Knoxville Stars 8u Tryouts

When you put 8U and tryouts in the same sentence, you epitomize all that is wrong with youth sports today.

I probably should post this, but sometimes, I can't help myself.

1BDad


I am with you 100%

" Tryouts "...????

For 8 year olds??

Tryouts usually infers that there will be " cuts ".
Can't think of a single reason WHY an 8 year old would get cut from a baseball team.
Not a single reason.

Knoxstars,...did you mean " sign ups " ?
Did you mean 18u? Was it a typo?

Check out this this site, then.

Jeff,
Thanks for taking the time to type all that. Are those points you agree with?

Or are those the things you come up with excuses for?

Thanks.

And what happens to the 8 year olds who get " cut" ?
...and what is the criteria for getting cut? Arm speed, bat speed, running speed? Agility? Radar gun reading?
I'm curious.

quote:

4 innings per game, 6 per weekend.

Six games per weekend,...every weekend?

Where in the world did they find a guy good enough at evaluating talent to pull that off???

Something like this...."Sorry Johnny...but Billy only one hops it to first from third. Yours took two hops....back to the rec team son. Maybe next year Johnny, keep working hard."

See my first post Jeff. It still applies.

By the way...4 games a weekend would be a minimum of 20 innings...(5 inning games, but these kids probably played 7) 3 pitchers X 6 innings = 18 innings of pitching for the weekend.

Didn't make many finals? Or didn't throw kids to many?


You are serious right? This isn't a joke?

I'd be interested to know where I made this personal???

Did I say anything about your son? or his talent level?? Nope.

(edited something I didn't feel comfortable leaving)

You speak of me making assumptions?? Perhaps you've made a few too many assumptions of your own.

You see, I've been a part a part of competitive 8 year old baseball. As well as 10u, 12u competitive baseball. Actually our last year was as 11s, but we played 12u.

50 games a summer for our 8s, up to 80 as 12s. It was fun. It wasn't for everybody.

We started with 12 8 year olds from the same school. We didn't cut anyone. We coached them, taught them and played baseball. We finished with 9 of the original players. They could all pitch, because we taught them to and we needed them to.

I found out something pretty amazing about those 9 kids Jeff. 5 of them are still playing baseball on the same High School team. And when they were freshman, they were head and shoulders above the other kids. However, now as Juniors and seniors, the talent level has evened out so much that I'm not sure the sacrifices made as 8-11 year olds was worth it. Don't get me wrong, those 5 have better baseball heads I think, but as far as hitting, running and throwing, the other kids caught up. As a matter of fact, one of our "stud" pitchers, if you can be a stud at 8-10. Well, he's pretty much average.

All 5 of those kids, to include my son, will play college baseball somewhere. 2 maybe 3 might make small D1 somewhere.

So you keep kidding yourself, and telling yourself that cutting 8 year olds is the way to go. That pushing your kids to the absolute maximum as 8-10 is the best thing to do because "They want it".

And those of us that have gone before you, that have lived that life, will continue to sit here and smile, realizing that guys like you have it all wrong.

And by the way, whenever I see something I don't agree with, I'll post my opinion.

Have a great day Jeff.

No Jeff, we didn't cut. We took the 12 kids that showed up. We sent out an invite to all the boys in the two 2nd grade classes at our elementary school. We would have taken 15 if that's how many showed up. We were prepared to field two teams if that's what it took. Don't try to make yourself feel better by dragging me down.

You are making assumptions again.

How do you figure it worked for me???? Who gets to decide if it worked for us?

I don't feel like it worked for us. I feel like our kids would have turned out to be the same players even if we had waited on travel ball. It appears to me that their peers turned out pretty good without being pushed so hard.

Our senior class last year had 6 kids go on to play baseball in college. 4 jucos 1 Div III and 1 other that I think was DIV II. Of those 6, 3 played travel ball from a young age.

Why are you attacking me with the pot stirring and smell bad comments?

Have I attacked you in anyway, other than saying I don't think it's the right way? If I have, I'm truly sorry.

I think what hurts you is that no one is getting on here and backing you up. Nobody is saying, way to go, way to push those 8 year olds. If they aren't good enough to play, you should just tell them to move on back to rec ball.

Yep, I'm the bad guy here.

Have a great day Jeff!!

I deleted the last post. Sorry I attacked you Jeff, that wasn't my intent. I'm sincerely surprised that someone that supports youth in the capacity that you do, would actually thinking cutting 8 year olds is appropriate.

I wish you nothing but the best in all your endeavors.

Good luck with the team.