Bat Speed -- Baseball Hitting Forum

Posted by: () on Fri May 31 13:42:43 2002

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I agree with your comments about kids motivation 100%. I coached a 13-14 yo Pony team in Winter ball last year, and due to some unforeseen circumstances (competition for players with another youth league starting up), I had to scramble at the last minute to find enough players. 3-4 were there because Mom and Dad wanted them there, or other reasons besides wanting to play ball. Another quarter had very poor skills. NO DAD's volunteered to help out. We had 16 different kids on the team at one point or another, and by the middle of the season, we couldn't field nine. (Finally solved the problem by bringing on a couple of "gamers" from my old spring LL team).

It was a real learning experience for me. Where as I have always maintained that good coaching is the difference between many "natural athletes" and the kids on the bench, I found out that NOTHING beats desire. While you can lean, motivate, teach the game, desire must come from somewhere within.

RE: Your question:
>What I don't understand is why girls like your daughter (there is a girl in our town as well) don't play both? What's her reasoning for avoiding softball?
>
She played winter softball last fall for the first time. She had a great time, but missed the feel of a baseball, the competition of picks and steals, and the general level of competition. (There were 2-3 young woman on that team, though, who could be competitive on a boys H.S. team. It was a "loaded" rec. team; most had been on the same travel ball team.

She's talked about playing both, but both (winter) leagues are Sunday only. It'd be two six inning softball games, followed by seven innings of baseball. Maybe she can work her way into two leagues next spring. We play 4-5 days of baseball per week anyway, what's another 3-4 days of softball going to matter.

I told her to keep on playing baseball as long as she can (if she wants to), but switch to softball when the baseball ends. Then she kicks me, again.

Regards...Scott
>

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> ========================================================
> I agree with your comments about kids motivation 100%.  I coached a 13-14 yo Pony team in Winter ball last year, and due to some unforeseen circumstances (competition for players with another youth league starting up), I had to scramble at the last minute to find enough players.  3-4  were there because Mom and Dad wanted them there, or other reasons besides wanting to play ball.  Another quarter had very poor skills.  NO DAD's volunteered to help out.  We had 16 different kids on the team at one point or another, and by the middle of the season, we couldn't field nine.  (Finally solved the problem by bringing on a couple of "gamers" from my old spring LL team).
> 
> It was a real learning experience for me.  Where as I have always maintained that good coaching is the difference between many "natural athletes" and the kids on the bench, I found out that NOTHING beats desire.  While you can lean, motivate, teach the game, desire must come from somewhere within.
> 
> RE: Your question:
> >What I don't understand is why girls like your daughter (there is a girl in our town as well) don't play both?  What's her reasoning for avoiding softball?
> >
> She played winter softball last fall for the first time.  She had a great time, but missed the feel of a baseball, the competition of picks and steals, and the general level of competition.  (There were 2-3 young woman on that team, though, who could be competitive on a boys H.S. team.  It was a "loaded" rec. team; most had been on the same travel ball team.
> 
> She's talked about playing both, but both (winter) leagues are Sunday only. It'd be two six inning softball games, followed by seven innings of baseball.   Maybe she can work her way into two leagues next spring.  We play 4-5 days of baseball per week anyway, what's another 3-4 days of softball going to matter.
> 
> I told her to keep on playing baseball as long as she can (if she wants to), but switch to softball when the baseball ends.  Then she kicks me, again.
> 
> Regards...Scott
> >

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