This is your competition

I'm in NYC probably the largest Dominican playing population in the country. Have seen this or similar forever. I'm forgetting the name, but they sell kits on Ebay that are basically something slightly larger than dominos to hit. Anecdotally, I've seen kids hit awesome with these as well as seeds, beans, etc prior to games and it didn't seem to carry over, was basically eyewash.

You're not competing against a kid hitting bottle caps, you're competing against kids where baseball is a way for them to get out of multi generational poverty. 

No offense.  But I'm more impressed by the guy sitting in the chair with slingshot.  I have a hard time tossing underhand from 10 feet some days where I want it to go.

In the winter (in our garage), I used to flick tennis ball can lids to my kids as a way to practice batting hand eye coordination on curve balls.  Two of my sons got frustrated every time and found something better to do.  My oldest stuck to it (extremely motivated to not be a PO on his travel team), and became pretty good at hitting curve balls when he got to high school.  

To Goosegg and NYCDad's point this is about motivation and drive at a young age.   Dominicans have it in abundance when it comes to baseball.

I did a couple of things as a kid I believe really helped. We played a game called cup ball in the driveway. It was a bathroom size Dixie cup stuffed with newspaper. We used the squares on the garage door as the strike zone. We pitched hard from about fifteen feet away. This was back in an era when whiffing pissed you off. A friend and I were discussing this recently. He remembered it pissed him off I kept fouling off pitches until I drove one. 

Being an only child I got creative. When I was a preteen I had a large bedroom the size of a studio apartment. It was probably the maid’s room at one point since it had its own stairway to the kitchen. The molding on the wall was the outfield fence.  From my knees I hit spit balls with a pencil. I gripped the pencil with both hands using two fingers from each. 

nycdad posted:

I'm in NYC probably the largest Dominican playing population in the country. Have seen this or similar forever. I'm forgetting the name, but they sell kits on Ebay that are basically something slightly larger than dominos to hit. Anecdotally, I've seen kids hit awesome with these as well as seeds, beans, etc prior to games and it didn't seem to carry over, was basically eyewash.

You're not competing against a kid hitting bottle caps, you're competing against kids where baseball is a way for them to get out of multi generational poverty. 

I agree. Those games certainly can improve hand eye coordination but the biggest difference is that American kids go to school 8 hours a day and then do another hour or 2 of homework and learning and the Dominican kids basically practice and play baseball all day.

That is 1-2 hours of practice a day vs 8 hours a day of practice.

That would be like competing against american high school students with 2 hours of class per day.