Youth Baseball Affiliation

IMHO anytime you take a group young kids and split them into the "haves" and "have nots" and let them see that separation at such a young age you are planting a bad seed for years to come. The weird part is that the "have nots" will probably be less affected than the "haves" who will begin to think they are the chosen ones. Little league is a time to learn teamwork and athletic social skills, not the time to start pulling out the blond haired blue eyed studs.

It's hard to take other people's recommendations. A program will be as good as the people running it. That considered you decide which organization is best for your kids. You also don't need to look at only one organization. In our area if a kid stays in the program he plays LL, Connie Mack and Legion all under the umbrella of OurTown Baseball Inc. You just have to make sure your charter for OurTown Baseball Inc doesn't violate any of the national programs rules.

Before moving to this town I was involved with an independent group, OtherTown Recreational Association. We looked into going LL. It would have been a huge task to rewrite the charter to be in compliance with LL. We signed up with Ripken/Babe Ruth which is far more flexible.

From my perspective of the preteen years, take away the aura of the long LL all-star run and Ripken has it all over LL in terms or rules and management (dictatorship from LL) from the top. My son has only played travel starting at 13U so I'm less informed in the teen aspect. Teen rec ball and Legion are brutal in our area. The better players play travel.

For the preteen kids I wouldn't sort them out by competitive and rec in the spring. Let them all play together. Then have a competitive summer program for the better players who want to play tournament ball. It's what we did in our independent, that became Ripken program.

I am a big supporter of PONY baseball.....its the right combination of age appropriate rules and field dimensions.....

With the size of town you have LL would probebely be more difficult to deal with due to league size limitations and other governance issues. Its possible that the LL district in your area is more flexible then ours.

We ended up leaving LL for Babe Ruth (13-15) 8 years ago because the local district had a bunch of rules that were killing particaption in our town (i.e. we had to have three separate leagues for a town of 42,000, with three separate boards so we ended up with Three senior leagues that could not survive on their own and made it very difficult to balance teams).

As an aside, our local park and rec used to have a T-ball/coach pitch league that was well run and coached by Park and Rec staff (HS kids). The LL district essentially forced the three local leagues to offer T-ball/coach pitch ($$$) which essentially eliminated the Park and Rec program. So instead of park and rec kids coaching the teams, the parents became the coaches and the enjoyment factor plunged for everybody. We attempted to reverse course one year but the district threatened to revoke our charter if we gave T-ball back to park and rec.

quote:

Originally posted by piaa_ump:
I am a big supporter of PONY baseball.....its the right combination of age appropriate rules and field dimensions.....

+1 on that. Also Pony is not nearly as rigid as LL. Very easy to start up a new league, etc.

turnin2, not sure where you are located in central Texas, but Nations Baseball & USSSA sanction a lot of leagues & tournament play down your way (more USSSA in N Texas & more Nations as you get further south). Super Series is another choice & Steve Smith is a top notch director, has always treated our bunch well.

Splitting youth league baseball up into upper & lower divisions is not that hard if you have decent number of players & you can get supporters on the same page. Our local youth league (Utrip sanctioned 1400 boys) is run that way: no draft, lwr division for the closer to rec type AA teams, & Upper division for mid AA up through a few borderline Majors teams that basically play league for practice. For the most part this set-up worked well.

quote:

Originally posted by piaa_ump:
I am a big supporter of PONY baseball.....its the right combination of age appropriate rules and field dimensions.....

Son has played Pony since he was 8 years old.

My only gripe with it is with the stealing rules. I'm all for lead offs and steals but at the Mustang level (8-10) it is a little silly. Most pitchers have a hard enough time getting the ball over the plate. Figurin gout how to pitch from the stretch and holding runners is very hard.

I found that about 80% of the time the kid on first base would run to second without a throw.

Other than that I have been very happy with it.

I'm sure others have great opinions of LL, Cal Ripken and others.

quote:

Originally posted by Wklink:

quote:

Originally posted by piaa_ump:
I am a big supporter of PONY baseball.....its the right combination of age appropriate rules and field dimensions.....

Son has played Pony since he was 8 years old.

My only gripe with it is with the stealing rules. I'm all for lead offs and steals but at the Mustang level (8-10) it is a little silly. Most pitchers have a hard enough time getting the ball over the plate. Figurin gout how to pitch from the stretch and holding runners is very hard.

I found that about 80% of the time the kid on first base would run to second without a throw.

Other than that I have been very happy with it.

I'm sure others have great opinions of LL, Cal Ripken and others.

Our local rules allow leadoffs and can only steal 2nd or 3rd on a passed ball during the regular season. We do not allow stealing home on a passed ball and require that the runner be "hit" home or in a continuous play from 1st or 2nd.

All Stars they play with full stealing.

I've played under both rule sets in regular season ball (full vs. limited stealing) and feel that the limited stealing is a very good way of doing it. The kids still learn to look for the passed ball and get good leads, but pitchers and catchers don't pay the price and get discouraged at a young age.

Our All Star teams are not at a disadvantage as these players have no trouble learning to steal in a few practices/practice games.

What is the best formula to get kids ready to play High School Varsity ball?? We have a Rec league here and Cal Ripken teams that are run like rec ball....IE kids that don't know the game or how the game is played by the time kids are frosh... frustrating.

quote:

Originally posted by Wklink:

quote:

Originally posted by piaa_ump:
I am a big supporter of PONY baseball.....its the right combination of age appropriate rules and field dimensions.....

Son has played Pony since he was 8 years old.

My only gripe with it is with the stealing rules. I'm all for lead offs and steals but at the Mustang level (8-10) it is a little silly. Most pitchers have a hard enough time getting the ball over the plate. Figurin gout how to pitch from the stretch and holding runners is very hard.

I found that about 80% of the time the kid on first base would run to second without a throw.

Other than that I have been very happy with it.

I'm sure others have great opinions of LL, Cal Ripken and others.

Again this is why I feel PONY has the edge...they give the individual league the right to tailor regular season play.

Local Mustang league can pick one of 3 options...

MUSTANG leagues shall adopt one of the following three optional rules for league play.

RULE (1) SHALL GOVERN ALL MUSTANG LEAGUE TOURNAMENT
PLAY.

(1)Runners may lead-off and steal bases, as in Official Baseball Rules.

(2) Runners at first and second bases may lead off and steal bases, as in Official Baseball Rules, but runners at third base shall remain in contact with the base from the time the pitcher steps on the rubber with possession of the ball until the pitched ball has been hit or has reached or passed the batter. Once the pitcher has stepped on the
rubber, in possession of the ball, runners at third base who leave base before the pitched ball reaches or passes the batter shall be called out and the pitch shall be considered as a dead ball.

(3) Runners may steal bases, but shall not leave the base they are occupying at the time of the pitch until the pitched ball has reached or passed the catcher. Once the pitcher has stepped on the rubber with possession of the ball, runners who leave base before the pitched ball reaches or passes the catcher shall be called out and the pitch shall be considered as a dead ball.

Mank10, believe everyone on here would agree there are many different routes to success. Locally, there is a wide spectrum of level of play between the young men making the HS varsity in several local programs, (esp the inner city & smaller private HS's) versus what is required in our larger & most competivive 6A programs.

At the former private school my oldest attended when he was elem age, there are today, few HS players at this school who played more than what amounts to rec league ball through 12 years old along with getting their feet wet in a very few local AA tournaments. Know many of their parents & watched many of these young men grow up & its very evident in the level of play. Locally, we also have 2 baseball programs that this Spring went deep in largest class State tourn. One is a powerhouse, year in, year out & has turned out numerous high draft picks & D1 players. The majority of the varsity starters on these teams been playing fairly high level travelball since they were 11-12 years old. Coincidence or just part of the journey, I'm going to have to go with the latter.

I was on the board of our local organization and 4 years ago we pulled out of PONY and went independent. For All-Stars, we draft 2 teams and do a world series of the best 4 out of 7.

It has worked great for our 1100 kids.