Intro and Question

Welcome.
Workout as in body workouts? If so, 8 year olds do not need to workout.
He can find other activities to do during the off season.

Let your two boys be the boys that they should be---8 year olds have no need to work out

cocdawg...welcome to HSBBW. You'll love this place!

I have to agree with TPM and TR. Having or letting him as an 8yr old workout should be the absolute furtherest from your mind right now. Let him play...outside...as much as he can.

You have another 4yrs or so before worrying about him starting training.

YGD

At that age there are so many fun things you can do with him that don't require even being outside.

Sitting at home watching TV, toss a ball back and forth. Make games of it for how many you can both catch without dropping it. Bounce the ball to him and have him field it barehanded.

I can't describe how many hours my son and I spent playing games like this together. We still do it! And every step of the way you are not only reinforcing skills, but having fun.

And especially at age 8, the objective should be to have fun playing baseball. As he gets older, there will be parts of what it takes to get good at baseball that don't much resemble anyone's idea of fun - but age 8 is NOT the time for that.

Sorry guys I wasn't clear. He's wanting to hit, field, and pitch every other week. Is this o.k.?

When my son was 8, he and his dad spent countless hours in the front yard just throwing. My son especially loved having his dad throw the ball up in the air as high as he could so he could catch it. Just have fun with it. The work-outs and other year round stuff comes soon enough!!

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Sorry guys I wasn't clear. He's wanting to hit, field, and pitch every other week. Is this o.k.?

Sure that is OK. He could play baseball in some form every day if he wants. (Be careful about pitching, of course.)

Thanks for the warm welcome;I look forward to learning from all you experts and weeding out the "know it alls"! I'm sure there aren't any on this board though.

jj12303, I don't think if I had a rocket launcher shooting the balls into the sky it would please either of my sons. I'll throw them as high as I can and it's still not high enough. We're in the yard most every day.

About the dugout club...I guess what I would like to see him get out of the whole ordeal is fundementals. Especially hitting. Again, thanks and sorry for not being more specific on my original post.

Be careful about putting too much stock in an eight year old's favorite sport or obsession. Next year it could be something else. Or four or five years from now he could decide he's bored from doing too much baseball and not enough of other things. Just let baseball happen at a speed he can handle and make sure he's being exposed to other interests.

When my son was eight he played machine pitch rec ball from March through June. That was it. Now (sixteen) it's a twelve month effort of baseball and/or physical training even though he plays a fall sport.

Welcome aboard. I wouldn't let an 8 year old focus on just baseball. Playing baseball year around (I see you're in Georgia so that's possible) is not a good thing for young arms. I would make him play at least basketball and s0ccer to give him a taste. If he hates them, fine (or great ) but at least then he did it to help decide.

The biggest thing to be careful of is the combination of his and your enthusasism resulting in overworking a young body. Make sure he gets downtime. That will preserve things over all a lot longer! I remember 9 and 10 year old ball fondly. But truth be told, I love whatever age ball my kiddo is playing the best...it just gets better and better. Enjoy the ride.

Whose tag line is it that says "play two sports until the roster tells you that you don't?"

There's been a lot of threads on this board over the years about the pros and cons of playing two (or more) sports through high school.

As my son was in the process of committing in the summer before his senior year, the question of whether to play his senior year of football of course came up. His college coach said: "Go play, help your team win the state title."

I can't tell you how much I appreciated that, and how much respect he gained in my eyes that moment.

He knew that the HS years are special. Sure, there is risk of injury. But you have to live your life.

That, at least, is my view. There are completely legitimate arguments for the other side.

As it turned out, he had a great senior season, and his team lost in the state title game.

At 8 years old he should be having fun in everything he does.

As far as sports goes he should be developing coordination. This is done, like Rob said, by having a catch in the family room while watching TV, or by tossing and hitting wiffle balls in the back yard, by running the bases, while dad is chasing him, at the local field and by playing tag with his friends.

Any "training" this early is over doing it IMO.

Come March sign up for your local LL and let the fun continue onto the field.

Hi cocdawg,

you have hit on a great resource in asking questions and interacting with this site. Good question and as you can see plenty of responses. I am envious of your stage in one respect; those first few years are as much fun for "Dad" as they are son. My favorite year is still the first t-ball year; what a blast!
Anyway'

I believe there are a few very basic fundamentals you can do now so you don't have to correct later on. Things like getting your butt down and glove in the dirt when fielding a grounder. We did a "crab" walk; knees bent, butt almost on the ground and glove in the dirt to learn and practice this concept. My son laughed at me everytime I tried to do the "crab" walk! I would also give him a target many times to throw at; high, low, left, right, mix it up. You can start up close and move back to maximize the distance (this will latter be called long toss). Son gives you a target and you give him one and we made a little game of it. (We still do this, but I can't throw it near as far as he can!). I can think of one batting teaching aid; set a 2x6 about 4 feet long on the ground (you can also place a piece on each end about 4 inches long to elevate it an little). Then have son stand on it to swing at the ball. This helps teach him a proper stance and step while swinging and balance while he swings or he falls off the board. My son loved swinging the bat from the board.
As to other sports, I suggest swimming. Great sport that strengthens the entire body and puts a little balance in your strength. My son is a lefty and the first time he started doing the free style (about age 4.5) his right arm could hardly break the water. By the time he was 8 he placed 2nd in a regional swim meet out of about 60 boys. But the important part is the conditioning this provided for his back and shoulders. The result for this I think is summed up as "priceless".

But don't over do it with these type things. Most inportant is having fun.

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And here's something to keep him and his little brother busy during the off season...









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Here's some persepctive I gave some parents of 9U players who were taking the game too seriously. It applies to eight year olds too.....

"These aren't mini major leaguers. When they're not playing baseball they're playing in the dirt. Let them be little kids."

The three kids from that team who took offseason pitching lessons weren't pitching or playing by 14U. They thought I was nuts for not taking advantage of developing my son as a pitcher. He was busy playing football, s0ccer and basketball from September to March. He's taking his first pitching lessons now at sixteen.

cocdawg,
Welcome to the board. I have only been a member for about a year, but, I wish I had found this board when my son was 8 years old, it would have saved me a lot of time and money.
Be a Dad and support your sons by playing catch and teaching them how it hit and such. Just remember, this is their time in sports and enjoy what they want to do, you had your time it's your sons turn now.
I ran a league for about 9 years or so and saw a lot of kids come and go, good players and bad, some didn't get any better, some got bored, some rebelled against be pushed by their parents.
Very few went any farther than high school (3 to this point)
One of the most important things I taught my son when he was young was if he decided to play, baseball or anything else, once he made the commitment he couldn't quit, he had to play the season until it was over no matter what, even if he wasn't going to play all the time but the choice to play was always his, not mine.

Enjoy the short time you have now with your sons, you can never get it back, and when you look back, it went by real quick.

Welcome to the site. You asked a very good question. For me I would say use baseball as an opportunity to spend quality time with your son. Go out in the yard and play catch. Make it fun for him. If you are spending time with him and you are making it fun time with him his love for the game will grow and grow.

Teach him the basic fundementals of catching , throwing , fielding and hitting but do it with fun games that allow him to have success. Alot of it. And just enjoy the time you are spending with your son. As he gets older all this other stuff will take care of itself. The most important thing is you will be spending time with you son and he will be spending time with you. You will develop a common bond and it will be baseball.

Throw football with him during football season or anytime , shoot hoops with him. I used sports as a way to spend time with my kids because I love sports. Some dads use atv's , hunting , etc etc. Usually its what the parent grew up loving to do. Enjoy this time with your son because you will look back on it as some of the best times and the most important time you spend with him. Good luck and welcome!

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I used sports as a way to spend time with my kids because I love sports.

Ditto.

Countless games of Horse, one-on-one, tossing the football, tossing whiffles, wrestling each other, and any other kind of game/contest created on the spot whether it be throwing rocks at a telephone pole or seeing who is the first to throw a penny into a cup - it's all about having fun and spending time together.

Make the baseball activities about this too. It won't guarantee he'll be a great ballplayer, but it probably will guarantee you will have great relationship with him!

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Which one of you threw that rock?






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I used sports as a way to spend time with my kids because I love sports.

I used sports as a way to spend time with my kids because I love sports my kids.


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cocdawg,
Welcome to the board. While you have gotten a lot of opinions, whether they are right for your situation, only you will know.

It sounds like your son is where my son was at 8. It is key to make things fun so he will grow his love for the game. At the same time, if he really wants to work on "Baseball related skills" then playing tiddly winks will be hard to explain the correlation.

My wife played co-ed softball with me during that time, so we would go out and hit, throw and field. We would take his bike along and he would participate to the extent he wanted to. (This might work better when your 3 year old gets 8 and your oldest son is 13). He would always want to hit and field first, but would get tired of it after the first 45 minutes or so, and go ride his bike. My wife and I would do our stuff until he came back and want to play around with us again. My wife would play a game with him where she would line up beside him out in the field and she would tell him she was going to get the ball before he did. It made him be more aggressive to getting the ball. She especially had fun with the fly balls out in the outfield.

Some times we would go and let him hit in the indoor cages when it was cold. He even took some pitching and hitting lessons just to make sure he understood good fundamentals. If you choose to do that, keep it light and not get too excited about things.

Have fun with whatever you do and don't ever let him feel like he is letting you down.

Hi, cocdawg. My son was about 8 when we got one of those blue Louisville Slugger pitching machines. (just google Loiusville Slugger pitching machine). Mostly because I couldn't throw a strike, and neither could my husband. We had a blast with that thing, even took it camping with us, and didn't give it up until he turned 11 and the pitchers were throwing in the 50's. It will also do pop-ups and ground balls. It still worked great when we traded it in at the used sporting goods store. Tennis balls work fine if you don't have a safe place to hit baseballs. I think the new ones run a couple hundred dollars, but you can probably find a used one fairly cheap. We had a lot of fun with it.