I’m writing this to clear up these 2 main issues I feel permeates baseball at the youth level.
KIDS:
You MUST have a plan when you practice and you must work on REAL SKILLS like vision, hip thrust, deep snap…whatever. Not on HITTING THE BALL. Also, you MUST UNDERSTAND you WILL GET OUT in baseball, no matter how good you think you are or how good your coach is. Dealing with failure well and having realistic and fair expectations are the main reasons some kids do well in baseball and some kids are weeded out.
PARENTS AND COACHES:
Remember, YOUR clean-up hitter is just a ‘kid’! He or she will get out from time to time. And, they only get out MORE OFTEN the better they and those around them get. Now, if they’re really working on stuff and constantly focused, you can be a little concerned…until YOU remember they’re NOT Professionals!
Kids lose focus. Kids feel sick. Kids sometimes aren’t in it all the way or woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
So do you! So do I! So does every human on this planet.
Let me ask some questions to Coach and/or Dad:
How high did you play?
Even if you made it to the MLB and were and MVP, don’t you remember getting out 70% of the time?
Don’t you remember playing 2 years of JV ball?
Don’t you remember hitting 8th on your travel team/little league team, or the big error you made that cost your team that game?
How about the bunt you didn’t get down or the ‘bad call’ on that strikeout that ended your team’s season?
I’m not putting this part in to say if you weren’t good as a player you can’t make a kid better because you CAN improve kids if your knowledge is good.
I’m just REMINDING YOU of your own experience with failure in sports. Failure rate ends every career, injury doesn’t. Let me repeat that…Failure rate ends every career, injury doesn’t.
Meaning even the best players get old and their skills erode…decreasing their own success levels.
PLEASE, be fair to yourselves as players and be fair to your sons and daughters as coaches and parents. Youth Baseball and Softball are GAMES, we can work to get better at them, but in the light of day, PLEASE keep your perspective and allow your child to have fun and love the game!
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Parent-Coaches
Posted - 11/07/2013 : 11:44:13
