quote:Originally posted by CADad:
Parents need to help with that a bit until the players are ready to take over for themselves.
I agree with the above, however someone told me that the overly obsessive parent who wants to micro manage their youngsters often becomes the overly obsessive parent of older players and has no clue when to let go or realizes any harm they may be in doing so.
Some others things said:
"Real" baseball people (those in the profession) understand that there is a lot of failure in this game and if you develop young players with too high of expectation day in and day out, most usually break down either physically or emotionally.
Also believes that young players should be taught proper mechanics and conditioning for their age (appropriate) and not be concerned with throwing harder, how many wins or how many people they struck out, etc. It all changes and in many cases, the young player is best left to develop his natural talent without too much stress placed upon a growing body (throwing often and harder from the mound at young ages can create this). For many that may include not throwing curve balls as well as other pitches introduced to players too early.
Each player is different and develops differently, the opening statements about one should be concerned about velocity at 10 is not good, this may be a good concern for him but not in general.
This is also a person who knowa a lot more on player development and success than we do.
So whose opinion would you beleive would be best for young players, an overly obsessive dad or one who is a professional in the business?
I am gonna go with the latter.