Posted by: R.P. () on Wed Nov 5 12:50:19 2003

Thanks for your response. I've been in youth baseball for many years. Teaching a kid to drive the ball up the middle, or hitting the ball right back to the pitcher, is very different from encouraging 4 - 8 year olds to strive to knock a pitcher on his butt. The vision of the boy celebrating at first while the young pitcher is down speaks for itself in the lesson that this boy is being taught. If you know of any youth league that promotes this type of play, let me know. I'd be interested in learning more about them. The last thing 8 year old pitchers needs is to be afraid to get on the mound. These kids are in a learning stage of pitching, and most of them can't even get the ball over the plate. There are always going to be mean, dirty players and they are never remembered as the best but are remembered for what they are. Our goal is to develop not only strong, aggressive players, but players with character.

Hope you can see the difference.