Boycott your local Little League

I never hit a home run, but I hit the scoreboard during batting practice. I stole a million bases when they were only 60 feet apart. I struck out a lot because I was thinking too much—one of my coaches even published a book called “the modern mechanics of hitting,” so I should have foreseen my doom. I loved fielding, though—2nd, 3rd, and any outfield position.

By pony league I would show up to every practice but play an inning and a half before getting pulled so some asshole primadonna could get his whacks in. One time when I got benched I went completely apeshit and then received the only sternly-worded sportsmanship lecture I ever got from my dad.

I don’t get along with him now, but I’ll always give my dad major credit for never becoming a jerky baseball dad. He never coached (he was usually the scorekeeper) except one time when he filled in at 3rd base and told me to steal home. Batter got a single so no steal. :)

I tried out for high school ball for 3 years too, but only made the winter ball team. That failure would have been easier if I hadn’t also been regularly cut from soccer tryouts. Oh well.

but I played for like 10 years and loved it. I was lucky enough to be coached by my Dad and also another coach that I’m still very close with.

I’m lucky they were the guys that coached me—basically we all knew I sucked but I learned all the tricks and traditions of the game by playing baseball. Sure we worked on hitting and fielding and pitching, but what I took away was how technical and difficult and fun baseball is, not how to hit the ball the farthest.

I did have an AMAZING knuckleball, though.

and I think it’s safe to say that it wasn’t the same back then. There were select teams, but they were the exception. Mainly, you got lumped into a league and assigned a random team and you played mostly for fun, but with a competitive feel as well. We had playoffs, etc. but it was mainly within the region…no special uniforms, equipment, travel, etc.

Kids were required to play at least 2 innings, so it forced coaches to play every one.
 Lots of good memories here…but from what I hear about the way youth baseball operates today…my experience might be just a memory

I played Little League and really enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed it because I was always on a team that never took itself serious. Only one year was I on a team with a winning record. But the one game that stands out in my mind more than any other was when our team, the Orioles at 0-10 defeated an A’s team that was 10-0 at the time. I was only 9 but I remember the tying run was on third with one out in the bottom of the sixth (the final inning). We were up by only one run. The batter hit a scorching line drive at the third baseman, who caught it and stepped on the bag to double up the runner and end the game. I was at SS and had a great view and was thankful the ball wasn’t hit to me. You’d have thought we won the World Series, we went nuts.

I never played baseball in high school, I know it would have been too serious for me. And I had a hard enough time taking school serious. But the neighborhood still always got together to play baseball and football. That was the best. After high school I joined the elite Fighting Catfish with Dex. I was finally at that point where playing serious baseball was actually fun.

A couple years ago I coached Pony baseball. It was one of the most rewarding experiences ever. Some kids took serious and some didn’t. Our team always pressed that baseball was a game to enjoy and that’s it and everyone would play. I was surprised to see how intense some kids took, much more than in my day. Parents would step in and give you hell for not playing their kid at a position they thought appropriate; insisting their kid was the nest Cal Ripkin. I’d be laughing inside, but some of these parents were nuts… their kid is out there in left field having the time of their life, maybe they should too. Some teams and coaches also took it too serious and that’s the real problem. I know some coaches that would flat out bench some players the whole game (which was legal in our league). Even college scouts were invited and would show up to some games.

So I agree that baseball still needs to be a game, but I would never boycott Little League. More emphasize needs to be placed on sportsmanship and fun. It’s taken way too serious now and kids have rebelled. Everyone just needs to take a step back.

well a picture anyway.

http://www.gaslampball.com/2006/6/8/231347/6285

is saying that playing LL could basically scar someone for life.

Is that what we are supposed to get out of this?

Do any of you ex-LL players feel scarred for life?

Yes, its nice to discover the “joys of baseball”. I’ve seen lots of kids that love playing LL baseball. Although, the traveling team aspect seems to feed into what he is talking about. Kids that Ive seen that are playing in traveling teams take it dead seriously. Too much so.

I was the lefty. Back in LL, there were few of us. I was on two city championship teams. One of them, we were undefeated through the regular season, post season, and regional tournament. (We had this kid, he was the better lefty). It was a truly surreal experience. Since we were a team that was drafted by our coach at the beginning of the season like everyone else, we were not one of the All-Star teams that gets to compete in the LLWS, so weren’t allowed to advance and our team was broken up.

The next year I had a terrible manager. His only reason for being there was because he had custody of his two sons, who hated him, for a few days a week and it wasn’t soccer season. No kidding, he wore soccer cleats in the dugout all season.

My dad had helped coach for a couple years before that, but he always sent me to a baseball camp in the early spring. These were the most fun, but still a supplement to LL itself. Start in the morning, split into small groups, rotate through a bunch of stations teaching different baseball skills, have lunch, and the rest of the day is a pickup game to practice what you learned. These were usually sponsored by a former major leaguer of some sort, and they usually guaranteed a visit from a major leaguer as part of the package. Motivational speech, sign some autographs, pictures, etc. Ken Caminiti was at one. Another was held at The Diamond in Lake Elsinore. It was a mix of kids from traveling teams and other leagues and it was always a great atmosphere.

While my experience was good, I feel like I was lucky. The kids whose parents reinforced that they should be having fun, and took an interest in them without going overboard, had a generally positive experience. Our LL itself had a great president, too. The League he devoted so much time to was kinda a big deal at times.

But there was always a spectrum; way too serious, to using it as a babysitting service. There was always at least one who wasn’t having any fun, but Little League itself was never to blame. I think it’s just another venue where good parenting can shine and bad parenting can spoil it.

tl;dr – baseball should be fun.

However, I’ve been one of those parents with a kid in travel ball and little league. It sure hasn’t faded Alex’s love of the game (I say this while the two of us watch the MLB tv network which is our slice of heaven until spring training starts).

I do get the guy’s point though. It’s still all in your own experience, but yeah, it has become more competitive and less about just screwing around with the game. Especially in high school. As a parent you constantly struggle to maintain a balance.

I played for three years as a kid, from 6-8, until my utter lack of athletic ability and the fact that my dad could give a rat’s ass caught up to me. I fell in love with baseball as an adult, and wanted my kids to have a better experience. I coached my oldest through two seasons of little league. Alas, he inherited my athletic ability, and he really didn’t like it. We figured out he was only playing to make me happy, so he moved on to other things. My middle boy played one season of Cal Ripken league, which I coached, and broke his arm halfway through, and also didn’t particularly like baseball. I still hold out hope for my 4-year old, but I think I’ll start him later.
In my coaching experience, there were a lot of parents who took it too seriously, and you could see the effect on their kids. The competitiveness of those parents was astounding. The president of the T-ball league falsified his nephew’s age so that he could play when he was really 8. T-BALL!! What does that teach a kid? Another coach told the parents of his less talented kids that it might be better if they didn’t show up on game days.I started out the season with a speech to the parents and kids about the fact that my goal was not to win a championship, but to instill a love of baseball into every one of the kids, regardless of talent. My first season, we were 1-10, and everyone was happy, and the parents bought me a plaque. My second year (different parents), we were 9-2, and some of the parents weren’t speaking to me by the end of the season because I had confronted them about yelling at the kids, or hadn’t put their kid in the right position.
 When I coached in Cal Ripken league, they allowed 4-year-olds. There are very few 4-year olds that have the attention span for baseball. I had 8 four-year olds on my team of 15 kids, and you had to have every player in the field. It was like trying to catch farts in a net.
Little league would be perfect if it could be played on a sound-proof field, and adults were kept 50 feet from the field at all times.

but I used to do umpiring for two seasons in LL, too.

I only had to eject one guy and tell his wife to shut up. Other than that it was pretty fun.

I could never hit, nor run, but I loved to play and I still believe I was the only 11 year old catcher to call time out to have a conference on the mound. :)

The only thing close to embarrassing came after playing catch with a Nerf football with my older brothers. I am right handed, but was messing around and threw back left-handed to them a few times, and they seemed convinced I would do better as a lefty. I played for a few games at 2B with a lefty glove and it just felt so weird. I had a couple of bad throws to first, which nearly made my 10-year old self cry.

I played since I was five years old … up until the knee injury playing soccer, I was slated to be the starting catcher on the high school team. I had a great time playing LL and Pony, even if I did suck as an outfielder when I should have been catching lol. After a verbal disagreement with the high school coach I packed my trash and played travel ball throughout my high school years. I spent about 30 seconds watching the Palomar College baseball team play and scrapped the thought of becoming a walk-on … I wasn’t about to waste my time, the coaching staff’s time, or the other players’ time.
As a coach of freshmen in high school, I find myself constantly having to go back and teach fundamentals to these LL players that they should have learned when they were 10. The jump from 60 feet to 90 feet kills the arms of the pitchers (who have to throw their ill-gotten curveballs harder, leading to more injuries) and they have no clue whatsoever how to get a proper lead. My advice to parents: absolutely NO CURVEBALLS IN LL! Teach them a changeup instead.

This may be long, so bare with me. First time poster, but LONG time reader of GLB (always wanted to say that/write that).

Bill James is a d-bag. He has NO clue what he is talking about. He says kids should boycot little league because they need to: think less of travel teams and deadlines for tryouts and proper gear and high schools with good baseball programs.

It seems like he is using the name Little League to basically mean youth baseball. And that is not right, nor fair to LL. While Little League is youth baseball, it is not what is described above.

None of those are in Little League. No travel teams (parents sign them up for that and it is NOT Little League). Deadlines for tryouts? Most kids try out once and are placed on a team. If they move from league to league, then they try out. But in Travel Ball, they must try out every six months (again, not LL). As for high school baseball, Little League ends at 12 sometimes 13. After that, it is considered something totally different.

Little League teaches many things (if done right): teamwork, dedication, commitment, heart, keeps them from being in front of the TV, it teaches them how to deal with wins and loses, it also teaches them diversity and acceptance, teaches them to pay attention, listen to adults, and most important, to have fun. And while they are having fun they are learning life’s lessons without knowing it! That is the beauty of it.

Now the key word is if done right. Sure you get the overzelous coach every once in a while and yes, the parents ruin it a lot of times. But if you get a good coach, all of that is void.

And I feel I have some validity to talk about this stuff because I played LL from the age of 4 until I was 14. And I was the WORST player on the field. RF every game for three consecutive outs and 1 at bat, every game. And the reason I kept going was my love of the game. I was smart enough to figure that out. Granted, there was no such thing as travel ball when I played.

And now I coach. I have coached for five years and I have loved every second of it. I never had a coach who bothered to take time to teach me squat. So I have promised to do that for whomever needs it. And I don’t even have a child in the program.

that drove me away from baseball:

it was high school baseball. What does Bill James have to say about that?