Quote:
Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA
WTF is going on that 8 y/o can't make at least occasional plays?
There is no worse disservice to kids than not giving them a legal chance to win, enroll them in an exercise class rather than a competitive sport if that's the attitude.
I'm glad mine aged out and I'd pray that I never have grandkids who play that I have to watch. Not sending runners when they could score would land me in prison.
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I think the disconnect here is baseball in the south vs baseball in the north. In the northern states rec leagues under 10 have a massive gap in skill levels from player to player and sometimes from team to team. It's really difficult to find serious or even somewhat serious baseball at that age without shelling out a few thousand dollars as a parent. So what you end up with is mostly teams with 1-2 really good players on them and a mixed bag from there all the way down to the kid had never held a baseball or softball before their parents made them sign up to go make friends.
My experience coaching up here showed me to teach the kids the right way to play baseball. There are far too many teams in the 8-12 range up there that run their kids non stop and think they're teaching them baseball because they win a ton of games in those ages, but when those kids that everyone thought were good join your team when they're a bit older you find out they don't have the slightest idea of how to actually play the game. They can't read pitchers or perform a lot of the most basic fundamentals because they played the games that were more like track meets. I've seen a lot of kids like that first hand and their parents get pissed when they're not starting on a select team at 13-14 and even more pissed when their kid doesn't make the high school team.
I know the south can be a lot different. With some rec leagues in those age ranges looking more like select leagues in the northern states.