Where are the fundamentals?

TRhit,

I have to agree. My experience is only with the LL end, but I have watched many HS and college games and wonder the same thing. I also see the change in the world our kids are growing up in as a big factor. I'm not that old, but when I was a kid I could still ride my bike to the local ball park and play until the street lights came on without my parents sending out the authorities to find me. I think they are still able to do this is many other countries and still do. Our sterilized facilities and all the private coaching you can get can't do for you what time spent in the field learning first hand will. Call me old fashioned.

On the LL side I think it's sad when winning becomes so important that only the "best" kids get the attention they all deserve. When less advanced youth are placed in situations where they simply wont get in the way and if they learn something great. More specifically when more advanced players are put in a position where it's though they will be most likely to help the team win. They may gain from the experience of playing that position, but is anyone in this situation actually learning anything about the game and how it is actually played. I'll save you the long winded example here unless you are interested. I know this is not where you were trying to go with this, but I needed to vent. Thanks.

There are more ways to win than just putting the best team together and playing kids in the positions they are best in. Teach them what to do and how to do it in all situations. Then sit back and watch a new light shine in a place it wasn't expected. Teach them the game and get out of the way. Teach and reinforce the fundamentals and let the cream rise. It will. And they will all have more fun learning the way the game is meant to be played.

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
Are we failing these kids with all the youth travel teams and lack of basic fundamentals ?

From my experience, LL Inc. and other rec leagues are where the fundamentals are not being taught. Select ball has drawn the better coaches and that is where the fundamentals are being taught.

Not only is the lack of fundamentals being displayed in HS, but also in college. Especially defensive fundamentals.

Sad.

quote:

From my experience, LL Inc. and other rec leagues are where the fundamentals are not being taught. Select ball has drawn the better coaches and that is where the fundamentals are being taught

I have found our experience was very different. Our kids were taught fundamentals right from Rookie ball. They had excellent training and every pre season the Jays sent players to teach fundamentals. If a player was interested regardless of what level they could attend these sessions.
Latter on as the kids got into AAA ball or Elite ball there was constant reinforcement of the fundamentals. I did see lots of teams that showed lack of training. Pitchers standing on the mound instead of breking to do their cuts and covers. Part of what I look for in a pitcher is what he does wnen the ball is put in play. Does he have to think about where he should go. Does he hang his head if he gives up a hit or does he break and go instinctively ? Some of the college games I have seen show lack of fundamentals.
Parents should make sure their sons get proper training at an early age if they are serious about the game.

Let me say one thing first. Bless you coaches that are teaching fundamentals with travel teams. It has been my 32 plus years experience that most travel coaches expect you to show up knowing some, since you are a talented player. They plan weekend tournaments and don't spend much time on the game. I have witnessed bad fundamentals at top notch travel tournaments with teams from all over the country.
As a high school coach we spent countless hours on fundamentals and even the best players showed up lacking them.
Then some bone head travel coach would try teaching them, or unteaching them when they had the players, only to have them come back and we would have to go over the same stuff again and again.
I know the game is about preparation and repetition, but I do believe that it is rare for travel coaches to be teaching much. I did say rare, but I'd imagine some of the fine coaches here are the exception and are pretty good teachers.
I had mentioned here that a few college coaches had gotten new players that didn't have good fundamentals, so I'm sure there are high school coaches missing the boat also.

Perhaps it varies by region.

Here, many (certainly not all) of the coaches left in rec leagues scarcely know which end of the bat to hold. And select teams, at least through HS ages, still hold practices.

Of course, with the proliferation of select teams, more poor coaches will be present just by the sheer numbers.

I have to say our coaches and organizations were very good at providing expert training. Last spring I was going by the main ball diamond for the city teams and they had 5-6 minor league players showing very young players how to swing a bat etc. It was their annual kick off for the rec and travel leagues. They had the hot dogs and all the great ball park stuff going on. Their main goal was to generate interest in the very young kids hoping that they could rebuild the dwindling numbers. The kids were having a great time. They played hgames and had fun all weekend. I was impressed at the effort.
When my son started 11 years ago they always held preseason workouts with college coaches and MLB personel. Our coaches always took the attitude you can't practice enough.
At the Elite level the training was kicked up several notches. 3-4 hours practices all year long. I was impressed with the effort to put the best instruction for the players. There was only one year I was not happy about and that was due to lack of discpline during the practice. The training was still there but there were a couple of funny guys who disrupted the flow.
When you are charging 5-10 K a year you had better provide top quality instruction.

It is realy bigger and bigger the porcentage of baseball coaches that didn't played baseball.
The lack of baseball fundamentals in our kids is the product of coaching deficiency and coaching inexperience. As parents we need to find baseball academies where teaching is more important that winning, and bring the kids to colleges baseball campaments.

Racab has a good point, coaching deficiancy, and inexperience, plus the heavy travel ball circut are just some of the reasons for the lack of fundamentals shown by young players today.

However, Baseball academies and college camps are expensive, not everyone can afford to spend $45/hr or $450+. I know I can't at this time.

When/if my soon to be 8 year old plays this fall, he will do so with a wood bat (i've got a few), and I will teach him to the best of my ability the fundamentals and rules of the game.

Most of the kids who have the best fundamentals were taught by Dad or someone else in the family! Unfortunately all dads can't provide this.

I think besides fundamentals not being taught there is also an overall lack of knowledge of the game. I know there are exceptions, my kids for instance, but how many kids watch a game. My 2 sons and I love to watch games, be it on TV, or out in the frsh air. While we are watching these games we are talking about different things going on. I'm sure a lot of you on here do the same thing with your kids just as I'm sure a lot of you are instructing your kids in the fundamentals. But look at how many people are on this forum and compare it to how many kids are playing ball. We are just a small percentage.

Here is my laundry list of the cause of lack of fundamentals.

1. Poor coaches at the lower levels. Regardless of travel teams or little league or rec leagues or whoever we have a society of adults who think the world hinges on a 10 - 12 year old regular season games that mean nothing to nobody except these great coaches.

2. Poor coaches at the upper levels. Some guys do it for a check and some guys do it because they want a team for their son to be showcased when they can't field a ground ball. Schools hire guys to coach the team because they are buddies.

3. Parents have unrealistic expectations for their children. Some parents think that their son is the greatest thing in the world and is guaranteed to play MLB. If they get a good coach and the coach doesn't make their son the all star they undermine the coach.

4. Kids lack: work ethic, respect for each other / the game / adults, and effort. Kids are handed everything - parents will buy $120 glove, $350 bat, $80 bat bag, $120 cleats, $50 batting gloves and the kid does nothing to help earn it. If they don't like it or lose it they get it replaced quickly. Look at the way the kids interact with each other and adults - they don't respect anything. That comes from being handed everything without earning it.

5. Technology keeps kids inside. With the video game play stuff and internet and the billion channels on TV they never get outside. Kids cannot create games anymore because they never had to. Someone somewhere gave them the things needed to do whatever.

6. Educational system is failing all kids in everything. We have taken failure out of kids lives. Kids know that if they do poorly on a test then they will be given chances (make up work, make up classes, extra credit etc...) to succeed. It goes back to work ethic - they are handed everything and don't earn it. No Child Left Behind is a great idea but what if you have kids for whatever reasons don't want to learn? It is a law that kids are given an education but what if they create problems and don't allow others to learn? I could actually spend hours on this one.

7. The "Has to be fun" effect is destroying fundamentals. Coaches have to come up with creative situations to make everything fun or it's not worth doing. At some point the focus has to be on success (really not wins but setting goals and achieving them) and not just fun. Several weeks ago there was a thread about fun vs. work ethic and someone posted mature fun vs. immature fun. I think it was one of the best things I have ever read. Society has moved to immature fun because that is what they see kids doing most and therefore it is right.

8. Worried about hurting feels so they take away failure. We are so worried about hurting kids feelings that we can't hold them to a higher standard. I have a masters degree in secondary school counseling and in one class they said teachers should not use red ink to grade papers because it is associated with failure and being wrong. I point out that the reason for that is because the student has failed and has got questions wrong. The response to that was if they see red then they feel bad. My response was that they should feel bad because they had a duty and responsibility to do well and they didn't. Others want to take away competition because there can only be one winner. In another class they called it the NCAA effect. You start out with every college team and there is only one "winner" left and everyone else is a loser. I pointed out that some teams season goal is just to make the tournament - they know they are not going to win it. Does that make them a failure? The teacher said deep down they know they did not win and they feel bad. I said they should feel bad because losing stinks. A good coach does not measure success in wins and losses but in getting a team to work together and pushing the envelope to what they can do. I wish George Mason had made their run earlier because they are the epitome of my argument.

10. Kids and parents do not take responsiblity for their actions. When a kid strikes out it wasn't his fault it was the umpires fault. If a kid doesn't get a scholarship to a D-I school it is the coaches fault. Society wants to play the blame game.

Look at what Billy Packer is going through right now. He uses the word *** in an interview talking about getting tired. If you look up the word it is an old British word meaning to tire out or work hard. That is how he meant it and not as a derogatory remark toward homosexuals. Now everyone is up in arms saying he should have used a different word - WHY? He used a word correctly and if people get offended over that they are way too sensitive.

Now all kids don't fall into all of those categories but that is my $1 worth of opinion.

I'll buy that for $1!!

Well said coach.

Thanks Glove Man.

quote:

From my experience, LL Inc. and other rec leagues are where the fundamentals are not being taught. Select ball has drawn the better coaches and that is where the fundamentals are being taught

This is a big misconception. Since 2001, our league, a sanctioned participant in Little League, has produced numerous active collegiate (7 D1) and soon to be collegiate players. Our high school (same district as the our LL) has made it to at least the semi-finals 4 out of the last 6 yrs, with the other 2 bringing home state championships. Our middle school (also in the same district) has gone 35-1 the last 2 yrs. The coaches and many parents attribute this success to the foundation that our little league has established and praises our LL coaches for teaching fundamentals first.
That's not to say that travel ball doesn't "breed" better talent. It should for what you pay (at least here in CT). I have also known players to pay and sit. Fundamentals has to do with whose teaching them. Not all travel team coaches teach fundamentals, as some of them have different agendas (winning). It's also very easy to say that LL coaches are "failing", mainly because about 1 million kids from Maine to NJ play LL. The number of kids who play (or can afford to play) travel ball is significantly less.
Also, one thing that I particularly stress to my team is that they can't be afraid to fail. The sooner kids realize that it's o.k. to strike out, to make an error or to walk someone the easier it's going to be for them to learn from that. I am a huge advocate for the "no babying" approach. As I believe babying "little Johny" teaches the kid nothing. But at the same time a coach can't cut a kid down for striking out. Failing is a part of baseball period.

Coach2709,

Well said, I agree 100%.

quote:

Originally posted by Pat H:

quote:

From my experience, LL Inc. and other rec leagues are where the fundamentals are not being taught. Select ball has drawn the better coaches and that is where the fundamentals are being taught

This is a big misconception. ...

It may not be true in your area. But it is ABSOLUTELY true here. No misconception at all. I have personally observed it.

Count me amongst those decrying the lack of fundamentals in the game.

Coach2709 has certainly well covered a broad range of contributory reasons, although I think the reason the fine points of the fundamentals aren't taught is pretty simple:

Right now, despite all the steroid "scandal", baseball, far above all else, values offense, specifically home runs.

If the guy behind you in the order is going to go yard, you don't need to play small ball, or steal, or even run the bases well. (Never mind that he'll probably only hit one once every few games, let alone ABs).

How many times have you heard the fans (and the coach, for crying out loud) congratulate an OFer for their "great game' because they hit a home run, when their inability to track down a fly ball or hit the cutoff man allowed the opposition to score? (Leo Durocher: "I don't like them guys who drive in two runs and let in three." Has anybody heard any current coach express that sentiment?)

Last year's National League MVP was chosen pretty much because he hit the most hr's. The Most Valuable Player hit a home run once every 2.8 games, but he struck out 1.2 times Per Game, and he hit more than a hundred points below average with RISP and two outs. Compare this to Pujols, who only hit a hr every 3.3 games....the SAME frequency with which he struck out, and who hit around .450 with RISP and two outs (100 points above average!) I know which stats I consider Most Valuable, but young players see the kudos to the long ball.

As the players progress, basic deficiencies (hard hands, disinclination to work the count, not knowing where the play is before the ball is hit, not hitting behind the runner, not lining up the cutoff, all manner of basrunning blunders, etc) aren't addressed as often as they should be. I do believe the coaches think a player should arrive at their travel team, hs, or college team with these skills. But when they see that they haven't got them...I'm thinking some drills are in order; not sure what those coaches are thinking.

When my son was in hs, I had the opportunity to coach at the local D1 fall games (they did team scrimmages, no practice time). I told my team, gathered from several hs, that because of the limited time, we were going to work on two things that I had seen lacking on the field: communication and baserunning. The guys were very enthusiastic --- and absolute sponges for information, because none of their coaches had ever addressed these two basic components of the game.

Coach2709, for the most part you are correct! Of course not every kid is like that but I see it out there a lot too. That's one of the very reasons we picked the team that my son is on. The coach treats the players as players. There is winning and losing and you don't want to lose. Winning and losing is not always the final score either.

As for fundamentals, that's another reason my son is on this team. As a travel/club/elite team the entire emphasis is fundamentals. Practice 2 - 4 times a week, a league game during the week and tournaments on the weekend. 100's of ground balls, 100's of fly balls, practicing cuts, double cuts, base running, etc., etc., etc. And it shows in the games. Each player knows what to do each play. Very, very few errors. This intensity pays off. Not just for the team but for each individual player. They, as individuals know and understand success and failure. They know you have to work for success, they know they don't want to fail. They know they don't want to fail but failing is part of success. You can't know one without the other. I have to say it's been a fantastic experience so far this year with this team.

I've seen may kids and many teams that are part of your observation, TR, and they all tie into your observations, too, Coach2709. I am trying to make sure my kids are not them. That's all we can do - take responsibility for our own.

quote:

Last year's National League MVP was chosen pretty much because he hit the most hr's. The Most Valuable Player hit a home run once every 2.8 games, but he struck out 1.2 times Per Game, and he hit more than a hundred points below average with RISP and two outs. Compare this to Pujols, who only hit a hr every 3.3 games....the SAME frequency with which he struck out, and who hit around .450 with RISP and two outs (100 points above average!) I know which stats I consider Most Valuable, but young players see the kudos to the long ball.

Excellent point. Every MLB coach/scout I have listened to talks about hitting for average. Thet say games are won on singles and home runs are a bonus. I think batters try way too hard to drive the ball out of the park. This causes them to pull up on the swing and ground out or fly out. Usually results in high strike outs. My son loves the #4 batter. Usually an easy out.
BB rewards HR hitters which sends a bad message.

Stanwood has a good grip on things. BB is a game of failure.

I have to tell you I have seen it more this year than I ever had. At one point last night, I asked outloud, who coached these kids. Then I answered - you did. I have to do a better job. I will say one thing, the ability for some of these kids to think for themselves is becoming scarce.

BobbleheadDoll, a hitter should have as a goal to swing every swing on a home run swing plane and with home run intent.......

IOW, swing to hit the ball out of the park every single swing.......Any effort less than this is unacceptable, IMO.......

Singles, doubles and triples should be the result of a homerun swing that didn't quite match up sweet spot of the ball to sweet spot of the bat......

quote:

Originally posted by BlueDog:
Singles, doubles and triples should be the result of a homerun swing that didn't quite match up sweet spot of the ball to sweet spot of the bat......

I tell my son and the other's I coach to swing all out every time up. We practice proper mechanics and all that in practice. In the game you knock every stitch out of that ball and try and put it into orbit. It may not happen every time, but you tried. Miss the sweet spot a little with that swing and you're most likely still moving them back.

If I here a coach tell a young kid to choke up and just make contact again I'm gonna lose it!! Swing it like you mean it or sit down.

Good topic:
My answer is that when a kid plays 60-80 games per year but only practices about 20 or 30 times per year.... well, you do the math.
Tonight at practice my ss and 2b were not doing a good job of covering the base; so I ask myself; how much time have I spent really working with them on it? Answer: Not much. We practice covering the bag but do we really break it down? So we spent a good 15 minutes on footwork; crossovers and dropsteps and it felt really good doing so real FUNdamental work.

Coach2709, those are all good points. Unless something changes for the better, and it probably won't, we will continue to see hungry Latin and Asian kids taking over the higher levels of the game. They are hungry, dedicated and talented, the way american kids used to be.
Texan, all due respect, I agree there are probably many talented and dedicated travel coaches in your area. However, since last summer and this winter, I had the chance to see some 16-18 teams from parts of Texas and other parts of the country. Coaching was terrible and was mostly about winning. Pitch counts were ludicrous. Baserunning was all over the place and there was no such thing as situational hitting. I will continue to applaud the coaches here who promote the game and teach the game to the best of their abilities.

In many cases, fundamentals are lost because you dont know what you dont know...

I am an Assistant Coach with an 11U City Rep team that is about 40 minutes from where we live and my son is on the team. It is my first significant coaching experience and I am responsible for the Try Out process, pre-season, training, etc. Much of the reason for my role is that my son has trained in many different facilities and has played in a lot of communities. That does not always translate into knowing what you are doing.

I live about an hour and a half north of Bobblehead Doll and over the past three years, I have seen a broad spectrum of coaching abilities. For example, that same Blue Jays crew came to our local town one year and I was dismayed that the coaches werent really paying much attention themselves - like it was something that just the kids were supposed to do. Although I did not sign my son up for these teams, I used to go and watch some practises and games and was simply apalled at how little these guys knew and how poor their planning efforts were. As I embarked on preparations for this year, I realized that many of the players on our own team had never been taught fundamentals. I was shocked, as a number of these players have been Tier 1 Rep for two years. The team has been competitive in years past which may indicate that the competition is in a similar boat (in fact I know several Rep teams in a similar boat).

I had a meeting with the parents and asked them for a commitment at a local Frozen Ropes Training facility in addition to our own indoor training sessions. Every three weeks small groups of Hitters, Pitchers, and Catchers go there and we try to work on our players on the weeks in between. Progress has been great however, I know that this is the first time these kids have ever gone there - and it's not because of the parents or the money. The kids are having a great time and the parents are highly supportive. I blame past coaches.

In addition to our own team's indoor sessions, my son has worked out with two other 12U teams, as much to help me learn from better coaches as to help my son. In both cases, these are coaches with 20-30 years of experience. We were fortunate last spring to be able to spring train with another team that had a tremendous coach, as well. I have taken notes and videos from numerous camps and coaching sessions for three years. As well, I have a library of about twenty training specific baseball books. In order to help our team, I have merged photo sequences and used much of the text to produce training articles on our team website. For example, I have recently done a set on our signalling process - which will probably help our 3B coach, as well as prep players before we actually work on it at practise next week. I have similar photo sequences for throwing grips (4-seam/2-seam/changeUp), Ready position, pitching positions, Catchers positions, a discussion of visual mechanics for hitters, home exercises, etc. - about a dozen in all.

Last fall, I set up a fairly elaborate Try Out with 25 different things that we measured (we actually on got 18 not them done). We had radar guns, stop watches, and tape measures and I databased the whole thing. I established a pitching rotation for our 7 pitchers (2 games a week at 7 innings) to ensure that they would get equal development time and that we would not wear out their arms. As I had identified 4 Catchers, I was able to set up a rotations for them as well and then I went on to complete the rest of the line-up for the two regular season games we play each week. After I had populated that spreadsheet, I drew the Tuesday line-up and the Thursday line-up on 14 fields (one for each inning of each day) with CAD. This I could share with the other coaches for critque and comment. A lot of work but, it has been far more useful than I would have imagined in the preparation for this season. We actually massaged the line-up to ensure a much more even distribution for a players infield and outfield work while minimizing any defensive weaknesses. I have seen many coaches fall back to a set of better players at certain positions because they cannot take any more risks of losing a game to develop their team. Decisions are made for immediacy within a limited range of players and on the basis of limited innings. We intend to hold our rotation for five to six weeks before any re-evaluation. We are changing a number of positions almost every other inning. We also have been able to use the data to match 4 middle infield pairs (which could have been random, if we had not noticed the opportunity. Further,this whole thing has allowed us to use our spring training to develop individual players and units in many ways.

I know I am going to get some corners knocked off me this summer but, I am hoping to come out with a crop of new kids that have a better understanding of baseball when the summer is done.

I am going to embark on trying to teach the basics of the playbook (various cutoff's and relays) in a few weeks... does anyone have a good reference for how to go about this with younger players?

Cheers.

Teach 'em how to hit, catch and throw.......They'll figure out the rest!!

They just need to know how to move their body!!

Blue Dog

I respectfully disagree


Kids need to learn cut offs, positoning, how to get a proper lead, how to read pitchers etc

quote:

Kids need to learn cut offs, positoning, how to get a proper lead, how to read pitchers etc

TRhit, yeah, I'll concede that.....All except how to read pitchers....I'll never give a pitcher that much respect!!

Blue Dog

You must be one lousy baserunner if you don't read pitchers

I like round-trippers!!

this is a very good thread with some significant effort put forth by posters. hard to find much to disagree with so i will pile on:

i'm coach for 9/10yo. my son and i skipped last year to play a 2nd basketball season. played and coached the two previous bb seasons. this year we came back, got our old team back and mostly all new faces with 2 former players.

all the parents are gung-ho, show up to practice, actually they get in the way being so eager to help. but....

these kids, who have been playing little league for THREE and FOUR YEARS! still cannot pick up a ground ball, plant a foot, turn their body, point their glove and throw a fricking baseball without looking like some kid who was raised by wolves and never saw the sport of baseball or never even threw a rock at a garbage can.

don't get me wrong, i love these kids. and the tragic part is:::they can really play and quite often they can get the ball where they need to get it. it's just painful to watch. almost embarassing to be honest when you consider all the years they have played! they want it so bad but they just have never been taught the FUNDAMENTALS!

now take my son and the two kids i coached the other years: my son is playing with age appropriate fundamentals. the other two? it's like the clock has stopped and it's the season i coached two years ago. i mean i don't see a stitch of difference in their fundamental approach to the game. in other words, no work was done in a year except to play at playing the game.

my point is not to bash anyone but to point out that these kids are not playing baseball anywhere except when the show up for practice or a game. the parents are not playing with them at home; the schools are not teaching sport; they're not playing pick up games at the park after school.

baseball in this country has been in trouble a long time. if not for the HOMERUN highlights on espn [btw-can you think of a more BORING highlight???] most kids would never see the game being played.

my son and i froze our @#$$es off last night watching a ll majors game, asking the ump questions between innings, throwing the radar gun on pitches and chasing down foul balls.

"why do we have to give these balls back papa?"

Hi guys:

Our guys are one year shigh of Lead Off's and Pick-Off's. Then again, having attended the sessions for the 12U team, I dont see why one would not be teaching how to read a Pitcher at that age.

The coach of this team is the guy with the 30 years experience and he did a great job of teaching how to read a Pitcher's glove shoulder and/or pivot foot. A few weeks earlier he had worked on primary and secondary leads. He ran some great drills and I'm glad we were there to see it (we travelled 45 minutes south to attend Wednesday night sessions that ran between 8:00 pm and 9:30 pm - and it was worth it).

I might add that I have never seen a more attentive group of 12YO in baseball before. I went there primarily because of the hitting training (he's one of the best I've seen). He's coaching out of a small centre - he doesnt even live there and has no kid related to him on the team. They had quite a Cinderella season last year when he arrived.

You can tell that the hitters on his team are all well-schooled. They will be formidable this year.

I always felt as if baseball was a very basic game. When a player loves the game, concentrates on the game, and thinks about the game, they “just know” most of the game’s fundamentals without a high powered coach going over each movement step by step. In my opinion a player with a strong competitive desire, who hates to lose, has the ability to think, and has good baseball instincts, needs very little coaching and the coaching he gets really sinks in. Coach2709 is right on in my opinion. He’s got my $1!! In addition to some cases of poor coaching, a lot of the apparent lack of fundamentals is the result of the player’s approach. While I’m pointing fingers I also think parents play a big role in how their son approaches the game. Necessity is the mother of invention and if the player feels that strong desire to win, to succeed in spite of adversity, and will never accept failure, you can bet he will devise a way to steal the base, make the play, get the hit, or compete on the mound.
Fungo.

PS: My approach to improvement: “Son, you do a lot of things right but let’s not talk about what you did right, let’s talk about what you did wrong”, if you can correct those you will be a much better player”.

When your watching a team play what are the things you can spot that a team does well or does not do well that can be directly related to coaching?

Taking leads (primary) and (secondary).
Holding runners (pitchers holding runners) (MIF holding runners.
Cut plays by OF and INF.
1st and Third defense.
1st and Third offense.
Bunt defense.
Bunt offense.
Base running.
Throwing and fielding fundementals.
Catching fundementals.
Basic hitting fundementals.

It takes absolutely no talent to be a smart baserunner. It takes no talent to hold runners properly or hit a cut off man. It takes no talent to execute bunt coverages or to understand the proper way to field a ground ball. As a coach I can not controll the talent that I get from year to year. But I can teach the fundementals of the game to every player regardless of his talent level. A player can work and become the best player he can become. A player's responsibility is to work hard and strive to be the best he can be. A coach's responsibility is to teach the game to the best of his ability each and every day.

Im not disagreeing with previous posts here. Everyone has made some great points. As a coach I have always felt that my players are a reflection of me and my coaching ability. If they do not know how to the run the bags properly I take full responsibility for that. Not when they first come into our program, but before they step on the field for the varsity.

The point of the whole thing is to let kids play and have fun.

At the same time, who said the fundamentals is boring? Taught well, it can make practises (particularly indoor sessions) far more interesting. The trick is boiling the information down to something quick and understandable and having good fun drills to support it.

There are 7 kids on our team that comprise our middle infield. 4 of the 7 have relatively little experience at the positions and will split these positions with outfielding assignments. All of them have the required speed. As coaches, we have opted to rotate the weaker players through these positions equally, pairing them up with stronger ones and trying to keep them in back to back innings with the same partner.

If you are an 11U relative newcomer to SS or 2B and you dont know the coverage for a throw from the plate with a left handed batter; if you dont know approximately when to make the flip toss and when to throw (overhand) sidearm; how to move your feet through the bag from different locations; how to lay the tag; that we want to throw the ball uphill, etc.: you are mighty glad when someone takes the time to catch you up.

Good players have picked some of these things up with time and experience... and then coaches always rely on their "old faithfuls".

A wise man that participates on this site once told me "There is no burn-out... kids lose interest due to the perception of failure". I want 7 kids to participate as middle infielders and I want them to perceive themselves as successful. They all want the job and they're willing to work. I'm just giving all of them the tools (to the best of my ability). We will win games this summer, no doubt but, more importantly the summer will end with better developed players.

Last weekend, my son's basketball team finished a similar journey. The team worked all year on a large number of plays and defensive strategy. We had a season that was tough, as this took a long time to get in place, particularly with a number of younger players. We lost quite a few more games than we won. The team went 5-0 up until finals at Provincials and won Silver, beating a number of teams that thought they had us. Months of development work had paid off.

Blue dog


Tell a kid that each swing should be a home run swing and you have a kid with a low batting average


The dingers will come naturally as the boy gets stronger provided he is doing everything else right in the batters box , mechanically and mentally

Your philosophy of hitting continues to amaze me--you like round trippers---well first of all a kid has to be strong enought to hit them---your way of thinking will have kids who are b not physically strong enuff to hit home runs thinking they can when they should be concentrating on base hits

TRhit,

Respectfully, I think you're missing the point of blue's philosophy. The batter is not thinking "hit a homerun", he is thinking hit the ball as hard as I can every time. I don't see a problem with this idea. Batting average will be determined by the ability to see the ball and adjust, not to a change in the swing.

JMHO