New to HS baseball and concerned

High school ball is not travel ball. It will never be. The coaches, if they are given the freedom, play who they think are the best players with no substiuting unless they think someone will do better. There is not the everyone plays thing. And no the coaches will not talk to you. As you will find on here. Your son needs to learn to talk to the coaches and not you. The coaches will talk to players and they can ask qeustions about what they need to do to get better but not the parents.

Welcome to the board. Ask lots of questions and read a lot. There are answers to all your questions about high school and college baseball on here. If you are looking for something in particular like this topic, do a search. Again, welcome. And don't get offended there are lots of people with lots of opinions on here so read them all and take what is helpful.

What you are paying for the private school has absolutely nothing to do with baseball. You are paying that much because you feel your public school is not adequate to prepare him academically. Therefore, he must be getting the best possible education that you can afford. Again, nothing to do with baseball.

You never mentioned how he played in his first game. Did he look ready? Did he do well? Something you have to remember about summer ball...it's often not all about winning. It is about shaping the team in attitude, expectations, leadership AND performance. Coaches use summer ball to "set the stage" if you will in the kid's hearts and minds for a regular season. It's where they learn a players' true makeup which doesn't just include skills at his position but also how he deals with defeat, pressure, setbacks, and yes, sitting on the bench.

High school coaches don't automatically play everyone. They play their best players. Now here's the thing...sometimes that doesn't just mean the best players on the team, it means the best all around kids (attitude in the dugout, behavior and performance at practices, respect to teachers, etc.). Sometimes they make decisions (especially when losing) that we don't understand because we don't know the whole story. You may think he's keeping Johnny in the losing game just because he knows him, but there are so many not so obvious reasons he could have made that decision. If Johnny keeps losing games for you, the coach isn't an idiot. Eventually he'll stop giving him chances and try someone else. Tell your son that he needs to work hard and keep his attitude right so that when that time comes, coach picks him to go in for Johnny.

Yes, there will be favoritism (unavoidable), but don't be quick to jump on that being the truth at all times, and tell your son that success trumps favoritism 99% of the time. If he's better, he will get played.

Your son's best approach is to be patient and work hard. If he does this and still doesn't get playing time, HE needs to talk to the coach and ask why. A few guidelines for you as a parent:

*DO NOT be one of those parents complaining to the other parents and fans. People talk and you will get a bad rep.

*DO NOT be one of those parents badmouthing the coaches to their kids. This is the quickest way to bring down a team and kill a kid's love for baseball.

*DO be one of those parents that teaches their kids how to work hard, approach the coach in a professional manner, respect their teammates abilities and be a team player

I know it's difficult to watch. I have BTDT with a kid sitting on the bench but have also seen how it helped shape him to become a driven player at the college level. Check out this board a little more. How to deal with being disatisfied with playing time is probably one of our most posted about topics.

Great post Leftysidearmmom and very valuable advice here.

mysonsfan - welcome to the site and like Jeff Connell said this an amazing site when it comes to all things baseball. But it's sometimes not an easy place to be either because there are opinionated people on here. We do get into heated debates on everything but 99 out of 100 times it remains respectful and polite. You can see the passion in what people are writing but it doesn't get turned into a mud slinging contest. Through this you can truly learn a lot.

That being said we have no idea what type of situation you're in because we only have your side. The coach may be a complete idiot and not have a clue what he's doing OR he can be a great baseball mind. From the sound of your post I don't think you know where the coach falls on that spectrum - nothing wrong with that because you will learn.

First let me say just relax and take a few steps back. The team has played a handful of games (around 4 from the sound of it plus a scrimmage) out of 22 just this month. It's too early to start thinking he's stuck on the bench after a small percentage of the games. Now let's also look at something else you said - he will possibly spend time with the JV team too. This jumps out at me that the coaches may think he's got potential but may also need to fine tune it at a lower level or he may have a few guys he wants to really look at so they will play but give your son JV games to keep him fresh.

As for this kid who plays while making mistakes - this might be the coach getting the evidence or making his mind up to cut this kid come spring time to make way for your son. Who knows but sometimes decisions like this have to be made but only the staff knows they have to be made. It possibly could be he's playing favorites but we don't know. I'm just throwing that out there as a possible theory as to why these lesser talented kids are playing.

High school coaches come in all makes, brands and designs. Some talk, some don't and all other kinds of things. Myself, I will talk to you but never after a game. Set something up with me and we can talk but I would rather talk to your son and not you. I want your son to take the step of being mature enough to come to me if he doesn't understand what's going on. Yeah I will talk to you but honestly I would rather not.

This next statement strikes me as wrong and I may be taking it out of context but it sends the wrong message to at least me. I'm not trying to attack you or anything so please don't take it that way and if I'm wrong please correct me.

quote:

So, what is my frustration? we are paying a lot for this private school because our school district is really bad - this is a very good school and has a winning baseball team - but we are drained financially and to see him sitting on the bench is killing me ... can someone give me some encouragement, options, advice, help ???

You shouldn't be spending this money to send your kid to this school just for baseball. If you're going to this school it should be about the education and if baseball wasn't in the equation you would still send him there. If you're thinking that sending him to this school will pay off to a college scholarship then you are losing money. Baseball only gets 13.7 scholarships for their team. If a player gets a 50% scholarship then he's doing fantastic but overall unless you're getting money from somewhere else you are going to pay a lot of money even with a baseball scholarship.

Paying tuition doesn't guarantee anything in terms of playing time. It can't because everyone on the team is paying the tuition. You can't justify that demand just because you're paying the tuition.

One other thing I just remembered - you wondered if HS coaches won't take players out if they make mistakes. Well there isn't a set answer to this. Some coaches will jerk a player out at the first mistake and some won't. But ask yourself this - do you want your son to play for a coach who will take him out over a mistake or play for a coach who will give him a few chances? I'm sure you will say the latter and pretty much that means all parents do. Think of it like this - if the roles were reversed and your son had a bad inning, game or weekend tournament - would you want the coach to take him out or give him another chance?

Like I said I don't mean to sound like I'm attacking you but I'm just trying to provide a perspective from a high school coach. But each one of us are different and what I do may not be what this guy will do. Nothing wrong with either one because both can work.

Good luck to your son

mysonsfan,

First of all, welcome to the site!

You've gotten some good advice from several respected members, but please just remember above all things--have patience. You will find that problems have a way of working themselves out on the field if we just have patience and give these irritations the time to sort out. I know I've had to learn this, myself.

mysonsfan,

Welcome to the site, very knowledgeable people here. I understand your situation, went through a similiar situation my sons freshman year. I also posted a message to this board and received some good advice. Some responses were similiar to here where the benefit of the doubt went to the coach. It was a little frustrating because behind the keyboard you don't really "know" much about the person posting. Are they complainers? Do they think there kid is better than he really is? I am the type of person who is very reluctant to say anything, I keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut. So when I posted the situation I knew every "angle" there was about the; school, head coach, assistant coaches, baseball program, similiar situations in the past etc..

Just to re-hash my sons situation, try-outs his freshman year he did very well. Was told by a few other players he should have made varsity. One of the responses I received was that "I nor any of the other players saw what the head coach saw", he probably seen something we didn't. Head coaches son also a freshman makes varsity. Halfway thru JV my son gets called up to varsity. Both my son and coaches son play JV when there are no varsity games. Coaches kid is the DH for every varsity game and plays a position on JV. My son gets 5 at bats on varsity, his last at bat during regular season he hits a 2 run homer and is immediately taken out of the game. My son never gets another at bat. Varsity makes playoffs, I keep telling my son to keep working hard it is the playoffs the coach will play the best players. Did not happen, coaches kid DH'd the whole time (7-8 games) hitless all of the playoffs. Season over, coaches kid batted 230 on JV and around 100 on varsity. This kid had about 60-70 at bats his freshman year, the most by far. Point is that sometimes being better does not matter. Like in your adult life sometimes it is who you know, not what you know.

I hope I did not hi-jack this thread. You know in your heart the situation, if the above sounds familiar tell your son to keep working hard. In the real world it is travel ball that will probably get your son noticed. When I realized what was going on with varsity I told my son to use this time to prepare himself for travel ball. It was tough to watch what was happening but I told him it would benefit him in the long run.

There are always going to be bad coaches like the one that wedge's son experienced. We've experienced some whoppers ourselves. But there are far more fair coaches than there are bad apples. No way of knowing at this point if the coach in question is a bad apple or not so why not assume the best and take the high road? Sometimes the way the kid (and the parents) handle bench sitting is a key factor for playing time in the future.