Youth Baseball League Rant

[Atocep]

Here's a little background before we get started on my rant.

My son is in his 4th year of playing baseball and this is his first season outside of the local Parks and Rec league here. He's playing in the Lakewood Baseball Club League in the 9-10 year old division. He's a pretty good player for his age (probably one of the top three to four 9 year olds in this league) and loves playing.

I've coached three years of baseball (1 year of teeball and 2 years of coach pitch) and I'm an assistant coach this year although my coaching duties have expanded as the season has progressed. The two that are officially splitting the head coaching duties have leaned more and more on me as the season has progressed. One just doesn't have the time and the other will be the first to admit he has fairly limited baseball knowledge.

Now for the rant which I hope makes some sense. It's a complicated situation and I'm trying to describe this in the best detail I can.

The first sign that something was odd with this league was at the first practice. Honestly, the previous 2 coach pitch teams I coached had more talent than what I saw. I initially just chalked that up to us having a young team (only one 10 year old and five 8 year olds). However, after having some talks with one of the other coaches and a talk with the league director (I knew him because he had coached coach pitch against me 2 years prior) I started to discover why this team lacked talent. I also want to mention here that the league director is a coach for a team in the league.

The first problem is there's no tryout/draft that you see in every other league I've seen at this age. The Lakewood Baseball Club starts at ages 7-8 with a machine pitch league. Teams are kept in place from there until they finish the 11-12 year old league as long as they have a coach in place each year to keep things together. Kids that aren't already part of a team when they enter the league are then distributed as needed to fill out rosters.

The team my son landed on was moving up from the machine pitch league and has had 2 different coaches in the past 3 years and it was going to be 3 but the guy that coached last season decided to go ahead and coach again this season because they didn't have anyone else. Because of this we lost the top 2 players from the previous season's team to other teams since things were up in the air and opposing coaches took the opportunity to do some recruiting. With no coach in place no one was able to block it.

I asked why they don't have a "tryout day" where kids come out and do some basic skills and then the coaches draft based on the previous year's record and I was given several different excuses. I was told they had done that in the past but decided not to do it anymore with the main reason being they wanted to keep kids that are from the same school on the same team throughout their time in the league. This is obviously failing because my son's team is made up of kids from all sorts of different schools along with the military families. From my perspective it's the kids that have parents that don't have connections to the other coaches and military kids that will typically only be able to play for 2-3 years at most in the league that make up our team.

I'm then told things will be better next year for our team since we're only losing one player. When this discussion took place I had only seen 2 other teams and we were somewhat competitive against one of them so I accepted it. However, the two teams I had seen aren't competitive at all with the actual top teams in the league. The top teams in the league are stacked with 10 year olds and instead of being in a situation where they have to rebuild next year they move up to the 11-12 year old league and are replaced by the older teams from the machine pitch league (of course kids that are moving up that aren't on those stacked teams are distributed as needed).

Our team is bad. We haven't led at the end of a single inning this season. We're not even remotely competitive. I want to win. I'm a competitive person, but my biggest problem isn't the losing. It's the fact that the kids I'm coaching realize they can't compete with the other teams and it's killing the fun they should be having. Instead of looking forward to what we'll have next year we have one kid who is 100% moving (his dad is military), one parent who told me his son will not play for this team next year, 2 parents that told me they're going to look into what's available outside of Lakewood Baseball Club, and at least 2 (maybe 3) kids that have lost all interest in baseball. When I asked the other two coaches how many kids they expect back next season we all agreed we're looking at maybe 6 that return so things aren't looking good for next season either.

This Sunday is All Star tryouts for 9 year olds and 10 year olds. I'll be our team's representative since I have the only kid that plans on trying out. I'll have a chance to speak with the other coaches and the guys that run the league and I'm not one to just keep quiet when I think my team is getting screwed this bad.

I don't know what I'm looking for by posting this here, but I need to rant somewhere because this is already the most frustrating experience I've had in 4 years of coaching youth basketball/baseball.

[Izulde]

Ah, yes. The politics of youth sports. One of the most infuriating things ever.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I feel your pain. On the info here, I think I'm with the parents who are going to look into other leagues & options. This sounds pretty much rigged & by design at that.

[BYU 14]

I have found Baseball to be probably the most "corrupt" of any youth sports I have seen over the years. The politics are insane and it seems every league has that one coach that has been around forever, knows everyone and somehow ends up with the the best kids every season.

There are lots of good people involved too obviously, but your story is probably closer to the rule than the exception. As long as there are adults that feel wiping the floor with a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds with their "elite" squads somehow inflates their importance in the world this crap will go on.

Don't get me wrong, I am competitive as hell and have coached some very good teams in 25 years of coaching Football. I have experienced some "lean" times too and those teams got as much and more of an effort from me as the good teams. In the end it was always about the experience the kids had for me. As coaches we all have egos, that is just part of the makeup you need to coach IMO, but ego should never interfere with doing things the right way.

[RainMaker]

The oddest part seems to be the age gap. There is a huge gap between 8 and 10 year olds. I never played in a league that had a gap of more than 1 year. Maybe it's normal though.

But as Jon mentioned, this seems to be rigged by design. I'd look for another league if you can. If the kids are not having any fun, then I don't see a point in beating your heads against a wall.

[Ksyrup]

Rec leagues suck, both for these reasons and because of lack of talent (both playing and coaching). Around here, travel ball is the only way to go if you want your kid to learn anything, have fun, and play competent, competitive ball.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The oddest part seems to be the age gap. There is a huge gap between 8 and 10 year olds. I never played in a league that had a gap of more than 1 year. Maybe it's normal though.

But as Jon mentioned, this seems to be rigged by design. I'd look for another league if you can. If the kids are not having any fun, then I don't see a point in beating your heads against a wall.

That's another thing with this league. Every other league I've seen you can play up a year if you're actually picked to move up. In this league all the parent has to do is request it (that's how the other teams are staying together). My team has 2 kids that have no business playing with 9 and 10 year olds yet they're on my team because it's the team kids like that end up on. Hell, my 10 year old is playing his first year of organized baseball (funny how he ends up on this team...).

The gap between 9 and 10 is huge. The gap between 8 year olds and 10 year olds is ridiculous. Any kid going from machine or coach pitch to kid pitch has an adjustment period and trying to do it at 8 is just frustrating for the kid.

I've had good experiences in leagues up until this. The stuff I've seen this year is just mind blowing for me. We played one team that had a group of 4 dads (all in their 30s) standing behind the backstop complaining to a 16 year old ump throughout the game. The same team was one that supposed to beat us pretty badly, but we managed to have the game tied at 3 after 2 innings. Their coach was so frustrated he was on the field arguing every out for the first 2 innings. We ended up falling apart in the 3rd inning and he quit arguing calls.

I'm not one to keep quiet so I'll have a discussion with someone Sunday during All Star selections and I'll probably encourage any frustrated parents to email the league when the season ends. Kaden (my son) should make the 9 year old All Stars and I'm interested to see if I'm encouraged to try and get him on a different team for next season.

This is my first year coaching where I didn't feel all of the kid were having fun. Kaden is because he just loves playing baseball. We have a couple others that seem to be enjoying themselves. Then we have 7-8 kids that have either lost all interest or just aren't having any fun out there.

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by Atocep

...Then we have 7-8 kids that have either lost all interest or just aren't having any fun out there.

This is the worst part of youth sports. The kids lose interest because of the asshat parents who think "their" kid is the next fucking Willie Mays. I coached my son's baseball teams for 3 years, and because of the same things you are going through, he has no interest in playing again. I actually had one parent try and start a fight with me because I wouldn't let his kid use his own bat (the league required all players to use the provided bats and helmets, this was teeball too mind you).

I feel for you....

[sabotai]

I played baseball as a kid for the town's league. I didn't start playing until I was old enough to play baseball (IOW, I skipped tee-ball). I remember playing for 3 years, and in 7th grade (making me about 12-13 years old) moved up to the town's team that would play other towns. So that made the town's baseball league ages about 8-12. So a big age gap, however I do remember the teams having players of all ages. None of the teams were stacked with older kids. Then again, teams didn't move on but they did keep the same players, so as players would move up when they got older, they would have to be replaced by new players.

Anyway, there were still definitely politics going on. There was one team that was the best team year in and year out. They finished first every year I played. My team must have had some connections, though, since we finished 2nd every year. And most, if not every, year for several years after I moved on they finished 1st.

And now, the field is named after the guy who was coach of this team. I'm sure it's totally coincidental that the guy who coached the team* got the best new players every year and always finished first now has the field named after him. Maybe he was just a great baseball coach....


* - it should be noted, he was the coach before and long after his son stopped playing in this league. Maybe, anyway. I don't know if it's normal to coach a team for a long time if your kid isn't in the league anymore.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sabotai

I don't know if it's normal to coach a team for a long time if your kid isn't in the league anymore.

Don't know what it's like nowadays but back in my day it was definitely normal. In fact I'd say most of the better coaches in our leagues were guys who didn't have kids playing, including a couple who never had any kids in the league at all.

[johnnyshaka]

I started coaching Little League when I was 18 or 19. It started out as a favor to a friend's dad as he was coaching his youngest son but found himself overwhelmed due to health issues. I stepped in and did what I could and before I knew it I had been coaching for roughly 10 years.

I hated the politics at first but after a while I got numb to the whole game and I bet not having kids of my own involved likely made that a little easier.

I'm not looking forward to getting back into that racket especially with my own children to consider. Ugh.

[MrBug708]

Soccer was bad, but baseball is worse. When I was playing one year, our coach was made up of a Marine and his sister, who played softball. Her son played on our team and was dominating, when the league stepped and said that he couldn't play because he didn't live in the city. (Understandable, but only became an issue once we were winning). Then in the playoffs (which we limped into as the 4th place team), we ended up using a pitcher one extra inning. We beat the best team in the first game in a pretty big upset, and three board members had sons on the team. The second game, our other pitcher got hurt in the 5th inning, when we were up 6, so our other pitcher pitched the last inning (with our backup having been sick). Since we used a pitcher an extra inning during that week, they told us we forfeited the game since we cheated. 4th, 5th, and 6th graders cheating...*sigh*

Was worth it though

[Atocep]

We traveled for a double header today. Currently playing the 2nd game against a team of 12 year olds.

Going great so far...

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Atocep

We traveled for a double header today. Currently playing the 2nd game against a team of 12 year olds.

Going great so far...

With 8 and 9 year olds? This goes from ridiculous to just plain dangerous for those kids.

[Comey]

I had perhaps the worst team in town history here; we were an "expansion" team, and had only 2-3 players who'd ever played the game. We were, by far, the youngest team in the league (spread out from 8-12), and we got mauled.

I remember being down 17-0 or so in our first game, going into the final inning. The parents were asking about the mercy rule; they thought their kids were being embarrassed. I brought the team in for a huddle:

Me: Does anyone know the score?
Player: I think we're losing.

I never had any problems regarding the scores again. The parents were wildly supportive; they knew this was a disaster situation. If anything, they had more fun knowing they were coming out just to cheer on the team, and if we were competitive that day, it was a bonus.

We had one pitcher who was very, very good...but he could only throw three innings a game. So we ran into a formula of 0-0 after three, then whoever came in after that held it down as long as they could. We came close in two games to winning...but we had no offense (we didn't score out 10th run of the year until our 10th or 11th game), so we just couldn't mount any comebacks.

The funny thing is, we made the playoffs...because, in youth baseball, everyone wins! None of the players could figure out how we made it. I thought it was an insult, to be honest...pretty condescending, to tell every team, no matter how good or bad you are, you're in regardless. I also thought it taught nothing of value to the kids.

In the end, it was a great, rewarding, humbling experience. I learned to be less competitive, which is something I needed. I was there for something beyond wins and losses; sounds cliched, but it's true. We weren't ever winning a game...so I had to find something else to keep the interest for the kids. I think we managed to do that pretty well.

[Atocep]

The first team I ever coached was a youth basketball team that was terrible. It was as much fun as I've had coaching. Last year I coached a coach pitch team that didn't lose a game and I couldn't wait for the season to be over because I couldn't stand a few of the parents and a couple of the kids were a pain in the ass in all honestly. Every other team I've coached I've had a blast with.

What drives me crazy is there's no attempt to field a competitive team here and this is a team that's supposed to stay together through age 12. They supposedly got rid of drafting in this league to keep kids from the same school playing together yet my team represents 7 different schools.

We travel on Saturdays to play double headers against teams from other leagues in the area. Things are so bad that each weekend we get rescheduled to play against the bottom teams in those leagues. Our 2nd game against the top team in our own league was rescheduled to give us a team we could possibly be competitive against. We still are yet to win a game this season, the team didn't win a game last year, and these kids have 3-4 more years of this to look forward to.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

With 8 and 9 year olds? This goes from ridiculous to just plain dangerous for those kids.

Yeah, we had to play by their rules since we were playing at their place. Basically, major league rules except no dropped ball 3rd strike (so leadoffs, and stealing, ect). Kaden actually got called for a balk today. I have no idea how to explain the balk rule to 8 and 9 year olds.

[Galaxy]

They had an education special on CNN tonight. The HS principal of I think an average, middle class school said that the parents would always call him in regards to something about sports, but never about making education better.

[tarcone]

You walked into a bad situation. And the league isnt going to change for the benefit of you and the detriment of everyone else. Teams like to stay together for continuity. Why is it fair to the best coach in the league who has coached up his team to be a great team to see it dismantled. Why is that any more fair to him and his team? I see no problem with keeping teams together. It is a lot better for the good players to develop. The way you want it, the good layers will have to go through watching the coaches spending time with the younger or not as good players teaching them how to catch or throw. That can be just as dangerous. The good kids could hurt them during practice. And the good players development is harmed.

As for the 8-12 age grouping. That is how I played growing up. Little league in my town was like this. I still remember facing Ernie Brogla. He was 12. And he was all of 6' and 200 lbs (At least he was huge). I was 8 and smallish. And the kid threw hard. But I stuck in there. Pitch hit me in the hand as I was swinging. But I hit the ball. This has been around forever.
Today, in our town and league we go T-ball, 8U, 9U, 10U, 11U, 12U, 14U, 16U. But our league is made up of western St Louis county teams. Not just one town.

My suggestion is to start recruiting. If your kid makes the all-star team, that says something about your coaching ability. Look for the kids that didnt quite make it. And start talking to those parents. Not the coaches. You will come off as the whiny guy. And that wil hurt your recruitment.

And watch the new Bad News Bears. Your team sounds like their team.

[Senator]

I have coached youth football 7 years now. The first year was just as you described. I was given the non-drafted kids, and the "leaders" of the organization stacked their teams for self glory.

I will not lie and say I had a magical first season and I kept it in perspective. I was angry and mad and frustrated, but we managed to go 6-4 when a kid with talent signed up late and I made stink of it until I got him. (I was already down 3 more roster spots than anyone else)

After the season, I wanted to just toss it. But another coach convinced me to keep going. My kids stayed with me, and I added a few the next season. We won the Super Bowl in an 18 team division. This past fall, my kids graduated from me. I started off with a bunch of pip-squeak, untalented 60 pounders and saw them leave me as fundamentally sound, team-centric, high character football players who had won 3 super bowls, and were the most feared team in the league. These were mostly cast-offs initially, and not all of them made it to senior ball, but those that did, were football guys who loved the game and loved each other. I have to tell you, it has been one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done.

And, not for nothing, but those "leaders" who stacked their teams season 1, well, they are gone, and I and some other guys have pushed for integrity and fairness above all, and the league has turned around completely with an unrivaled fairness about it for all new coaches and players. I wouldn't have thought we would ever get a fair break in this league, but we outlasted those guys and pushed for fairness and enough people believed in it as well.

Just my input.

[Senator]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Don't know what it's like nowadays but back in my day it was definitely normal. In fact I'd say most of the better coaches in our leagues were guys who didn't have kids playing, including a couple who never had any kids in the league at all.

We have around 500 kids in our football league. I initially coached my nephew, but after he cycled out, the league asked me to keep coaching. There are about a dozen guys who don't have kids on the teams, and the reason is that experience matters. I am 100% better coach than I was in season 1-2-3. My son starts in a few years, and they asked me to coach until then. All the respected coaches are guys who don't have kids in the league.

[Atocep]

So a bit of good news today. Kaden made the 9-10 year old All Star team as a 9 year old.

I also spoke with the league director about our team and the direction it's headed in and he promised to give me a call to discuss me helping out with the All Star team and what to do with our team for next year.

[Atocep]

Year 2 and it's the same shit. Actually, it's probably worse. This is going to be a really long story/rant.

I decided to take over as Head Coach of these same kids from last year. I quickly found out that when you coach 9-10 year old baseball you're making a very large commitment. I've coached basketball from K-1st up to 4th and 5th graders and I've been a head coach up through coach pitch in baseball. Nothing I've done is before is anything like this.

For those that don't remember and didn't read above I'm taking over a group of kids that haven't won a regular season game in 2 years and we won zero games last season. We actually do have some talent, but these kids have never been coached. On top of that this team the group that don't have ties to the inner circle of the league so they're all tossed onto a team and the league just hopes someone coaches it each year.

I have 2 assistants. The first was technically the head coach from last year, but he knows very little about coaching baseball and will readily admit it. I believe he's officially the head coach, but I'm the one that attends the meetings, schedules the practices, plans the practices, ect. The other assistant is the dad of a kid I brought in this year. He played catcher in college on scholarship and knows hitting, pitching, and catching very well and can teach it. He's a huge asset.

Partly because of my complaints last year the league decided it would start using the draft again this year. I considered it a victory for our team as it should help us quite a bit. Of course I forgot how league politics work in this league and didn't anticipate being screwed the way we eventually would be in the draft.

We had our draft assessment this past Saturday and the actual draft itself was last night. I needed 1 player for my team, 2 other teams that were in the league last year needed a player, and a new team needed at least 3 to get a full roster. The other teams were already happy with their rosters. There were 6 players set for the draft so should have worked out for everyone.

I attend the draft assessment assuming we're picking either first or 2nd depending on if the league wanted to give the new team the first pick since they're new and they need more players than everyone else. There's one kid that stands out above everyone else (player 1), a kid that was 2nd best but clearly below player 1 (player 2), a player that player 1 showed up with that was probably the 3rd best (player 3), a player that is really raw but very athletic and probably the 4th best (player 4), a big kid that looked strong but it also looked like he'd never played baseball before (player 5), and then a small kid that would need a lot of coaching and probably another year before he could really contribute (player 6).

I found out after the assessment that Player 1 and Player 3 want to play together and the league would like that request to be honored. We talked to the parents of the two kids before they left and they said they'd like them to play together, but they didn't push it at all. When told they couldn't be guaranteed that they would be together they didn't mention any issues if they weren't playing together.

So I get a call Monday night (the night before the draft) from the division director that starts out by telling me that a kid signed up after the deadline to make the assessment, but he requested to be on my team because he goes to school with kids on my team. He asks if I want the player and if I do does that mean I'll still take a player in the draft. I immediately know that he's pushing this on me the night before the draft to try to fill my roster up before the draft to increase his team's chance of getting a player he really wants. I tell him I would prefer one of the kids that I've seen play because my team should be utilizing the draft over all others based on the last season's performance. If the league doesn't have a home for him after the draft I'll take him and go with 13 players.

Then it gets interesting. The division director then tells me that the league doesn't really have written rules on how to conduct the draft or the draft order. Because of this the 4 teams that need a player will have their draft slot drawn out of a hat (giving his team a chance at the first pick). However, the league has backed down from the stipulation that player 1 and player 2 are to play together. I was told "There are 4 teams interested in adding a player and there are 4 solid players in the draft. I want to see each team get one of those players." Paraphrasing there, but that is what I was told.

I show up at the draft last night and right before we start drawing draft slots the league president (the head man over all divisions) says that players 4 and 5 requested to play together and if they aren't on the same team then player 4 will very likely have transportation issues. The division director then says that if you're taking player 1 then you're taking player 3 as well and if you take player 4 you're also taking player 5. So he's already gone completely against what he already told me. The drawing starts and as luck would have it the division director's team gets the first pick, the new team picks 2nd, the best team in our league on paper picks 3rd, and my team is picking last. So a team that hasn't won a game in 2 years is essentially getting the 6th best player in a draft with 6 players in it (since there forcing us to honor the both sets of players request to play together).

The picks start and the division director tries to play up that he really only wants one player and even though he really doesn't want 13 on his roster he'll go ahead and take players 1 and 3. The new team needs at least 3 players out this draft so he takes players 4 and 5 since they're a package, the best team in the league takes player 2, and then it's my pick. I ask the director the name of the kid that signed up late and requested to be on my team. I told him I'll take that kid and the new team can have player 6. I asked for my player's info and I immediately walked out of the draft.

That's how the league I'm coaching in is run. My choices at this point are to keep my mouth shut and just use this as motivation to get my kids ready to beat these teams or I can try to talk to the league president to make sure he's clear on exactly what happened at the draft. The league president and the division director are both on the board though so anything I say to him I know will get back to the division director.

[Travis]

Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately sounds entirely too familiar. Good luck this season and hope your groups gels well and goes on a bit of a run.

[cartman]

Sounds like Tom Emanski needs to come out with a set of videos for league administrators.

[Atocep]

The bullshit above is on top of other stupid shit that's gone on just in the month I've started working on getting ready for the upcoming season.

We lost 4 players from last year's team. 3 due to moves and 1 had to move up a division because of age. The league runner up from last year essentially broke up. They had 5 players move up a division and 5 left behind with no coach. So league rules allow these players to go to whatever team they want. 1 ends up on the division director's team and the other 4 end up on the Tigers (the best team on paper from above). For some reason these kids don't go into the draft. There was no email sent out to coaches saying these kids were available. They just got to pick whatever team they wanted to join that had room. I ended up knowing 1 of the 4 that went to the Tigers because my son has played basketball with him for 2 years and I coach both him and my son this year in basketball. I talked to his dad and he ended up switching his son to my team (because that's what his son wanted) and he agrees to help coach (he's the assistant that was a college catcher from the above post). His boy is a bit on the small side, but was good enough to be the starting pitcher in the championship game last year.

I also add a kid from the division director's team. He's a 1st baseman that was unhappy because he's blocked at 1st base by the division director's son. He agreed to release the kid and I had an opening at first base.

Now the interesting part of the last month as far as getting my players together goes. The co-head coach from last year doesn't have the time to help out at all this year. His son and my son were easily the two best players on our team last season. However, he wanted his son moved to the Tigers this year because he said his son didn't have fun last year and he just couldn't deal with what he had gone through the previous 2 years. I spent the next 3 weeks in emails, phone conversations, and talking to him before/after basketball games (his son always plays either before or after my basketball games) to explain that things are different this year. We have 2 experienced people that have the time to actually coach these kids properly and we actually have the talent to win some games. The challenging part was doing so in a way that didn't knock his work as a coach the previous 2 years.

This guy is a really good guy and I understood where he was coming from, but I can't lose one of my top 2 players and the league rules backed me up a bit on this. The league rules said that the ways he could leave my team were 1.) For me to agree to release him 2.) For him to leave my team and enter the draft where I wouldn't be allowed to select him. He was prepared to enter the draft until I had a couple of parents that had been to our first couple of quick indoor practices at a local gym mention that our practices already looked far better than the previous year. I talked to both the kid and the dad again and they eventually agree for him to play for me this year.

With the number of phone calls I've made to add/keep players I feel like a college coach recruiting players for my team and I'm coaching 9-10 year olds.

So after all of this my team is filled up. We have our 4th practice tonight. I honestly think we have capability to be really competitive this year, but the odds are obviously stacked against us and we have the league working against us as well. This is probably confusing to read, but I had to find a place to rant about this shit because I'm far more pissed right now than I probably should be. If have the time and anyone is interested I'll try to keep this updated as our season progresses this year.

This should show anyone looking at coaching youth sports (especially baseball) that no matter what age group you're coaching it's not a thing where you just show up and coach your team. Adults are there to ruin everything for the kids, the people that have been in the league multiple years look out for one another, and if you're expecting fair play and competitive balance you should stick to text sims with house rules.

[Chubby]

after having played every youth sport under the sun as well as umpiring little league with my dad after my playing days I'm well aware of this stuff but still will do it with my son to make sure they have as much fun as possible

[JonInMiddleGA]

So to recap ... the league is still fucked up pretty much the way it was last year, it's still almost just as rigged as it was, and it's still pretty apparent that enough people are satisfied with that for it to be unlikely to undergo meaningful change in short order.

I'm reminded of that old saw about how insanity is doing the same thing over & over but expecting different results (procedurally that is, not necessarily W-L).

Please don't get me wrong here, you are 100% welcome to bitch here until the cows come home afaic, in fact I'd probably even encourage it. But you're ultimately making the choice to deal with it rather than walk away from a situation that sounds so dysfunctional that it's downright toxic, potentially for both you and the kids.

I've BTDT already (there's an old thread in the dynasties that documented that experience pretty well), you're a better man than me I guess, because if I had stuck around any longer I'd probably have been posting from a prison cell for the past several years.

[sterlingice]

I wish that I could say that I am shocked, positively /shocked/ that people who cheat, when called out for it, cheat even more.

I love that the lessons here best taken away is "cheaters always prosper". Great life lesson for kids. I was glad that when I coached, it was 1~3rd grade so it was less competitive and we could spend time practicing skills.

SI

[Ksyrup]

I've heard/seen things in travel team softball that just amazes me. One team that hosted a tournament we played last fall used rigged/dead balls when we were hitting - and the home plate ump was in on it (once we caught on to what was going on, we caught him trying to switch a ball out to throw the dead ball back to their pitcher, and she ended up blowing it for them when she announced that the ball was lopsided). I've overheard a woman on an 8 frickin U team say she knew someone in Lexington who could forge birth certificates. I've seen a team cheat their way to a playoff win by purposely rigging the home book and taking advantage of a scoreboard error (which are typically run by 8 year olds) and a lazy umpire who failed to pay attention to how many runs had scored.

And that's the egregious stuff - I'm not counting the coach who visits the mound for no reason at all to delay the last 5 minutes of the game so another inning doesn't start, or has a girl at 1B untie her shoes so she can tie them back to waste time, or my favorite... the bookkeeper arguing that we batted someone out of order, and then 5 minutes later "catching" his mistake and saying it was his fault, as the game ends. It's simply amazing.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

So to recap ... the league is still fucked up pretty much the way it was last year, it's still almost just as rigged as it was, and it's still pretty apparent that enough people are satisfied with that for it to be unlikely to undergo meaningful change in short order.

I'm reminded of that old saw about how insanity is doing the same thing over & over but expecting different results (procedurally that is, not necessarily W-L).

Please don't get me wrong here, you are 100% welcome to bitch here until the cows come home afaic, in fact I'd probably even encourage it. But you're ultimately making the choice to deal with it rather than walk away from a situation that sounds so dysfunctional that it's downright toxic, potentially for both you and the kids.

I've BTDT already (there's an old thread in the dynasties that documented that experience pretty well), you're a better man than me I guess, because if I had stuck around any longer I'd probably have been posting from a prison cell for the past several years.

Believe me, if I didn't feel that these kids deserve to win some games and actually be part of a team I wouldn't be doing it. Seeing kids that have some talent be part of a team that hasn't won a game in 2 years because of lack of coaching and adult politics pisses me off.

My son moves up a division next year and will very likely end up on another team. I distributed roughly 2,000 flyers for the league to the schools here on Fort Lewis and I'll be letting the league know I'm not doing it again because I can't recommend the league to anyone. In fact, I'll probably recommend to my parents that they look at other leagues in the area and see if there are any that are close enough to play in. This, unfortunately, is my best option. The only other option I have is the on post league with teams of 20+ players and coaches that know nothing at all about baseball and are out there looking for volunteer bullets for the next evaluation.

This is a PONY sanctioned league and I've actually considered contacting the regional director to try to get this league cleaned up. At the very least this year I'll be letting my parents know the stuff that's going on behind the scenes so that they understand that the whole thing is rigged and they're not throwing money at the league each year with no knowledge of what's going on.

[fantom1979]

When I was a kid, they just kinda of threw some balls on the field and let us have some fun. If this type of stuff was going on behind the scenes , I was unaware. We did have a draft every year, that sounds like it would be a major plus for your league. As far as having kids that know each other, play on the same team, that sounds like a load of crap. I played youth baseball in a school district with 10+ elementary schools and 3 middle schools, so I rarely played with schoolmates. Those kids I played youth baseball with became some of my best after school and high school friends.

I have never played youth hockey up here, but I have heard that it can be rather cut throat in this area.

[Subby]

I'm on the board of our local little league and serve as the vp of the national league. We recently had evaluations for about 340+ kids over a 5 day period (about 15 hours total). We make pitch counts from the previous spring and fall season available to all managers. We make manager evaluations of the players from the last season available to all of the managers. We have independent evaluators at the tryouts to grade the players. We re-draft AA and AAA every season and the majors teams usually have about 5-6 returning players each season and draft enough new players to get to a 12 man roster.

I do everything within my power to make sure the evaluations and the draft are both fair and open processes. There is nothing worse for a league than having an undefeated team and a winless team. If that happens, I have failed the kids. My number one goal is to make sure they have a good experience at the three levels for which I am responsible. I find it reprehensible when there are adult volunteers involved that are in it for their own ego.

Anyway, Little League is a great experience, particularly in our town. We work closely with travel teams to make sure the kids get both the LL and the travel experience if they so choose. It really troubles me that there are kids out there that are having bad experiences that are souring them on baseball.

[sterlingice]

Clearly Subby is a Communist and should not ever be allowed to touch Little League sports for fear of ruining any objectivist leanings they might have

SI

[Atocep]

The player whose dad was a coach for this team last year and tried to move him to a different team this year made it to his first practice Monday. Toward the end of practice I was talking to him and asked him if things were any different than last year and he told me "yes, very different". Then he paused for a few seconds and said "better....way better. I think we can win this year".

I told him to make sure he tells his dad when he gets home.

We're already 6 practices into the season. We have just over a month before the games start so that should be another 12 practices. Last season we had a total of 8 practices before the games started...

This is a team that's seen as the Bad News Bears to other people in the league which I think will work to our advantage early in the season. I'm teaching these kids things they should already know so we have a lot further to go than most other teams, but we do have a solid amount of talent. I'd go as far as to say we're looking solid at 6 positions and have 4 kids I'd be comfortable with on the mound. Last season I thought we were solid at 2 positions and had 1 kid I was comfortable with on the mound.

We've got miles to go before we're ready to play but I like the way things are progressing. We had about a 4 practice head start on every other team and I've been coaching a 4th-5th grade boys basketball team at the same time so I'm rather exhausted and looking forward to basketball season ending this Thursday.

On a side note the player I took because he requested to play for us and because I wanted to give the "draft" the middle finger is a small 9 year old. He did pretty well hitting on Monday (also the first practice for him) and he's a lefty (our only one). He's not very experience with baseball. He's coming up from coach pitch and when I asked him if he'd ever pitched before he said no and when I asked him if he knew about the rule that says all lefties have to pitch he gave me a look of complete fear before I told him I was joking.

I'll probably move this into the Dynasty Section sometime soon and try to get semi regular updates on our attempts to win some games this season.

[Icy]

I would be following that dynasty for sure Atocep, go for it!

[Atocep]

A shameless bump to let anyone that may be interested know that future posts (rants) on this will be in the Dynasty Section.

Thread link:
My Experience Coaching a 9-10 Year Old Baseball Team in a Rigged League - Front Office Football Central

[Ksyrup]

Ha! I guess I'm going to have to spice up my daughter's softball dynasty thread to compete with that kind of drama.

[Atocep]

One final bump since my players had a big day yesterday.

My Experience Coaching a 9-10 Year Old Baseball Team in a Rigged League - Front Office Football Central

[Atocep]

As a proud parent and coach I thought i'd give this a bump to say that this group of kids that no one thought was capable of winning, a team that was nearly folded because they weren't competitive, went 15-4-1 this season. We went 1-1-1 against the team that eventually won the league title in what is far and away the toughest and most competitive 10U league in this area.

The dynasty linked above is pretty much wrapped up if anyone is interested in checking it out.