Little League All Star Voting

I served a 7 year sentence as a Little League president, and actually enjoyed every second of it; okay, maybe all but a handful of seconds...

The kids know who the better players are. Usually if a kid is a jerk, he may suffer for it. Selection methods are widely varied. We used manager voting, but not for players on your team. A nearby league uses player voting. One league uses player voting but gives the manager the power to fill 3 slots after the player vote is in. We had our Board select all star managers, or had the other managers vote on the manager. We never made it dependent upon the teams' record.

The time of year I hated most was the few days around when the all star selections were announced. Little League's "everybody plays" philosophy gets stood on it's head, and feelings get hurt.

As to your "attitude" player, we had that situation once, and we told the kid, and his folks, that one misstep would result in benching. He acted up, so we pulled him mid-inning and the next game he got his minumum and out. Blew his little mind as he had never sat much. After that, he got the message.


Good luck. A very crazy time of year.

Very crazy time in deed!

We're doing it a little different this year. The kids get to vote, but it doesn't hold water with the coaches, the Managers and coaches pick all the 9-10 all stars.

Now the 11-12 year olds, the kids pick the best 12 and their top 8 all star votes are a shoe in and the Managers and Coaches pick 4.

Now the managers and coaches actually sit around the table and decide face to face who their all star picks are and after they all agree, then the President picks the All Star Manager and Coaches!

The best method that we found was to allow the kids to vote. The coaches create a list of the top players (maybe 25 or 30) and you place those players on a list, the players are allowed to select what they think are the 9 best players. The coaches/managers will cut backroom deals to choose each others son while the players will select the best.

In our little league, the manager does all the selecting. Personally, I would prefer that the kids choose the first 7 - 9 and the manager fills out the rest. (and I was a manger last year, but the board would not go for it)

One thing that gets lost when the kids pick them all, is that you might not get yourself a talented catcher or even one experienced outfielder. That is where the manager filling in the last slots is a good thing.

Your best players often are pitchers, catchers and short stops in youth ball. And you can't field 12 SS

Now, in regards to your question "Do any of you have anything powerful that will sink in to our 9-10 year old players and 11-12 year olds? I know that the first important qualifications are talent, all stars is a tournament you play to win, however, I want to stress to them that attitude is also important."
I think you may want to stress the all around quality of the player, not just the skill set.

Do not allow the kid with the disruptive/poor attitude to be on the all-star team......all that does is teach every kid in your league that if you are talented you will be rewarded, regarless of your attitude. And isn't teaching what it is all about? It will also teach that kid a lesson...eventually he is going to have to learn it. Kids with poor attitudes should not even be nominated to try out for the all-star teams....their coaches have not properly taught/disciplined them yet.....again, eventually the kid needs to learn that his behavior does not justify rewards.....why not teach him that lesson now??

Thank you all again, great replies.

Our 9-10 All star voting is done by the kids, but the coaches actually pick the entire team. The kids just pick so they can feel as though they have some say, it doesn't actually count.

However, the 11-12 year olds is different. They pick the top 8 players and the Manager and coaches pick 4.

This is going to be very interesting, it's my first year as Player Agent. I don't believe I should have any say to players being picked, but I think I have to be there to make sure no underhanded, hanky panky goes on.
Thanks all!

Hi guys,
Little League All-Stars is really for the coaches sons, and family friends.
Not necessarily the best players in the park. It's pure bureaucracy. Most of the players will never make it to High School Varsity. Maybe about 30%

grateful - I wholeheartedly agree with you, but your suggestions are hardly EVER followed. And it doesn't change a whole lot when they get to HS.

I think Softhands said it best (almost)...All Stars are for the coaches ("sons" deleted here) and family friends.

This is why our President will announce All Star Managers and Coaches AFTER all the kids have been picked.

You should have seen some coaches at the Managers and Coaches meeting at the very begining of the season, "Well, what happens if your kid doesn't make it and you're picked as a coach?"

See...... some coaches just assume their kid makes the team if they're chosen as the all star coach.

Who knows how it will go, but it has the potential to work better and to make sure that the "True" all stars make the team.

How many coaches are willing to coach an all star team without their son? that's the true question!

softhands:

While I am sure there are many isolated examples of what you say, such a broad statement is more ludicrous than the point you are trying to make. Either you happen to be in an unfortunate -- and isolated -- situation, or something happened that just flat out bothers you personally. The broad indictment of such a fine overall organization that does a tremendous amount of good simply is not accurate or fair.

Jemaz
You can think what ever you want, but that's the way it's, no matter where you live.
Hey you don't have to take my word, it's happening rigth know. How about two kids making the all state All-star team in AAU, different years, and not the park where they played? Making varsity in "Florida" in a 6A school as a freshmen. While the park "All-Stars" didn't even got to see the field. And this happens all the time.
It's politics!

quote:

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Originally posted by Softhands:

You can think what ever you want, but that's the way it's, no matter where you live.

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Though I agree that this happens, No on can say it happens everywhere with any certainty. Painting the entire youth baseball world with such a broad brush is often incorrect.

I have also found ( in my limited exposure - can't see the entire world from here ) that coaches son's are often very talented players. Perhaps it's from the extra time spent playing baseball with an attentive parent or perhaps the parent got involved because the child showed talent...

Softhands,
As compared to the 5% of the kids who didn't make the all-star team? Typically one kid may not make a team who deserved to and 2 or 3 others who were a toss up for the last couple spots will be disappointed. The parents of the kid who hit 3 home runs off weak pitchers while hitting .230 won't understand how their power hitter could be left off the team. The parents of the kid who hit for average but doesn't have a position to play on the team will be disappointed and so on and so on. All-Stars is not a fun time of year for those of us who have to make the choices, especially when everybody knows you made the final pick. This year my son's best friend who has been an all-star every year had a poor year. If he doesn't get voted on the team I won't be able to pick him and the family will know I didn't.

And sometimes it's not the kid or the kids talent that keept him from making the all star team, but THE PARENTS. At least when the managers and coaches are doing the picking. I'm guilty of that myself. We could have had at least one more talented kid for our summer team, but we were all so tired of listening to his bumbling pain in the @$$ parents whine about everything from practice taking too long, to little johnny didn't get enough battiing practice in today, little johnny had a birthday party to go to "but he's still starting pitcher next game, right?". "little johnny always seems to get the bad umps when he pitches" It is kinda sad but we couldn't take anymore.
Rob

Rob hit the nail on the head with that one....

We had the all-star voting by the kids this last Saturday. This is the first year they've done it right and let the kids vote for everyone rather than just two players off their own team. Some of the results tended to be pretty ridiculous when they did it that way with kids voting for their brother or friend instead of the better players. One year the worst player on the team got the most votes. He had two cousins on the team. When they are voting for 9 to 12 kids then the votes for a brother, friend or cousin tend to get washed out. It is going to be interesting to see the results. My son didn't vote for himself even though he's one of the 3 best pitchers in the league and one of the best hitters. He wanted to vote for the other kids he wanted on the team. He also knows that I get to pick the last two players. He also knew that the votes have no real impact on the all-star selection which is done by the managers. I think they'll put up the leading vote getters so that we know who they were.

I'd expect the kids vote to be pretty fair although my son has a long last name so I don't know how that will go over. I'd also expect the kids who hit home runs off weak pitchers but didn't hit well off good pitchers to get a lot of votes.

There are other kids with all-star reps who really haven't done well at all this year. The kid vote doesn't mean much but it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

So, are you saying it is just a hoax. Do the kids know this or is this a lie that the adults are telling them they get the vote. I would have some major ethical issues with adults telling kids that they are picking the all-star team and not actually holding to it. I may have misread your comment, please explain.

The kids know. It wouldn't surprise me if the kids in some of the lower divisions didn't realize it though. My guess is that the vote will match the all-star selections pretty well this year and that eventually the league will go with the kid vote.

Our league used it until the kids got smart. THe ones who knew they would never get voted conspired and voted for the 10 worst kids in the league. Guess what, the 3 coaches picks did not want to play and they were humiliated. That broke the league of the kid vote.

The best system I have seen is where the coaches have to nominate and the team is picked before the coaches are picked. There are tryouts and they are evaluated on 1/2 season and 1/2 tryouts. A player with a certain percentage of low votes can not get selected. AFter the players are voted the coaches vote on the coach. You get a little more selective picking a team when you might be the one coaching.

I don't like tryouts. How many times have you seen a kid look like a star in preseason tryouts only to have them be a dud during the season. You have to look at how kids did against your stronger pitchers as well as how they did overall during the regular season. If you do that you'll get your fairest results by basing it on regular season results. Tryouts are just an opportunity to get the kid who hit .230 because he's afraid of kid pitching but is a family friend on the team by throwing him meatballs during tryouts.

No, I don't mean those tryouts, I mean real tryouts. The one league that I know that does it right brings in a high school coach to evaluate the kids. He goes through a tryout and puts a value on each kid. The coaches also give their value for the season based on stats. The two are put together to come up with the all-star team. This league has been in the state almost every year.

Guess our system doesn't work very well. The kids didn't make it out of pool play at Williamsport.

I didn't say your system was wrong, but that plan does not work most places because there is too much room for politics and daddy ball in your system. If you have a league that wants to win it all, it works. If you have a system where the coaches just want their kid and his friends to make the all-star team it doesn't.

I know you guys get tired of my post but with 4 boys 2 still little league players and 1 in a 6A High School program in Alabama and still playing Babe Ruth I have some background. 10 years of experience and 5 more to go in LL. In my area which has 7 LL Leagues, All-Stars are an issue that is almost not worth the trouble. Because the dads/coaches vote more by emotion than stats we are losing a lot of our best players to travel ball. We have situations where the best team in our district gets put out of the state tournaments in the first or second round, when we have travel teams that win various world series. I like LL because it is close to my house and doesn't require a lot of travel ( read as very inexpensive per at bat), plus my kids get to play with their friends. I also coach travel teams and play some of the top teams in the southeast (read as very expensive per at bat). My OPINION and only my OPINION if you are looking for high levels of competition and facing the best pitchers and hitters in your area, find a travel team, if you like to socialize with your friends, and maybe even learning a litte about baseball and life, keep supporting the Cal Ripken and LL parks. Pitchers need to throw to hitters and hitters need to see a lot of different kinds of pitchers. There is room for all levels of baseball and you being a stud does not mean you should just leave the local leagues. Most of these kids even the ones who play travel ball will not play in college and for sure not in professional baseball. Get out your year books and think about what really matters to you now. That is what will matter to your kids when they are our age.The main point of my post is Do not let LL All-stars affect your you and your kids and their enjoyment of the game. I down play LL All-Stars to all my players and tell them to strive for their personal best. Letting some person you don't really know affect your self esteem or even help you decide whether you continue to play a sport you really like is a bunch of nonsense.