Posted by: Sweet Steve (Drwinsthry@aol.com) on Wed May 22 16:07:45 2002

Guys,

I hear what you're saying about "immovable" coaching logic. But every once in a while you run into a coach who listens, and thinks, and applies, and the results can be spectacular. My son played a little bit of HS ball at San Diego's Mt. Carmel. The coach there thought he had a pretty decent bunch of hitters--one year they were ranked preseason #1 in the US by USAToday. Still, he wanted every advantage he could get, so he brought in a batting coach whose name I only WISH I could remember, but who taught what sounds to me, now, very much like RM. (This was about 6-8 years ago.) To make a long story short, the team really took to it, and, proof of the pudding, two of those Mt. Carmel kids, Eric Chavez and Eric Munson, went high in baseball's draft. Chavez, of course, currently holds down 3B for the A's. Munson was considered the "best pure hitter in college baseball" during his tenure at USC. So, not all coaches are hard cases. But yes, you do have to be lucky sometimes.