Youth Baseball: Batting Gloves or No Batting Gloves

While I'd want the kid to Keep Pounding the ball, involving cancer is not what I - or anyone else - had in mind.

 

They need to learn to hit it like Keith Hernandez.

 

This coach reminds me of my power-tripping youth coaches who used to raise holy hell with us if we went swimming during the days we'd have 6 p.m. games. Their argument: swimming would make us 10-year-olds too tired to play well.

I was quite aware that he was shoveling a load of shit in my general direction because he wanted to show his authority. So I'd dare him to bench me by showing up for batting practice smelling like chlorine and Coppertone.

 

May be just me, but when I was 10 the last thing I thought about or worried about was my power being down. My buddies and I were too engrossed in throwing rocks across a pond and generally having fun as far away from adults as possible.

Back on topic -- if the kid likes a glove, he should wear a glove. Just nod his head politely at the coach and go about his business.

 

Just say to the coach,

"With all due respect, how many fucking batters in the fucking major leagues do not wear fucking batting gloves, you fucking idiot? Capiche, Kemosabe?"


Now, batting gloves that don't fit -- well, that's a whole different deal.

 

Thanks for the words on this.

This may seem trivial (the whole batting gloves issue) but this is a high-level team and he is trying to hang in. When you have a respectful kid, it isn't always easy for them to stand up for themselves at times... even over something like batting gloves.

 

Could the problem be related to him skipping a year of development, which I assume means he's playing above his age group but maybe he shouldn't be? That would seem to be a more likely explanation than batting gloves.

 

i coach my daughter's 14U asa team. at least half of the girls on that team are better than their 14-year-old male counterparts, who practice on the next field.

that was an idiotic statement, champ.

 

Would it be OK if he said batting gloves are for"homos' or "fags"? Of course not, so why should it be OK to teach an impressionable kid that's OK to demean women?

 

They come in very handy for kids who have to play in cold weather early - or late - in the season like Huggy Jr. He wears them at the plate and as his team's catcher wears one in the field under his glove, something I never got comfortable doing behind the plate.

 

Batting gloves are for girls? What a ridiculous thing to say.

My oldest is six and every single kid on his team wears one, and probably half wear two. Do they need them? Probably not, but what's the downside to wearing them?

 

Have him use pinetar instead. [george brett]