Other sports?

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proven adept at swimming butterfly

I would think that would be a good drill/exersize for throwing a baseball. LOL
EH

Your post brought back memories. My son just graduated but when he was little he did every sport. he swam as well but he wasnt a very good swimmer. One of the coaches decided he was going to find a stroke he could do and it ended up being the breast stroke.He actually ended up making it to finals as a 6 year old. My son had bad asthma and pneumonia several times so we wanted him to swim to help his lungs. he didnt like it very much. So my husband told him he would give him a dollar for every second he took off his times. Well his breast stroke was a minute and 20 seconds. Well the first meet after he had been working on his breast stroke he got it down to a around 40 seconds You do the math on that one. After that it was a quarter a second. he swam until he was ten and then it started conflicting with all stars and he gave it up. he did do the winter swim one year. He really got stronger doing that.It was fun when they just did a sport per season and enjoy your son the time will fly by so fast.

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Back to the main topic...when did another sport stop baseball for your son (or daughter perhaps)?

I think those parents who have sons that give up baseball for swimming normally leave the HSBBW are on a "swimming and diving" message board asking about what length of pool to train in.
Consider too that if a baseball player is serious about baseball he spends VERY little time in the water -- even in his pre teen years. My son retired from pro ball this spring and spent some time this summer (his first summer off) trying to learn how to water ski. I thought it was odd that a 24 year old athlete doesn't know how to water ski but as I look back he never had the desire to give up baseball for any water sport.
A note on swimming: (I didn't know this until I was associated with college baseball players) but college baseball players shy away from college swimmers ----- they look at them as being a different kind of athlete. I think it has something to do with their oily, sleek and shaven bodies. They claim their brains are waterlogged. I was proud of my son's college swim team --- very successful program having won 12 NCAA D-1 National championships. The men have won seven (1997, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007) while the women have won five (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007).

I know you say you're not "pushing" your 6 year old son to play anything but I also know every 6 year old "athlete" (if there is such a thing) is being guided by his parents. Someone other than he is planning all these organized sporting events. Of course swimming parents will disagree but I doubt that many six year olds even know what a "breast stroke" is.

At six kids need to be PLAYING sports ---- NOT COMPETING against a Michael Phelps (ever who that is) and a stopwatch.
Let them PLAY and watch them PLAY everything they WANT when they are kids.
When the time comes and they have set their athletic goals, we can help them reach those goals by giving them our support.

Just my opinion.
Fungo

Check out my top kicker line below.

Oldest son: Played Varsity baseball through his sophomore year. Wrestling and football took over from there, and baseball got sent to the back burner.

Middle son: Always played baseball along with running cross country, golf, skateboard competitor, & basketbal in junior high. He continued to play Varsity baseball and football for 4 years in highschool and JV basketball up through is sophomore year. Basketball got put on the back burner inorder to play Fall baseball.
End of highschool senior year, son had to make a decison to go on to college and play both sports or just one. He leaves in a few weeks to play college baseball.
( But dadgumit, if I dont find him flippin' around on his skateboard STILL once in a while, when I'm not lookin'! )

No regrets,...( granted, alot of momma-stress about potential injuries- eeek! Oldest son actually broke his nose TWICE wrestling )...and a youthhood of great experiences and memories!

They are only young once,...gotta take the world on by its tail- (s)!!

Fungo,

Flip on your TV when the Olympic's begin and you will learn who Michael Phelps is. I'm not a swimming guru or fan but this young man is unbelievable in the water.

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Back to the main topic...when did another sport stop baseball for your son (or daughter perhaps)?

Kinda just the opposite for my family, My oldest son was a high level gymnast when he was young....Became a great baseball player......I think the strength and flexibility from the gym translated to great baseball tools..

My son didn't play any sports at age 6,7 or 8.

Wise, old (according to him) Fungo is correct, you won't find too many parents on the HSBBW whose son's gave up baseball for another sport.

At 6 my son wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. Later on it was a pro golfer and at one point a basketball player, oh yeah then there was the hockey player phase and pro bowler and at one point wanted to be the next David Copperfield. He was quite good at most every sport or activity he participated in, including baseball , which seemed to be the one thing that he never gave up while participating in other activities. We did look at things differently, we just wanted him to play and have fun and didn't worry about his pro sports future. And we didn't let him dictate to us, we went by our budget for activities, no matter how good he was at whatever he did.

FWIW, my daughters ex boyfriend went to college on a scholarship to USC and missed the Olympic Swim Team by 1/10th of a second. He was considered a swim phenom who broke every local and state record in swimming but the one that eventaully counted the most to him. He became obsessed with breaking his own record and traveled Europe to compete (and got paid a bit) for swimming. He eventually did that at 28, then joined the real world and got a real job.

Personally I think when the kids are young (atleast before hs) let them do any sport they want. I think this helps make them a more well rounded athlete and person. My youngest was on a swim team (5 days/wk) until he was 11. Swimming seemed to be great cross training for baseball. He snowboarded, wakeboarded until 9th grade. He chose to give up those 2 sports so he could concentrate on making varsity as a freshman (they needed a catcher and he had a shot).

What I have seen with several really good athletes at our high school that play 3 sports is "jack of all trades, master of none". Especially throwing basketball in there makes it tough to be ready for baseball season.

Little kids should do as many sports as they want when young if the parents can handle it! As they get older if they want to specialize in 1 sport it has to be their decision.

2Bdad was a swimmer only from age 5. Swam competitively throughout college and switched to water polo in grad school. Believe it or not, his mom didn't want him around those baseball and football parents, so she made he and his siblings swim! It's the truth. But swimming has been good to him. He had an accident a couple of years ago that made him unable to run, so he got back to competitive swimming and he looks and feels great.

2B dabbled in s****r and basketball when he was younger. He'll shoot hoops with the neighbor kids and throw a football around with his friends. We always encouraged him to do other sports, but last year as a rising HS freshman, he chose baseball only and it's worked out pretty well so far.

We had a kid that played for us... always was a big kid, lefty with a nice power stroke at the plate.

He picked up a baseball and threw a natural knuckle with no effort from the age of 9... pure natural.

In HS, he competed in football and baseball ... I think he ended up with an 8-2 record his senior year as a pitcher. He also led the county in touchdowns as a running back from the fullback position.

He ended up signing a football scholarship with a D1 BCS school as a fullback. He'll be a senior this year, but I expect that he could easily go to a pro tryout in the spring, throw a dozen knuckle-balls from the left side and get signed right away. Lefty knucklers are just unusual. He could have a nice career as a situational pitcher with very little stress on his arm.

Actually,I have heard of several baseball programs that use swimming in the fall for conditioning.I know this is a little off topic. But swimming is one of the best training for all muscle groups and you can do a lot of strength traing in the pool. Wont mention names of colleges but have heard of several who put their athletes in the water.

If your son wants to swim competitively, at some point, certainly by age 13-14, it takes over to the exclusion of all other sports.
When you are doing morning workouts from 5am to 7am and afternoon workouts from 3pm to 6pm or so and doing it 50 weeks or more per year, swimming takes over the life of your son/daughter.
Ours played baseball, football, basketball, s****r, tennis and swam through age 12. While he was very small at the time, he had some times that were competitive nationally, which was amazing since he swam only 3 days per week. Yes, that is considered light training in swimming circles, even for many 12 year olds.
Once he faced the choice of having to swim 6 days per week and eliminate other sports options, the choice was made and he never swam competitively again...until his senior year in college when he sandbagged some members of the college women's team into 50 and 100 yard sprints in exchange for support at the baseball games vs swim meets.
Baseball attendance went up that year!!

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Actually,I have heard of several baseball programs that use swimming in the fall for conditioning.

I think that is more common than we think. My son's college also use the pool for controlled conditioning but that is quite different than swimming recreationally AND playing ball. Swimming is a very strenuous activity and drains the athlete. It impacts the athletes in a positive way as far as long term conditioning goes --- but the immediate impact is to wear the athlete down. I can remember swimming one day and trying to play ball that evening. ---- NO way! I couldn't throw a baseball from home to 2nd base. It was a very strange feeling.
Fungo

When he was 8 and 9 Little Jr was scoring goals in S @ ( ( # R at the rate of basketball averages and playing with kids 3 years older. (49 goals in 12 games the last season)

The day he was asked to play on the elite Travel Baseball tema in our area we told him it would be tough to play both. He said his days of kicking a ball were over and he has played Baseball every since.

I ask him every once in a while if he wishes he had played both a little longer and he laughs it off and says no way.

It was funny at the time how quickly and easily he made that choice while as his parents we so worried about putting him into 1 sport. (He has since played short seasons of basketball and volleyball as a break)

My son participated in s****r, baseball, basketball all at a travel team level...also swam on the swim club swim team ( i let this one happen because I read somewhere butterfly was good for pitchers) was quite successful at all othem...made for some interesting car rides changing out of a wet swim suit into a baseball uniform while trying to get to a game.

We had a blast...now that he is is High school is playing QB for his football team and playing baseball...I have to admit I miss watching him play basketball but at the high school level it is hard to play more than two

He is lucky to have coaches that allow him to play mutiple sports...he has frinds that want to play more than one but either the football coach or baseball coach only want them playing one.

Your son is 6 I suggest letting him PLAY as many as you can arange your schedule..you just never know....now that my son is down to two sports he hass found some time to pick up the golf clubs..so who know what they will end up doing

Six years old is way too soon to be considering the athleticism of a kid and what sports he's the best. When my son was six I considered him athletic not an athlete. The only organized sport he was playing was s****r. After making that mistake at age four with s****r we decided other sports would wait until six or seven. He chose shagging at his sister's 12U travel softball practices and hitting off the machine at the end of practice to 6U tee ball.

I've seen way too many preteen "athletes" flop by ages thirteen and fourteen. Kids should enjoy playing and not think about what is their best sport and specializing until high school.

My son will be entering his soph year and still playing three sports. It's killing him to even think about dropping one. He excels in all three. He knows logically he should drop basketball to spend December through February preparing for baseball. But he loves basketball almost as much as baseball. He's thought about dropping s****r to work on his body during the fall. But he's hesitant to quit a sport he'll start on varsity as a sophomore (along with baseball).

When parents speak of their kid's best sport, they're off base. What matters is the kid's passion for a sport. My son's best sport is s****r. It's third on his list in terms of passion behind baseball and basketball. It wouldn't bother me a bit if my son walked away from his best sport. It would bother me if he walked away from his passion, baseball.

Well Im sure s---r is great for his speed and quickness and footwork for baseball as well as overall conditioning. if he likes all and can do all go for it.I think the first posters point was many kids might start out with one particular sport and end up not playing baseball. I am a baseball person and so is my family but i think whatever sport a kid is happy in and has fun is great also.
many people outside of baseball think most of us baseball people are crazy and obsessed with baseball.Whatever the kids passion , at some point in time it wont matter what the parent wants it will be the player exceling becasue he has the passion or some play for fun.