pitching for 13/14s

I think I would try something different. Try hooking him up with a buddy twice a week or so and throw pens – don’t rely on the coaches to get him the proper amount of work. Take this on as a challenge and he will benefit at least next year.

You have some good ole daddy ball going on and if you find away to overcome it you can write a book and you will make big time $$$$.

My son was on a travel team once that had 13 players and 8 (daddy) coaches – unreal.

Have your son set his sights on next year and HS ball and find a way to work towards succeeding in that effort.

Good luck!

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Is it reasonable for me to tell the coaches to take him off their super part-time-pitcher list?

I wouldn't say anything. Like '09 said, just figure out some way for your son to pitch simulated innings with yourself or a buddy.

If he's serious about pitching I'd take him to a pitching instructor every now and then to check his mechanics and let him know what he needs to work on. Also, you can video him pitching and then look at it in slow motion to really see what he's doing (I post slow-motion clips of my team hitting and pitching on our web-site so our kids can see what they need to work on).

Lastly, it's exceedingly difficult to be totally "fair" to all 12 or 13 kids on a team. In my case I've got 12 kids to think about (yes, including my son - who I've not let pitch nor play shortstop ). Out of those 12 I've got one parent that hates my guts, two others who are somewhat unhappy, and all the others think things are great.

Thanks -- 09, I'm pretty sure a book is not forthcoming. But wouldn't it be great if someone could write that book? In my years of watching (and coaching at very young ages) my kid's teams, there have been very few dad/coaches that didn't think of their kid first. The ones that didn't were often excessively hard on their own kid. (That includes girl's basketball). These are essentially good guys, I just think that there is a real perk to being the coach's kid on this team. Kudos to all of those folks who step up and volunteer to lead or help out a team. I really don't mean to point a finger at all of them!
Style -- thank you for your advice too. My son loves to pitch. If he wants to pursue it, you're right, we should do some video etc. He is catching, and playing 3B -- but if he wants to continue pitching in high school, he does need to get the work in.
Unfortunately, I (his mom) have been pretty useless as a catcher for him for a couple of years, and dad has long hours. I guess I should get one of those padded gloves for inside the mitt and wear body armour!

It's a tough situation because in most cases the coaches of teams are going to be fathers of players. Fortunately, as a player I never really had to deal much with the dads coaching their own sons because most of my coaches were men with sons that were either much older and had moved on out of the league, or much younger than me. I did have one coach who's kid was on the team with me and you would have never known it. Absolutely no preferred treatment, no taking it easy on their sons, etc. And he was one of the best coaches I ever had (although I'm lucky because I always had good coaching).

But now I help coach a team and I'm the only non-father who helps out and you really get a different perspective on this issue when you can sit back and observe how things happen. In my limited experience, there are three types of dads that coach: 1)the overbearing dad who rides his kid to no end and kinda ignores the other players, 2)the dad that thinks his kid can do no wrong and makes sure that his kid pitches and plays shortstop and bats in the middle of the order, and 3)the dads that are really good about treating everyone the same. I think I will one day fall into the third category, but that's easy for me to say since I currently have no kids.

I personally think the best policy is something like the famed East Cobb program in Georgia has in place. I believe I read that they are very strict in not letting dads coach their own sons, and I think this mostly due to the fact that they have coaches established at each level with very little turnover year to year. That's the hard part....most coaches follow their sons up through the ranks and at each level there are new coaches each year.

Don't walk away, run from that team. My son is 12 and we played on Daddy ball for 3 years. We are not quitters. This spring I really got tired of it because the 3 coaches sons(I coach and help and volunteer but am not an official coach) all play the middle infield and bat in the top 5 spots. We moved up to 14U last fall and these kids complete lack of speed really got exposed. Guess what? No changes.

We left.

My son is now the starting shortstop and number 3 hitter on the third ranked team in the state. He has never been happier.
Unfortunately, these coaches only coach 11 and 12 year olds so we have to find another team this fall.
We have been contacted by several teams and when I ask, "Who plays shortstop?" If the answer is one of the coaches kids I say no thank you.
We will not go through that again!
All I want is an honest competition for spots and if he gets beat out so be it.

Just say no to Daddy Ball!

Daddy ball sucks,plain and simple find a team where you son can play a major roll on the team and dont let any coach pigeon whole your kid, If you dont your kids confidence will go right down the tubes while some coach developes his kid and his beer drinking buddy's kid. I wouldnt say anything to them about it, they know exactly what their doing.
That being said dony get mad because if the shoe were on the other foot you would do the same thing.

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"To all Coaches" You can only play daddy ball for so long!!!
Before real talent puts your kid where he should have been in the first place...............ON THE BENCH.

Painting with a pretty broad brush there aren't you?

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Originally posted by StyleMismatch:

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"To all Coaches" You can only play daddy ball for so long!!!
Before real talent puts your kid where he should have been in the first place...............ON THE BENCH.

Painting with a pretty broad brush there aren't you?

Just keeping it real good buddy

Kids need to work on their own----our kids do---they show up for a weekends event and inform us when they threw a bullpen and when they are ready---they gauge thier workouts based on when and where we are playing---they will even talk to us during the week to let us know their throwing schedule

I wish there was a practical way for our kids here to work more on their own. They've had one practice after another "rained out", as the practice field becomes "too wet". (this field isn't used for anything else, so I don't know why they try to protect it from getting torn up. At some point, with all the cancelled practices, I think they ought to just get out there in the mud and do the best they can to get something in). The school fields are off limits for non scheduled workouts. (my son's team is 13/14) The local high schools are very protective of their facilities, and there is a shortage of fields as more and more become s****r fields. Really the only option is to play catch on the sidewalk! Or work kids on the side during games maybe. I hear rumor of someone building an indoor practice facilty. Something big. But that is apparently way down the road. Just talk so far. We here in the wet northwest are getting tired of the rain! I wish there was an open gym type arrangement available some where.

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I wish there was a practical way for our kids here to work more on their own. They've had one practice after another "rained out", as the practice field becomes "too wet".

With some imagination a lot can be done. It's possible to practice in a parking lot, granted you won't be working on sliding, but many baseball skills can be practiced (been there and done that). Once when the weather was too cold I got permission to have a practice in our church's gym, using whiffle balls for batting practice, hitting soft toss into a net, and working on ground ball mechanics. Again not the perfect scenario but it was better than doing nothing.

Towel drill in front of a mirror - tennis balls against a wall, tee work into a net - I'm sure there are many more

Emerald,
Join another team.Your son HAS to throw on his own to be a good pitcher. You can't rely on coachs who aren't practicing enough. I'll bet those coaches sons are throwing on the side all the time.