag. It got a huge cheer from all of us parents because, for a few seconds, they were playing like any other kid without disabilities.

    Eventually, the Oldest came back out, came asked if he could hit, and the coach agreed. He smacked a few balls to shortstop and up the middle, making contact most of the time. At least, he ended the day on a positive note by coming back out to play.

    So, for next week, we have to get the Oldest another glove, and hopefully, we get some Little League helpers to make things go more smoothly.
     
    Iron_chet likes this.
  12. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    StarSis just called with a weekend recap: S15 played a JV softball doubleheader Friday night, going 5-for-9, then played a weekend club volleyball tourney with the team unusually advancing to Sunday's medal rounds and eventually placing third, and today (Monday) back in action in softball, in two high scoring games (winning the second 24-21).

    In game 2 S15 hit the JV team's first legitimate HR of the year not including an error, a 220-foot CF drive, a grand slam which turned out to be the game winner (they had to hang on in the bottom of the seventh).

    This is the thing that always slays me about girls softball. StarSis couldn't get to the game because of an office conference that ran late, so she picked S15 up at the school. Of course she asked, "how did you do," and S15 answered offhandedly, "oh, in the second game, I had two walks, a single, double, triple and a home run."

    Of course everybody made a big deal out of the home run, but Sis asked, "didn't anybody say anything about the cycle?" And S15 responded, "No, what's the cycle?"

    Right then the JV coach came out the door and congratulated S15 on the game.

    She pulled out her scorebook and said, "hey, you also had, uh, let's see, one two three four stolen bases, scored six runs, and had, uhm, hmmm, one, two three, four five, six seven eight... Uhmm ... nine ten eleven twelve runs batted in."

    StarSis asked Coach, "have you had a player hit for the cycle before," and Coach responded, "what is the cycle?"

    Sis explained. S15 added, "hey, I caught two of the three outs in the last inning too."
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2016
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