Advice for dad of 14 year old.

In my book, the most important element is "what does your son want?"

As long as your son wants to participate, lessons, elite teams, etc. are all worthwhile. However, if this is your passion and not his, forget it.

My son was about 14 when he began playing on a series of "elite/travel" teams. As you have already noted, as the enviroment changes so does the success and failure of kids.

My son was never the stud on any of his teams. However, he wanted to keep playing and working at the game. Between age 14 and the junior year in high school it is likely that half of the kids that he is now playing ball with will no longer be playing.

With this said; play, have fun, fail and keep working at it. If he does, and he wants to succeed, he will find a level of ball where he can contribute. However, as you have found already, success and failure will come when you least expect it.

Also, before you start investing in baseball for your son, talk with the entire family. Do they want to make travel baseball part of the family agenda. Also, please put your sons academics ahead of baseball. Pay for an hour of tutors before an hour of hitting.

In the end, both you and your son will learn about each other and be better prepared to build a strong relationship.

Nothing is ever too late. But we are going to have a hard time helping you.
Where is "google search" located?

I ask because if you are located in South Dakota (no offense to SD here), you might have a hard time finding a good travel team.
On the other hand, if you are in CA, FL or TX you will have tons of choices.

Bottom line, your son will get better working with some solid instruction (as you are doing), AND playing against better competition.

GOOD LUCK!!!!

HNO3,

Welcome to the High School Baseball Web. Use the “Find” and “Advanced Search” at the top of the Forums, Topics, and Posts to find information and advice on just about anything (including baseball). Go to the Main Website and browse the topics and articles. There is a wealth of knowledge within this site. There is also a chat room that can start up just about any time but Wednesday night seems to be a regular occurrence. Hang on, the dialogue can move as fast a large Thanksgiving dinner.

You sound like you answered your own questions. Being a college professor puts you in a unique position to get advice from your own college’s program. How about a casual/professional “curtsey” conversation with the head coach or one of the assistant coaches? IMHO it is never too late to get involved in travel ball or get instruction. These coaches may have knowledge of local travel teams and instructional programs. They may also run instructional camps themselves. Baseball has been one of the greatest adventures in my life and one you will never regret.

It’s never too late. Welcome to the party.

“Baseball is a kid’s game that grown-ups only tend to screw up” ~ Bob Lemon

I agree,..I dont think its ever too late! If your son has the passion and dedication, then I say help him as much as you can! The more one plays, the more experience. Thats usually equals out to be a good thing!

I personally would talk to your local college baseball coach ( you mentioned you were a college professor) and ask him about local baseball programs, teams, etc. that he would reccommend.
I'm sure he will be " in the know " about your area and should have some solid advice!

If you are willing to post where you are from, I'd be willing to bet someone on the HSBBW will know something about competitive baseball in your area!!

The best of luck to you and your son!
Again,..its never too late to follow ones dreams!

Footnote: woops,..looks like Smokey had faster typing skills than I did and beat me to the posting.
Sounds like we pretty much had the same opinions/advice for you! Hope it helps!
And where are my manners???? Soo sorry!!!..WELCOME to the HSBBW!!!!!

I agree with all the previous posters. It is NOT too late, but you need to do something proactive now.. immerse yourself into the wealth of information available here an HSBBW and it can happen!

Baseball history is replete with ballplayers who made it to the highest levels who, when they were young, were subbing behind what I call "child-stars". How well you play at 14 is not how well you play when you're 18, and that's when it counts. Good luck!

To answer some of the questions:

1. We live in Southfield (suburb of Detroit), Michigan. I know there are lots of travel teams around us, but we seem to have missed the various tryouts for the 2007 season. The problem being that unless you know where to look, you don't find this stuff. Now I know where to look, but a little too late, I guess.

2. Being a college Prof, I know you can't force people to learn if they don't want to, and so I've left the motivating part of baseball up to my son. When he (not me) made a decision to get good at baseball a couple years ago, that's when I got active. I try my best to facilitate what he wants to do, but he has to be the one to say "can you throw batting practice," "wanna play catch," etc.

3. Tutoring is not an issue, since he has a live-in tutor (me).

Never too late to start. Friend of mine started playing organized ball at 13, hit .121 that year.

He started in the LA area HS all-star game as a senior. He never made it past AAA ball, but that's a lot further than most of us.

I would definately encourage you to seek a quality Fall and Summer program for your Son. And it may not be too late this season. Adjustments are made throughout the season to rosters.

If your son has the desire to go to the next level, then by all means support it.

Word of warning, he should only work with one hitting coach. He will end up getting, to some degree, conflicting instructions from two different coaches.

Getting on a good select team will help him step his game up. I stongly advise doing so.

Good luck to your son.

I'm a strong second on the importance of one (1) high quality hitting coach! A player can get screwed up very fast and very profoundly.

I don't live too far from you. You may want to keep trying to find some teams for your son, even though many tryouts and fall ball have finished. Try to find summer coach contacts (email, phone #'s) in a good summer league, and ask if they may still be looking for a player. You never know. If your son pitches, and even better, a lefty, he may still be able to find a spot on a team. Never hurts to ask.

By all means get some good instruction. That is a lot more difficult than it sounds. You should also educate yourself on what constitutes good hitting and throwing mechanics. That way you'll know if you have a good instructor or not.

Good luck.

Very good advice so far.Heres my 2 cents....You can go to eteamz.com to search for team websites.Or USSSA website/rankings/age group-ability level to find some team info.I would go to some of the complexes where some tourneys are going on these next few weekends.Then you can see the talent level,make some connections,etc..

Just a thought - organize your own team based on players you know from rec. Most travel teams want "pick-up" games during the week and off-weekends. Enter tourneys to see how you do. You may get beat pretty good by some teams but playing against the best helps in the long run. Whatever you do...Good luck!

I'll have to disagree somewhat with catcher09. I think at 14 you'd be best off finding your son some qualified instruction rather than doing it yourself. Try finding a good batting cage facility with qualified instructors. Some areas have baseball acadamies that focus on all aspects of the game.

Also, I think it is very important to ensure his armstrength is his best tool. Hitting is important, but not more important than arm strength. Long-toss year-round, and work on arm mechanics.

It is a paradox: Your kid's arm will keep him in baseball the longest, and his (poor) hitting will get him out of baseball the quickest!

Nitric Acid,
Welcome to the HSBBW! Two points to remember: It is never too late and you need to do something TODAY!

If you’re scratching your head wondering why there are differing opinions on how you should help your son get to the next level, that’s because there are different ways to get there. You DO need to find out what teams are available for your son to play on and there are a number of ways to do this. You need to snoop. The internet, college coaches, high school coaches, sporting good stores, the sports editor of your local paper, baseball instructors, and even other ball players can give you a list of available teams and their coach’s names. Make contact with them and start asking questions. Things will happen.
There is another variable you have to consider. Your son’s make-up is unique to him and you will have to adjust your approach to meet his needs. His talent, desire, motivation, work ethic, personality, and even the relationship he has with you will all factor into how you go about helping him. For instance --- I know that if I left it up to my son there is no way he would have left his rec team for a travel team. He had the type of personality that required me to talk to him and encouraged him (not push him) to venture out and compete at the higher levels all the time trying to ensure sure he could compete at that level. There is no doubt in my mind this challenged him to be the best he could be and helped him develop into a better ball player and made his baseball experience MUCH more rewarding to him.
I might add the costs do vary from instructor to instructor and team to team so budget could be a factor. Coaching styles also vary a great deal and what may fit another player may conflict with your son. You specifically asked about matching your son’s talent with a particular level of travel team. Yes there are a wide variety of talent levels of travel teams so finding a fit for your son is very possible. Instructions will always play an important role in helping any player develop and grow. While I do agree that finding one good instructor will add stability to the whole process of your son’s development, the one coach (instructor) doing it the perfect way is a utopia that will never be found. Your son will change coaches (I would venture to say my son has had twenty or more over the years) and each will have a little different method of teaching. Hopefully your son can get something positive from all of them.
You have a challenge ahead of you but that challenge will be very rewarding. Not only will you see your son grow but you will become involved in that growth. While it will always be HIS game and HIS accomplishments, you will soon realize you are needed and your help will make a huge difference.
Best of Luck,
Fungo
PS: Always remember-- Parent first, Baseball second.

Thanks for all of the advice, everyone.

Although the idea of coaching sounds like fun, honestly, I think my son needs a better coach than me. The hitting instruction I received as a kid was next to none, except maybe "keep your elbow up", ugh...So I had to figure it all out as an adult by reading books, the internet, looking at video, working off a tee myself to see if this stuff made sense, etc. Then digesting it and feeding bits of it to my son in a way he could understand.

This winter we're probably going to work with a pro for hitting instruction. That isn't cheap and leaves me wondering about nature vs. nurture. How much of baseball is just "you're born with it" and how much is skill development through practice? I hear talk of college and pro scouts looking for skills and not at statistics. How does one assess skills without statistics? There are certainly guys who made it to the pro level without being very athletic, but were obviously very good at pitching or hitting a baseball. Can baseball skills be learned in the same way someone can learn calculus?

NitricAcid, I sent you a PM... just want to make sure you got it! Thanks.

If you don't know how to retrieve PMs, go to the top tab and click on NewPM and it takes you to your messages.

Nitric - I'm PMing you as well.

You might want to have him see an "expert" while organizing your own travel team from your rec league. My son plays for a great High School team, an elite travel team, and a travel team (the all stars from a little league) that I help coach. He has also been to Pitching Coaches in the past.

One point of interest - the travel team he plays for that I coach has gotten good enough to play head-to-head with the elite team that he plays on. In fact, a couple months ago we beat a 16u team that just placed 2nd in the World Bat Under Class tourny. Once you've been to enough "experts" you'll be able transfer some of their expertise to other players.

Having said that, nothing will substitute for great coaching from someone who really knows their stuff. Further, playing with and against great competition will go along way for making your son a better player. This is where travel teams help so much.

It can be too late, but at age 14 its not too late. Its simply a matter of repetitions.

From a dad contribution, if you have an indoor garage, I suggest this $250(max) investment:

$150 for batting cage net. Mount it with plastic clad steel rope.

I assume you have a bat.
Buy 50 baseballs.
Deeply research cage drills.
Repeat the right stuff over and over and over and over and over and over, etc.

Make some video once a week.
Take notes and record what you've done.

It certainly worked at our house.
All-state in hs, all-star in collegiate wooden bat summer league, all-conference twice in college.

best of all, we got to hang out together the whole time.

p.s.: Get the book: Physics of Baseball

Be careful about just going out and just buying a net for the garage. Having a very sound base knowledge of how to hit, is much more important than hitting 600 balls a week incorrectly!

quote:

Having a very sound base knowledge of how to hit

HNO3 seemed to have it covered in his original post.

HaverDad,
Do you have a particular recommendation for a book on cage drills? We have a few things we do off a tee, and soft toss, but that is about it. I like the idea of setting up shop in the garage for the winter.

H-Dad - can you give a description on what you bought and set up in the garage - a how to guide plus lessons learned. I would like to set this up and just dont know where to begin.

Its the cocktail hour in France, but I promise to post our drills in the next 24 hours.

plus...... I may need to use some CAD drawing at HaverDadWork and then post it on the web.

Although I couldn't get the CAD software to work (shows how often I've used it), I have placed a simple text & graphic description of the "Poor Mans Garage Cage", in the Hitting forum.

Also, the top of my mind list of our cage drills are listed in there as well.