Youth Baseball: Batting Gloves or No Batting Gloves

You can't show a direct cause-and-effect there.

 

Probably not, but I'd feel pretty comfortable betting on it. Specialized instruction from an early age is pretty much the best way to build expertise in anything.

 

We have neighbors who are hockey parents. Their kids are 10 and 12 and we see them leaving at 5-6 a.m. every Saturday to take their kids to whatever game they have. More often than not they wake us up when they're leaving, but they're great people so we never complain about it.

My oldest asked if he could play hockey and my wife and I just looked at each other and quickly said, "No."

If he really wanted to do it, we'd let him, but thankfully it hasn't come up again. He'll have to settle for only playing baseball, flag football, basketball and swimming.

 

I agree with Rick here. As much as I dislike the baseball travel system, it is a tremendously more efficient way of finding and grooming major league talent. There has never been much mystery about how Bryce Harper would pan out, and that's largely because of the program he has already been through. Ditto Jason Heyward, Tim Lincecum, etc.

Would be interested to see numbers but I bet we're going to see (if we haven't already) a big increase in the percentage of high draft picks who pan out as opposed to 20 years ago.

 

It is common place in Canada. Practices as early as 5 AM on school days and it is not just for the AAA players these pratices are for house players as well. Limited ice time means you take what you can get.

Seems like a pretty selfish reason to keep your kid out of a sport because you don't want to wake up early, but to each their own.

 

Intuitively, one would think improved and increased training from a younger age is a big contributing factor. I don't disagree.
I'm just saying it's not possible to draw a direct cause-and-effect line.

 

My kid is six and he's playing four sports. If you think I'm selfish, go fuck yourself.

 

Relax big shot, it wasn't directed specifically at you. It was just a general statement that if you won't let your kid play a sport because you don't want to get up early, to me, that is selfish.

 

Yeah, and look where his head is now!

 

I also said if he pressed the issue, we'd let. Thankfully, he has not.

Being the selfish parent I am, I'm off to Little League...

 

I hated all that early morning shit when I played hockey. We're a lot happier Huggy Jr. plays baseball and not hockey - no freezing rinks, no travel in snow storms to game or practices, no ridiculous equipment costs.

Baseball has it's share of goofy parents but they are usually hockey parents who are looking for something to do in the summer!

 

Swimming parents are the the ones who scare me.