Dear Youth Baseball League Coach
Authors Note: This blog post is written as a general observation concerning ALL Youth Baseball Leagues. If you feel this was written about a particular coach, you probably need to read it again, because you fall within the category of coach I am talking about.
Ah, Youth Baseball season. That wonderful time of year when the kids hit the diamond, mom and dad get their team gear and coaches yell at player and umpires like every game was game 7 of the MLB World Series. I was a little league umpire for 30 years. I was also an umpire at the American Legion, High school and even college levels. I can say without a doubt the coaches who caused more problems happened at the most fundamental level, when the focus should have been spent on the fundamentals, learning and having fun. Sadly, many of these coaches wanted to pretend they had a shot of managing the Reds someday and wanted to show off their yelling and arguing skills instead of showing their care and concern for baseball kids.
Now don’t get me wrong right at the start. There are some absolutely awesome youth league coaches out there. It is like so many other areas of society when the bad examples are a much smaller sample but get the majority of the attention. There are coaches out there who are amazing teachers of the game. Who respect the process of development of players and while wanting to win, use losses as a learning tool rather than a blame game. I applaud you folks.
Youth league coaching is an important part of the process of developing athletes who not only can display their athletic skills but also how to conduct themselves on the field. Somewhere over the past 25 years or so, sportsmanship has given way to a selfish, not responsible for my actions, my way or the highway attitude that has permeated our culture. Kids didn’t come up with this by themselves; it was taught to them.
Some advice to those entrusted with teaching the fundamentals of the game of baseball.
TEACH THE FUNDAMENTALS
Kids these days need to learn to get in front of the ball, stay down, watch the ball into their gloves, set themselves and make a good throw. Or that the first step on a fly ball is back, get your nose under the ball, use 2 hands and watch the ball into the glove, make the catch and crow hop it on a line in to the cut off man. But those plays don’t make Sports Center. So kids wait and side step so they can make an unnecessary jumping toss to first, or would rather make a diving catch and throw a rainbow to home plate. Bunting is a lost art, the cut off man is rarely used and respect for your opponent is no existent. It’s win at all cost no matter what we have to do.
RESPECT YOUR OPPONENT AND THE UMPIRE
Coaches have developed this “if we don’t win today the world comes to an end” attitude that is ridiculous. Whatever happened to play hard, give it your best, have fun and live with the outcome? Maybe, just maybe your opponent is better than you are. Maybe, just maybe, you are having an off day. Maybe, just maybe, the sun will come up tomorrow if we lose this game today. Respect your opponent, congratulate them, win or lose, and leave the game on the field
.
Coaches, the umpire doesn’t care who wins the game. But he/she has become the built in excuse for loses. Yes, they make mistakes. Yes, they blow calls. But there is no way they blow as many calls that you think they do. Yes you want your team to win and anything that hinders that process is seen as an attack on you personally. But the umpire is doing the best job possible. If they were perfect they wouldn’t be at the youth league level, neither would you.
Imagine a game in which you came out and argued a decision made on an out call at first; or whether or not that truly was an infield fly rule. You show your butt yelling and screaming about how they don’t know the game and they should be doing anything else but officiating this game. Two innings later you decide to tag a kid up at third on a short fly ball who is thrown out by a mile. You look up to see the homeplate umpire running down the 3rd base line to rip you for that decision. Telling you that the ball wasn’t hit deep enough to try something like that and you must not know the game very well. He says perhaps you should let someone else try to coach and you should be somewhere else. How would you feel?
HAVE FUN
Youth sports are for fun. Less than 1% of the players on your team will play baseball past the high school level. Let them have fun. Take the pressure off winning. It is a game! I know losing isn’t fun, but these kids are going to lose in life at some point, teach them how to handle it. As importantly teach them how to handle victory, with dignity and respect.
In conclusion, there is a great book I would suggest you buy. It is available in paperback and online, it’s called THE BASEBALL RULE BOOK. It has some great stuff in it. It will, in some cases, keep you from looking like a fool when you decide to argue a play that you didn’t know anything about.
Have fun folks! It’s a game
Ah, Youth Baseball season. That wonderful time of year when the kids hit the diamond, mom and dad get their team gear and coaches yell at player and umpires like every game was game 7 of the MLB World Series. I was a little league umpire for 30 years. I was also an umpire at the American Legion, High school and even college levels. I can say without a doubt the coaches who caused more problems happened at the most fundamental level, when the focus should have been spent on the fundamentals, learning and having fun. Sadly, many of these coaches wanted to pretend they had a shot of managing the Reds someday and wanted to show off their yelling and arguing skills instead of showing their care and concern for baseball kids.
Now don’t get me wrong right at the start. There are some absolutely awesome youth league coaches out there. It is like so many other areas of society when the bad examples are a much smaller sample but get the majority of the attention. There are coaches out there who are amazing teachers of the game. Who respect the process of development of players and while wanting to win, use losses as a learning tool rather than a blame game. I applaud you folks.
Youth league coaching is an important part of the process of developing athletes who not only can display their athletic skills but also how to conduct themselves on the field. Somewhere over the past 25 years or so, sportsmanship has given way to a selfish, not responsible for my actions, my way or the highway attitude that has permeated our culture. Kids didn’t come up with this by themselves; it was taught to them.
Some advice to those entrusted with teaching the fundamentals of the game of baseball.
TEACH THE FUNDAMENTALS
Kids these days need to learn to get in front of the ball, stay down, watch the ball into their gloves, set themselves and make a good throw. Or that the first step on a fly ball is back, get your nose under the ball, use 2 hands and watch the ball into the glove, make the catch and crow hop it on a line in to the cut off man. But those plays don’t make Sports Center. So kids wait and side step so they can make an unnecessary jumping toss to first, or would rather make a diving catch and throw a rainbow to home plate. Bunting is a lost art, the cut off man is rarely used and respect for your opponent is no existent. It’s win at all cost no matter what we have to do.
RESPECT YOUR OPPONENT AND THE UMPIRE
Coaches have developed this “if we don’t win today the world comes to an end” attitude that is ridiculous. Whatever happened to play hard, give it your best, have fun and live with the outcome? Maybe, just maybe your opponent is better than you are. Maybe, just maybe, you are having an off day. Maybe, just maybe, the sun will come up tomorrow if we lose this game today. Respect your opponent, congratulate them, win or lose, and leave the game on the field
.
Coaches, the umpire doesn’t care who wins the game. But he/she has become the built in excuse for loses. Yes, they make mistakes. Yes, they blow calls. But there is no way they blow as many calls that you think they do. Yes you want your team to win and anything that hinders that process is seen as an attack on you personally. But the umpire is doing the best job possible. If they were perfect they wouldn’t be at the youth league level, neither would you.
Imagine a game in which you came out and argued a decision made on an out call at first; or whether or not that truly was an infield fly rule. You show your butt yelling and screaming about how they don’t know the game and they should be doing anything else but officiating this game. Two innings later you decide to tag a kid up at third on a short fly ball who is thrown out by a mile. You look up to see the homeplate umpire running down the 3rd base line to rip you for that decision. Telling you that the ball wasn’t hit deep enough to try something like that and you must not know the game very well. He says perhaps you should let someone else try to coach and you should be somewhere else. How would you feel?
HAVE FUN
Youth sports are for fun. Less than 1% of the players on your team will play baseball past the high school level. Let them have fun. Take the pressure off winning. It is a game! I know losing isn’t fun, but these kids are going to lose in life at some point, teach them how to handle it. As importantly teach them how to handle victory, with dignity and respect.
In conclusion, there is a great book I would suggest you buy. It is available in paperback and online, it’s called THE BASEBALL RULE BOOK. It has some great stuff in it. It will, in some cases, keep you from looking like a fool when you decide to argue a play that you didn’t know anything about.
Have fun folks! It’s a game
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