Sitting next to a nice, but clueless dad!

Was there a ? Here or are u just relating a story where u share how great your son is and make fun of clueless dad. Quite frankly, I would hate to be sitting by either of u in stands. 

I ll continue to be the roaming parent who minds my own biz and just enjoys the game.

SluggerDad I think we all have stories of the clueless parents, there was a whole thread on here dating back years naming all the random parents in the stands from Mr. Clueless, to Mr. Stats, to Mr. Catchy phrases...the thread is pretty funny and I think spun from those old Budweiser Commercials "Here's to you mr. clueless baseball dad!"

 

Personally, at 12u, my favorite is still the dad that yells "Good eye son".. to his kid up at bat that "laid off" the pitch clearly 3 feet over the kids head...hate to see what "bad eye" looked like!

Well that's pretty harsh, PlayBall.

 

Having followed his ups and downs here for some time, I'm happy that SluggerSon is having a great summer.

 

This obviously comes from the "hit the ball in the air" thread of a few weeks back.  I'm still not sold, especially at the HS level. For fly balls to be effective they need be be lucky (gappers or on the line) or they need to go over the OFs' heads.  Not too may HS players have that kind of power. So I still am in the "hit the middle half of the ball"  camp.

 

Just googled on this issue and found this page:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/libra...itching/batted-ball/

 

..which contains this chart suggesting that even in MLB ground balls have a better chance of becoming hits than fly balls.

 

Type	AVG	ISO	wOBA
GB	.239	.020	.220
LD	.685	.190	.684
FB	.207	.378	.335

 

 Edit to say but the writer also says this:  ● Line drives are death to pitchers, while ground balls are the best for a pitcher. In numerical terms, line drives produce 1.26 runs/out, fly balls produce 0.13 R/O, and ground balls produce only 0.05 R/O.

 

So....    um... like I said, hit the middle half of the ball.

 

 

Thanks JCG.  Yeah I was harkening back to that thread.  '

 

(And yeah, by the way,  I am as pleased as punch that the kid is having a great summer so far.  Knock on wood.  Between this past weekend and the weekend before,   the kid hit his first career grand slam, a triple, two doubles, a boat load of singles, stolen numerous bags, and layed down a number of sac bunts.  He's  been on base constantly.  Playing better than ever -- after a long series of setbacks.  Playing loose and free, not worrying about anything except showing up in the fall ready to compete.   Getting up at 5:00am 4 days a week to work out in the gym and is sticking like glue to his throwing program.  Great stuff to behold for a kid who has definitely had his share of difficulties.  So yeah I am happy for him and proud of him.  Hope he keeps it going.)

I'll tell you what.  This summer we have played on a bunch of "crappy" fields where the lawnmower must have broken.  Everything which hit the infield grass was sucked up and disappeared.  Many a swinging bunt.  Then we played on turf.  Hot ground balls that would have been "bunts" on prior fields scooted thru for hits.  Big fly balls where outs.  Bottom line, hit the ball hard. 

Defensively am looking for groundballs 95%, but when the wheels are falling off, I am hoping for a routine fly ball to end the inning. 

 

Offensively, I record an out mentally much quicker on a lazy fly ball than a routine grounder but we are looking for hard it LD's.   

 

 

 

I feel the same way.  Go up with a plan, have a quality AB, and hit the ball hard somewhere.  If you do, good things will happen more often than not...

I will stick with my slogan for my team and my son.  Ground balls suck.  And by the way even if you hit the ball dead center as per a plane parallel to the ground it will be very difficult to achieve enough lift to call it a line drive.  Hit below center.  Key for both line drives and long fly balls.

Maybe he was clueless. Maybe you could have taken a moment to explain why we dont shout out for ground balls.  

Good story, sluggerdad. 

Ted Williams once said there are hitting coaches telling players to hit the ball on the ground to be successful. There are pitching coaches telling pitchers to get hitters to hit the ball on the ground to be successful. I think the hitting coaches are lying.

 

Williams also thought Charlie Lau set hitting back years.

       
       
couldn't agree more about the charlie lau thing.

       
       

Please quote Ted Williams making that statement against Lau. 
After reading both of their books I think they were more similar than some people believe.

       
       
How are.they alike?  We white sox fans had the misfortune of having Lau deciple walt hriniak as hitting coach here.  Don't see much correlation.

There's a guy who follows one of the local legion teams who chatters the whole game. Calls out the typical bunt situations, yells no free passes or no freebies to the pitchers when they get down 2-0. But, also gets confused at times on 0-2 count to his hitters and pitchers. Sometimes yells out "you way ahead" when the opposite is true.

 

Says to watch the steal on on the skinny kids but yells he ain't going nowhere if it's the catcher, or a heavier kid.

 

Yells "coming at you 15" to the shortstop on every right hand batter, even though their shortstop is #14.

 

The absolute strangest thing this guy says is when an opposing player comes to bat wearing an evoshield ankle/foot protector. Guy yells out, "He gotta boot on, hey, he gotta boot"????

 

I think it's good to put yourself in your kid's shoes. I hope you don't take this the wrong way and think I am preaching or telling you how to do things, but I think parents (and Im sure I will do it too when my kids are older) should be there to show support for the kids and get enjoyment out of watching them have fun and grow and try to their hardest to keep it at that.

 

My father was a very knowledgeable and outgoing guy in the stands. I remember he would always get so worked up with some parents and I would hear about it at home after the games. I love my father and am appreciative of everything he did for me, but this was one thing that quite frankly embarrassed me from little league until I started playing in college. Was he right, most times yes, but still. In baseball, it's too common to see parents get into D measuring contests with each other or pitting kids against each other. This obviously can cause problems between players, and you never know who is sitting within ear shot of you, be it a scout, a travel coach, a college coach, etc. I can think of times certain coaches didn't want certain players because the parents weren't worth the trouble, and I had a major league scout who had a conversation with my father about a player's dad who was overbearing, controlling, constantly negative, and would believe it or not tell his kid what to throw in certain situations from the stands (and this was in college!). The kid still signed for some pretty nice money as a draft and follow, but I know there was concern and his father was a huge controlling PITA when it came to signing bonus money.

I've read both Lau and Williams book and here is my opinion on the similarities.  

 

1) Flat hands to hitting zone

2) weight distribution

3) No forced roll of wrist

4) Pitch selection

5) Don't switch hit because your stronger hand should be closer to the point of impact. 

 

I keep hearing how Ted Williams despised Lau but haven't seen a quote.  

Frank Thomas might disagree.