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A story to share in case it helps someone in the future deal with a difficult patch or helps them realize what happened to them wasn’t the only time someone went through it.  I can share it now since it’s so far in the past.

Middle school baseball.  In our area, you can only play MS ball as a 7th and 8th grader.

The MS coach had it out for my son.  It started as a 7th grader.  In batting practice, the coach would scream at my kid “Throw your hands!  Throw your hands!”  Over and over again.  Finally, my kid, while young at the time (7th grader) asked the coach “I’m not sure what that means?  Can you show me exactly what it is that you want me to do and explain why I should be doing it?”  The coach’s answer was “Shut up. Just do it because I am telling you to do it and don’t ask questions.”  And, the relationship was downhill from there.

Now, the coach was in a bind because my son was a premium defender at his position.  So, he had to play him.  But, he would go out of his way to make him miserable.  Some examples:

He would always bat my son last in the line-up.  And, my son was not the worst hitter on the team.  On his travel team, my son batted third or fourth.  And, there was no way he should have been batting 10th or 11th in middle school.  Our team was not that good.  But, every game, like clockwork, my son would be batting last.

One time, as a 7th grader, when we had our big game against the cross town rival with most of the town attending, he didn’t even bat my son last.  Instead, he had my son play the entire game in the field and had a DH bat in my son’s spot.

He would also NEVER let my son run the bases – EVER.  Literally, when my son was in the on-deck circle wearing his batting helmet, he would ALWAYS have another player standing next to him also wearing a batting helmet, on the ready to pinch run for my son (as a courtesy runner for the catcher) the minute that he reached based.  By the way, my son’s on base average in MS over the two years was right around .500 – but, he never got a chance to run the bases any time after he reached base. (And, my son is not slow.)

The coach would share weekly batting and pitching summaries on a handout with the team.  Routinely, my son would be shorted hits and walks on his season totals.  Just him.

One time, in 7th grade, we were playing a weak team on the road.  Should have been an easy win.  He sees that as an opportunity to bench my son.  He plays a much inferior defender in his place.  Kid struggles the whole game.  In fact, the game is lost on a “walk-off passed ball” when the kid has a pitch clink off his mitt.  Other team, who rarely ever wins, celebrates like it’s the World Series.  Poor kid who allows the PB cries his eyes out on the entire bus ride back to town.

Moving on to 8th grade.  Nothing changes from 7th grade.  Same routine and treatment.  One time, they are playing another middle school that has only won around 3 games in like the last 4 years.  It’s an area where kids don’t want to play baseball and the coach has to beg kids to come out to the team.  The team literally looks like the Bad New Bears in the field.  It’s an easy win for anyone who plays them.  We get to the game and find out that my son is benched.  For the first three innings of the game, just about every parent in attendance comes up to me at some point and asks “Is your son injured?  What’s wrong?  Why isn’t he playing?”  All I can do is say “He’s fine.  I guess the coach wanted to give someone else a chance?” Our school ended up winning that game like 18-2 and it was called after 4 innings.  (Meanwhile, next game, against a real team, he’s back in the line-up.)

The whole two years, I said nothing.  My son said nothing and grinded it out.  He knew what was happening and also knew that it wasn’t going to last forever. We had also heard from kids who played there before my son that the coach had some strange ways of running the team.  (True story – the season before my son was on the team, they went the whole season and didn’t win a game.  The two years that my son was there, they played around .500 ball.  And, the season after my son left, they only one three games all year.)

Freshmen year of High School, my son makes varsity as a starter straight from tryouts.  Only like 3 or 4 players in the last several years ever made varsity as a freshmen.  He ends up leading the team in some offensive categories.  Most of the season, he batted in the middle of the line-up.

Sophomore season, we hear that the middle school coach was replaced by someone else.

True story.

Last edited by Francis7
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For my kid middle school ball (CYO) was for fun, the comp was not great but the comradery made up for it, even with the opponents as he became good friends with them in HS.  The challenge was to play CYO and travel without burning out or getting either coaches upset.  It's a shame that coach had an agenda but he taught your kid a valuable lesson in maintaining poise during adversity and that is important in the next level.

As a former MS coach myself, I do not like agendas, but there are also parents with agendas, and I could share a list of ridiculous situations in that as well.   Still, we had the power as coaches, and the parents, when they behaved in a ridiculous manner, could only harm their own kids.  I feel bad for the kids, as the real world doesn't work like their parents seem to think it should.  Since we had the backing of the HS coaches who oversaw us, we or the other players were not affected.

In your case, at least it isn't the HS coach.   I'd hate for a kid to have their final years (as most stop after HS) be miserable.  

@Francis7 posted:

Moving on to 8th grade.  Nothing changes from 7th grade.  Same routine and treatment.  One time, they are playing another middle school that has only won around 3 games in like the last 4 years.  It’s an area where kids don’t want to play baseball and the coach has to beg kids to come out to the team.  The team literally looks like the Bad New Bears in the field.  It’s an easy win for anyone who plays them.  We get to the game and find out that my son is benched.  For the first three innings of the game, just about every parent in attendance comes up to me at some point and asks “Is your son injured?  What’s wrong?  Why isn’t he playing?”  All I can do is say “He’s fine.  I guess the coach wanted to give someone else a chance?” Our school ended up winning that game like 18-2 and it was called after 4 innings.  (Meanwhile, next game, against a real team, he’s back in the line-up.)



When my son's HS team played the one inner-city team in the HS's division, where the kids don't have the equipment and the coach has to beg players to come out, the coach would pull up kids from JV and let others who didn't get a lot of time play the game.  I think your conclusion was right, your coach wanted to give others a chance.   

My son led an equipment drive just prior to Covid that delivered brand new cleats, bats, helmets, gloves, etc to this team (in their colors too).   I was looking forward to going to that game last spring but Covid had other ideas. 

@PTWood posted:

@Gunner Mack Jr. let me know if you need some practically brand new baseball pants or anything else. The pants my son got this summer on the circuit were all too short and we’ve run out of people to send them to. What are the team’s colors?

@Francis7, my son is experienced something similar in HS except it was pinch running and not playing him in the field.

Bridgeport Central is Red and Black.  My son is at college in a different state, so he is not running the collection drive.  If I hear that someone at his old HS takes up the charge I will reach out to you.  My son also knew the head baseball coach but I believe the coach has moved on now as well.

When my son's HS team played the one inner-city team in the HS's division, where the kids don't have the equipment and the coach has to beg players to come out, the coach would pull up kids from JV and let others who didn't get a lot of time play the game.  I think your conclusion was right, your coach wanted to give others a chance.   

My son led an equipment drive just prior to Covid that delivered brand new cleats, bats, helmets, gloves, etc to this team (in their colors too).   I was looking forward to going to that game last spring but Covid had other ideas.

We have something called Abbott districts. So, this particular school gets extra to make up for what they might be lacking. Some schools in these Abbott districts actually have state of the art playing facilities whereas our school has crap fields. It's not for the lack of support that their baseball team suffers. More so, it's because the kids in the community aren't interested in baseball.

At our high school, the kids have been wearing the same uniforms for seven years now. We're not an Abbott district.

Some people around here lament the fact that we don’t have middle school baseball.  I am glad we didn’t have to deal with it.  I just wonder if those living in a area with middle school baseball, do you feel some obligation to play?  Does the high school coach care if your kid played on the middle schools team?  Admittedly, it’s a foreign concept to me because we have never had it in Texas.

Last edited by 22and25

We don't have middle school baseball either; we did have middle school basketball.  I really liked school ball because it was the first time the coaches were not dads (no offense to the dads, they were mostly very good and motivated men, but their sons were not usually the better players).  We thought, and mostly found, that it was better with non-dad coaches.  However, there were definitely things in HS ball that our son didn't understand; most of them he didn't ask, and we couldn't ask.  Some things I figured out by the time he was a senior, some we may never know.  I'd say the same was probably happening on Francis7's son's team.

@22and25 posted:

Some people around here lament the fact that we don’t have middle school baseball.  I am glad we didn’t have to deal with it.  I just wonder if those living in a area with middle school baseball, do you feel some obligation to play?  Does the high school coach care if your kid played on the middle schools team?  Admittedly, it’s a foreign concept to me because we have never had it in Texas.

I can't think of any kids who attended our middle schools who were baseball players who passed on the chance to play. And, I know several who were heart broken when they tried out and didn't make it.

That said, I also know of a few kids who didn't make the MS team who did make the HS team. So, it's not like it's a prerequisite to making the HS team.

Filed under parents have agendas too ...

Our middle school had 7th and 8th grade teams. The coach would coach the team both years in 7th and 8th. Then he would get a new group of 7th graders.

I arrived early to an away game. I was chatting with the coach. He liked me. He was new to coaching. I had funneled a lot of drills to him through my son (give this folder to the coach). And he liked to talk baseball.

He warned my son wouldn’t be playing that day along with another one of my travel kids. Three mothers had gone to the middle school athletic director complaining their kids weren’t playing a lot while my son and the other kid had played every inning. He was forced to bench them for the game.

It got back to me the next couple of days one of those mothers was bragging her son had beaten my son out at short. He was the new shortstop (the kid peaked at ten in LL).

The coach found a solution to the problem. In 8th grade the roster was only fourteen instead of seventeen. Anyone want to guess which three players didn’t make the team.

@22and25 posted:

Some people around here lament the fact that we don’t have middle school baseball.  I am glad we didn’t have to deal with it.  I just wonder if those living in a area with middle school baseball, do you feel some obligation to play?  Does the high school coach care if your kid played on the middle schools team?  Admittedly, it’s a foreign concept to me because we have never had it in Texas.

I like MS ball because it is a bridge to HS.  Also, for average talent kids (I had one of those), he had a chance to play on a school team (he was cut in HS).  All my kids played MS basketball as well, but not HS ball for the same reasons.  For those really good kids, it is not a big benefit, but I think it is good for the average kid or for kids who had potential, but just didn't get picked up by a travel team.

As with everything, it depends on the coaches to a degree.  We didn't play to win at all costs (even though we won most of our games).  Also, there were many more practices, except the last year, where the fact that we had brand new fields was a burden.  Don't get me started on a community building brand new shiny fields and then severely limiting anybody practicing on them.....

Last edited by Viking0

Local middle school baseball is very hard to watch, or so I've been told by my son (work schedule wasn't conducive to watching). The difference in abilities varies way too much at these ages. Generally most teams have 2 or 3 decent pitchers that can keep the games competitive for about 4 innings. After that it's time to go home or stop keeping track of the score  

My son played MS baseball ultimately for the camaraderie. It also gave him free practice reps everyday after school as middle school coach held a decent practice every afternoon. As for HS - the best still make varsity.   

there's not a lot of middle school ball in our area but the catholic schools have a league.  my son went to a catholic for middle school (from an independent private) and played in 6th grade. It was a definite step backwards, baseball-wise and, as he didn't know a lot of the kids (most of them had come up through elementary school and were good friends for years), he was the outsider looking in.  Add to that he was one of the only kids who took baseball somewhat seriously and cared about his performance, and that one year was his only middle school ball experience.  level of play was, overall, bad.  there's only 3 kids, I believe, who are still playing baseball (2023 class). the 4th best player on the team plays hoop. the 5th best plays football and hoop.  I don't believe anyone else on that team plays any sports in HS.  

the icing on the cake is that team won the championship. as bad as their talent level was, they were better than all the other teams in the league.  

Local middle school baseball is very hard to watch, or so I've been told by my son (work schedule wasn't conducive to watching). The difference in abilities varies way too much at these ages. Generally most teams have 2 or 3 decent pitchers that can keep the games competitive for about 4 innings. After that it's time to go home or stop keeping track of the score  

My son played MS baseball ultimately for the camaraderie. It also gave him free practice reps everyday after school as middle school coach held a decent practice every afternoon. As for HS - the best still make varsity.   

I can share that the MS games by us were LONG. Sometimes near 3 hours. 8th graders dominate. First time on 60/90 for most of the 7th graders. Big adjustment for a lot of them.

Fortunately the middle school games had time limits on them due to the visiting team bus. The benefit of middle school ball was play or practice every day for ten weeks leading into travel ball.

I liked most of the parents. The entire infield started somewhere ** on varsity by junior year. Occasionally a parent would comment middle school must be difficult to watch compared to travel. I played up school ball to them. I didn’t want to be a travel snob parent.

** Why you don’t worry what position your kid plays when younger - 1B was LF in high school, SS was CF/RP, 3B was a SP and RF was a SP. The C and 2B played the same position in high school. The CF became a backup OF and PR.

Remember when I said the coach would always PR for my kid in MS?  He’s an example of how it was for spite and also an example of MS ball play.  When he went for the PR, it wasn’t always a trade up for speed.  He would use anyone for a PR (as long as it meant sitting my kid down).  One time, he PR with a slow kid.  How slow?  Well, the kid eventually made it to 3rd and created a 1st and 3rd BR situation with no outs.  Next batter hits a grounder to short.  The defense elects to go for two and eat the run.  SS flips to second, and then the 2B throws to 1B for the DP.  The PR on 3rd broke as soon as the SS threw to 2B.  However, the 1B, after completing the DP, then wheeled and threw to home.  And, the PR on 3rd was out at home (for the 3rd out) by at least 3 feet.  Triple play, inning over.  And, yes, he was “running” the whole time.  And, it wasn’t like it was a big league quality turning of a DP.  It was very slow unfolding.  At least 10 seconds.  Maybe more?  And, the PR on 3rd couldn’t make it home in less than 10 seconds.

MS games are not high quality but I loved them. They enable many kids to have the chance to represent their school before the time comes when most won't make their HS team. The pride that comes with representing your school, plus the camaraderie with being part of the team, are super important for early teen development. I loved cheering for every kid, and especially the ones who may have only had 1 hit all year. The excitement from those kids when they finally break through in this very difficult game is often bigger than the travel ball players' umpteenth RBI double.  It's also an important opportunity for that travel ball player to develop his leadership skills and help his classmates.   Lastly, the extra practice time for my kids was a plus benefit.   Can never stop working on things wherever you are!

@Francis7 posted:

Remember when I said the coach would always PR for my kid in MS?  He’s an example of how it was for spite and also an example of MS ball play.  When he went for the PR, it wasn’t always a trade up for speed.  He would use anyone for a PR (as long as it meant sitting my kid down).  One time, he PR with a slow kid.  How slow?  Well, the kid eventually made it to 3rd and created a 1st and 3rd BR situation with no outs.  Next batter hits a grounder to short.  The defense elects to go for two and eat the run.  SS flips to second, and then the 2B throws to 1B for the DP.  The PR on 3rd broke as soon as the SS threw to 2B.  However, the 1B, after completing the DP, then wheeled and threw to home.  And, the PR on 3rd was out at home (for the 3rd out) by at least 3 feet.  Triple play, inning over.  And, yes, he was “running” the whole time.  And, it wasn’t like it was a big league quality turning of a DP.  It was very slow unfolding.  At least 10 seconds.  Maybe more?  And, the PR on 3rd couldn’t make it home in less than 10 seconds.

My son’s middle school coach always pinch ran for the catchers as soon as they got on base. It wasn’t required until two outs. It got someone else in the game. The catchers were always ready to catch after the third out. Strategically it wasn’t always the best move.

The team went 12-2 both years. Their only losses were close games to the team that went 14-0 both years. They had a future D1 pitcher and catcher who alternated on the mound. They overwhelmed most of the lineup.

One of the catchers eventually became a 6’3” 200 major conference player with decent speed. No one saw it coming even after freshman year of high school. The kid didn’t make varsity until junior year. The other catcher gravitated to hockey goalie in high school.

Last edited by RJM

When we were in Tn, they had MS  baseball.  Youngest son's team made a pact not to play because the level of competition was too bad.  They also only played about 12 games and we could play 30 games in travel ball during the same period.  It was tough because my older son was the MS coach where most of the guys would have gone.  We had to make best choice for the boys even though it hurt my older son.  If they had all played no one would have touched them and it would have been blowouts every game.  But it was bad to coach, I helped, because most of the guys came from Little League and didn't understand how to play real baseball.  They had never led off or picked off.  Had to teach them everything including basic mechanics of catching and throwing.  We only had a few guys who had played travel because most of the travel kids chose not to play MS.  Here is SC middle schools are eligible to play high school so your studs make the jv or varsity.  There are very few real MS teams.

For my son's school (in SC), there was MS baseball. It was a rule (either our school or varsity HC) that 7-8 graders played on the MS team. However, after the MS season was over, the JV coach could pull MS kids he wanted up for remaining games. Another kid and my son were pulled up both years, and started all remaining JV games. Caused some problems with JV parents, I stayed far far away from the stands. There were some real doozies that sat there and squawked. 

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