Youth Baseball Today

Similar story to yours...played for a bunch of coaches when I was younger who couldn't help me much. First college coach wasn't any better but I learned a ton from my second college coach. Got the good info a little too late but I coached so I could give kids what I learned and maybe help a few play high school or college ball.

My son is a rising freshman and has played at East Cobb and LakePoint (two really nice facilities) too many times to count.  He went to Cooperstown back to back weeks. He has also played at the USA Baseball facility in Cary and Red Sox minor league stadium in Ft. Myers.  Oh and his high school field is really nice too! My high school field was a cow pasture with chalk on it. LoL

I was telling a friend the other day that he may get 175 - 200 ab's this summer.  I would have loved to be playing ball in this day and time. 

I wouldn't trade my baseball experience for anything today. We played baseball most of the day. When we weren't playing baseball we were playing Strat O Matic. It was how we rested in the afternoon for games that night. 

If we didn't have enough for teams we played one in one or two on two whiffle ball. 

Even though I moved a couple of times I always played summer ball based on our summer place. I played from LL through Legion with a core of four of us. We won state championships at every level. One of the Legion members built a beautiful baseball field for the team and his semi pro team in his backyard. He hired people to maintain it. It was a college quality field.

When I wasn't playing I was pounding a rubber ball off the side of the garage. Or throwing rubber balls up on the roof, standing under the edge, then catching them over my shoulder. 

When it got dark we played Strat O Matic until the parent of the house in question kicked us out for the night.

I practiced pitching mechanics pitching socks into a full length mirror. I honed my batting eye sitting on my knees hitting spit balls with a pencil off my bedroom wall. 

If it was too hot for baseball we went waterskiing. Or bloodied each other playing King of the Dock.

Summer was Norman Rockwell all the way. 

I was about nine.  My older brother, by ten years, took me to a Cleveland Indians game, about a sixty mile drive from home.  We didn't travel much back then.  And this was when all cars in that region rusted out.  He drove his VW bug with the floorboard rusted completely through.  The drive seemed like ten hours as I watched the road pass by my feet below me.  Hung on to my seat for dear life. 

We arrived at good ol' municipal stadium (signature landmark was Huge Chief Wahoo about to swing a bat with his high leg kick) which held about 80K but only had about 493 fans on this particular night.  Big bro talked me into going down and trying to get Sam McDowell's autograph as he warmed up in the bullpen.  I was only like fifteen feet away and screaming my lungs out.  Couldn't figure out why he wasn't responding.  It's not like he couldn't hear me... I was the only one remotely close.  First time I was pissed at one of my hero's.

Totally separate story... about four years later, my Pony League coach (only one coach with most teams then) pulls up in his beat up pick up truck, the usual cigarette hangin' from the lip, has one of us grab the old green army duffle with gear.  But, everyone was really surprised when he crawled out and made his way over on crutches and huge bandages wrapped around his leg.  I think we were waiting for some exciting story of a major sports injury.  Turns out he shot himself cleaning his gun.    

Where'd you live?  Akron?

While the fields may be prettier I think youth baseball has lost something precious along the way with all of these academies.  There use to be individuality in our sports hero's...not by tattoos but by the way they threw, hit, ran....more and more I am seeing carbon copies. 

Braves brought on a new pitcher a couple months ago, John Gant.  He takes what some call a "false" step before he actually throws the pitch.  20 years ago this may have made a footnote in the paper, this year it's HUGE news...why....because it's different!  And we don't see much that is "different" in baseball anymore.

I grew up playing soccer and roaming the wilds of rural California in the mid- to late-70s. Virtually no baseball, but I had a glove and played some pick-up games. Also virtually no supervision. I'd eat breakfast in the summer and ROAM with a friend or three, and materialize like magic at dinner to wolf down three helpings. Watch one of 4 channels at night, and rinse and repeat. Not very relevant, but fun to be nostalgic.

We all have similar memories; that is why we share so much. 

My memory is a 33-inch wood bat that had two screws in the handle it to hold it together with tape over the grip. I used that bat for three years of Babe Ruth ball.

We all have similar memories; that is why we share so much. 

My memory is a 33-inch wood bat that had two screws in the handle it to hold it together with tape over the grip. I used that bat for three years of Babe Ruth ball. Games being played at the VA Hospital field in front of the "psych ward" with the patients sitting in wheel chairs watching our games.

RJM posted:

If we didn't have enough for teams we played one in one or two on two whiffle ball.  

Waxing nostalgic... my gang played half-field at the local elementary school. We only needed 4 or more to play (OF, IF, P + batter). Batter chose his half of the field (left or right), and the other side was foul. Throw to P for force at 1st. "Ghost runners". Also great training for working through disagreements.

We played baseball in a mowed field behind our house.  Chalk?  What chalk?   Used flat stones for bases.  Equipment bags?  What's that?  Just had a few bats, gloves and a few beat up baseballs.  No fences.  Sometimes we spent hours looking for lost baseballs.

There was usually only 4 of us.  Teams of two.

If we weren't playing baseball, my neighbor and I were out on our dirt bikes.  One of our trails went right through our "diamond".

In the fall, our "diamond" became the "gridiron".  Usually got a few more to play.  At best, 5 on 5.

I recall playing in a rec league for a couple of years.  We thought we were in heaven.  Dirt infields with real chalk and fences and at least nine on each team.   Real umps (real for us anyway).

Compared to my son who played LL, travel (went to Cooperstown one year), JV, Varsity, Legion, JuCo and D2 ball on really nice fields.  Son earned all district/region honors and honorable mention for state.  His senior year he drove in the tying run in the bot of the 7th with 2 outs during the district championship game - 1st district championship for the school in 25 years.   Was 2nd team all region for sophomore year at JuCo.  Made all conference for two positions (infield and DH) and 2nd team all region at the D2 level.

You guys bring up something I'd forgotten about.  Wiffle ball.  Oh, man!  Some electrical tape on a ball and a banana bat and you have hours of fun.  

We had a yard that adjacent to mine that was clear and flat. Mine had a row of trees on the property line.  Hit one over those trees and it was like a big league homerun.  I remember the whelps from the "cat balls".  

 I have thought about this many times. Growing up we played the sport that was in season. When it was baseball season that's what we played outside. We didn't spend much time inside. It was hotter in the house than it was outside the house. At least it seemed that way. No AC just a couple of fans and we hit the big time when we got a window unit in the kitchen. We had A baseball. Not buckets of baseballs. The ball would end up dark green almost black before we either lost it or wore it out. Many times we would end up with electrical tape as a ball and a tobacco stick as a bat. One of the best games we came up with was Lemon Ball. You know that plastic Lemon that holds the Lemon juice in them? Well we would get a plastic Lemon and a Tobacco Stick and it was awesome. You could throw some wicked pitches with that Lemon. Lots of great memories and I wouldn't trade anything for them. But I have always wondered what would it have been like to have buckets of balls to play with? A batting cage? Someone to throw BP to me? These fields kids play on now? These travel teams that kids play on? The instruction kids get today compared to what we got? Yeah I have wondered.

But I bet my son's have wondered what it would have been like to simply have fun. To be able to leave the house at 9am and come back at dark. Just you and your buddies hanging out playing ball. Neighborhood ball games. Games you made up. No parents getting in the way taking all the fun out of it. No parents to step in and solve every scrap for you. No parent to instruct you on every swing and every pitch. No one yelling at you when you struck out or made a error. Just you and your buddies doing what kids do.

I think to myself sometimes that maybe all of this progress really isn't progress? Maybe it's really taking steps backwards? Or maybe I am just out of touch and don't have a freaking clue? I don' t know I really don't. I think we had it better than we think we did. And I think our kids in our desire to give them what we didn't have might have missed some things we wouldn't give up for anything. Just some thoughts from an old guy that probably doesn't have a clue anyway.

Wow - just a great thread with outstanding thoughts throughout!

We played all sports as well when they were in season.  We also played lots of whiffle ball where you only needed two guys to play.

One thing was better - we were allowed to go anywhere in our small town on bikes and play.  Didn't have to worry about creepy people back then doing something nefarious to a kid.  Our parents did not worry and neither did we.  Now unfortunately, you cannot leave your kids unattended.

Teaching Elder posted:

You guys bring up something I'd forgotten about.  Wiffle ball.  Oh, man!  Some electrical tape on a ball and a banana bat and you have hours of fun.  

We had a yard that adjacent to mine that was clear and flat. Mine had a row of trees on the property line.  Hit one over those trees and it was like a big league homerun.  I remember the whelps from the "cat balls".  

Ahhhhh - "cat ball!"  Now, that was fun!

I remember using a flat stick and rubber ball in pickup games. Shoot, my first organized game wasn't until I was 11.  But, pickup games with the older kids had me well-prepared. 

Before Dixie Youth, my dad would pile nine of us in the back of his Ford pickup and we'd play all over within a 30 mile radius. No uniforms, of course. LoL

Teaching Elder - Your Buttermaker story made me remember one of my youth coaches (who I liked a lot).  His son was the main pitcher and became a friend.  Invited me over to his house to hang out - I get there and we're building forts in the woods or something and he asks me which bar my Dad goes too?  Cause his dad goes too such-and-such-bar. 

I was like, what the heck??  I had no idea how to answer.

But I bet my son's have wondered what it would have been like to simply have fun. To be able to leave the house at 9am and come back at dark. Just you and your buddies hanging out playing ball. Neighborhood ball games. Games you made up. No parents getting in the way taking all the fun out of it. No parents to step in and solve every scrap for you. No parent to instruct you on every swing and every pitch. No one yelling at you when you struck out or made a error. Just you and your buddies doing what kids do.

It is hard, if not impossible, to recreate this for your kids today.  I try to keep some of this alive for my kids, but it is tough and no where near what it used to be.  My wife would yell at me (and still does) that our kids were digging up the backyard, stomping out bare patches in the grass (i.e. home plate).  She would get so mad when my oldest would knock off the top to one of the fence boards.  Once she realized colleges were taking an interest, she backed off a little.  I keep a stash of pristine fence boards just in case.

While baseball can open doors at academic institutions, it seems a little unsettling that there is an army of kids who are simply too focused on baseball - and if they persevere through high school, they then get to go on to college, get a good degree and start earning a living.  Had a dad tell me a couple of years ago that he treated the cost of pitching lessons as though it were a college fund.  Some kids enjoy the entire ride, but some would probably do better getting to have a little more fun along the way.  As folks on this board have said a hundred times, make sure your son knows that your love for him has nothing to do with his baseball abilities.  I get the feeling that some kids, not all kids, who say they love baseball 24/7 do so because they get so much positive feedback.  In earlier days, many kids loved baseball despite getting zero feedback from their parents.

CaCO3Girl posted:

While the fields may be prettier I think youth baseball has lost something precious along the way with all of these academies.  There use to be individuality in our sports hero's...not by tattoos but by the way they threw, hit, ran....more and more I am seeing carbon copies....

CaCO3Girl, I didn't think you were old enough to relate to that so well ....

Another game we played... basement baseball.  Just me and little brother.  Badminton racquets and a foam nerf ball.  Each of us would choose a team that we would be (usually Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates).  With each at-bat, we would copy the unique hitting style of one of the players from that team.  Hit righty or lefty accordingly.  Rose with his crouch, Morgan's elbow twitch, Perez, Bench, Geronimo, Griffey Sr., Concepcion, Foster.  Stargell's bat twirl, Sanguillen, Oliver, Alou, Hebner.  Same with pitching...  Gullet, Pedro Borbon, Billingham, Rawly Eastwick.  Doc Ellis, Mudcat Grant, Moose, Veale, Garber, Blass.  Each with very distinct individual styles.

I think about thirty years later, I sent my little brother a birthday present... a basement baseball set (badminton racquets) with line up cards of those players.

Teaching Elder - Youngstown

Played basement baseball at the neighbor's house. Same nerf foam ball.  Used our hand as the bat though. A folded ping pong table was the left field wall.

My wife grew up in Hudson.

I dunno . . . my front lawn currently has a giant bare patch (home plate) and a smaller one (pitching rubber), and there is a big strip of duct tape (gorilla tape) on the driveway marking a home run . . . and a faded remnant of a similar strip closer in (they moved the home run line back as they started getting bigger and hitting too many bombs), . . . a lot of wiffle ball is played on my front lawn. And nerf wars -- those are really common, nerf bullets end up everywhere . . .

Do they have as much freedom as we did? No. But they seem to have plenty of fun. And on the other side of the coin, they are way better at a given sport -- baseball, for example -- than we were. I don't think it's even close. Which is a better childhood? Hard for me to say . . .

I am old enough to remember playing all day. We had maybe two actual games a week. Let me tell you those games - especially night games under the lights - were special. A month of playing whiffle ball and sandlot ball could not equal even one pitch in a real game. Things are a hundred times better now.  Kids now are really lucky. The good ole days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems!

Coach May and his Lemon Ball brought back memories of Cup Ball. We broke too many windows playing whiffle ball in my yard. So we tried stuffing bathroom Dixie Cups with newspaper. Four squares on the garage door was the strike zone. It didn't matter what height you were or if you got called K'ed on a unhittable roundhouse curve. That was the strike zone. My mother started buying extra Dixie Cups just for baseball.

Want to develop a quick bat? Try hitting a full speed Dixie Cup from twenty feet. And no one ever hurt their arm. Probably because we spent the day throwing some object at something.

We would plau "foilball" after lunch in high School. Used our hand as a bat.  Had an area with two high walls making a corner.  Those were the HR walls.  That wasnsome more fun.  

Growing up in the foothills, we had a large hill at the back of the house.  We would play for hours.  When you hit the ball up the hill it would feed back down to the pitcher.  Lots of fun.

I agree with 2019DAD, newer neighbor just knocked on my door last week ticked off about his car constantly getting hit by tape balls, wiffle balls, just about anything round that they can find to hit that wont go a mile or break anything.  

I was a big lefty that threw hard and the ball went where intended most of the time. With the premium but on anything left handed today I sometimes wonder what if.....  But I grew up in a small town. No TB, or scouts,  or recruiting coaches,  or million dollar contracts. So when other things caught my interest it was easy to quit.

I think that's why it's been so easy to make the sacrifices I have to get my son to where he is. I can truly say it's never been about so big payday for me. Only that my son never has to wonder "what if". 

Me in my "not so big" days.

Teaching Elder,

It's all funny because it is TRUE.  We must have lived next to each other at some point in our youth.  While the coaching was awful in my experience it was better than nothing.  My Little League coaches for 3 years all stayed together and enjoyed each others company and they would crack a beer after practice in the parking lot.  Nobody thought twice about it.  The late 60s early 70s were a different time.   If there is one thing I do remember the coaches always showed up and they had a positive attitude about practices and games. 

Very rarely did my parents come to a game or show any interest in my games until our All-Star team made it to the State level and I needed a ride an hour away to the game.  Parents weren't expected to be interested in their kids activities back then.  My father was an Executive and he worked hard.  I knew it, and any time he could make a game was a big deal for me.  I remember batting 9th in the lineup in that All-Star game and going 4-4 in that game.  Having my Dad there for THAT game was a big deal for me.  

If there is one regret that I have it is that I was unable to develop hitting skills.  I have excellent hand-eye coordination but hitting a baseball was my challenge when I was younger.  I wish I had someone to work with, as I eventually went to the "dark-side" and played college tennis.  Youth tennis instructors were available.....youth baseball instructors not so much at that time. 

A few years ago on a business trip, I visited the Little League field that I spent most of my time playing youth baseball.  It was in great shape and each field was getting a great workout.  It was the same but different after 45 years.  All kinds of youth baseball memories came rushing back.  While kids today may have better facilities, coaching and training it isn't all unicorns and rainbows.   

I'll bet more kids go further in baseball/sports because they have fun than because of facilities. What I see today is too many emotionally over invested parents. Sometimes it comes from being overly financially invested. My father (a Big Ten athlete) didn't teach me how to do anything in sports. He shoved me out the door to play. He watched my LL games without ever commenting on my play. He never critiqued how I played in any sport until high school. 

When I was twelve my LL team won the league. The all star team won states. I don't remember any parents getting together to party because we won. It's common now. I attended a lot of parent's team victory parties with my kid's sports. As a kid wehad team parties at the coach's house without parents. 

i was always there with my kid's sports. In baseball, softball, basketball and little kid soccer I was the coach. Being involved with all the kids gave me the detachment I needed from suffocating my kids.

The best instruction I ever had was in football. The coaches were also the biggest jerks I ever played for. In baseball and basketball I had to figure it out. It happened with reps. 

My kids had good sports experiences. I was there every step of the way. But I don't believe it was any better than my experience. It was just different.