Well I got to walk my dog by our local field this weekend and saw a AA game — this is the level in little league where kids start pitching. Ages are usually 7, 8 or 9.
Some thoughts — first of all I think most kids are just too young to be pitching. I came up with a rule when I was a “minors” commissioner in London Little League (we lived in the UK for 3 years) and it worked pretty well. It was the kids can pitch for 20 pitches and after that coaches finish the inning. So it’s something in between kid pitch and coach pitch.
Second of all I saw batters swinging bats in the dugout. Please if you are a coach do not allow this. Granted the players were swinging bats in sort of the warmup section of the dugout not where kids were sitting, but it’s just too easy to not know if someone is coming up behind you. I saw little kids swinging bats all the time in one league I worked with and I kept asking coaches to stop and sadly one kid got hit in the face with a bat and then of course the league really cracked down on it. Just don’t wait for anything bad to happen and be vigilant from the start.
Next the game I was watching had a soft toss rule where after a walk the player gets a soft toss. I was on the board when the rule was passed and I didn’t like it at first as I’m sort of a purist, but after a while I kind of like it. It keeps games from being a walk fest. The problem is that not all coaches and players are experts at soft toss. It’s a great drill but the key is the ball has to be tossed in front of the hitter so contact point is out in front of the plate. Otherwise if you just toss it too close it’s like asking the hitter to wait on a pitch and swing when it’s almost in the catcher’s glove.
Finally, I saw kids having a BLAST. They were so excited to be in uniform and having real kids pitch and feeling like they have moved up from T-ball and single-A to now be in AA — you could just feel their pride in accomplishment. I have coached AA a fair amount and I’m always about fixing their technique, but if I do it again I think I’ll try to make it so they keep having just as much fun as what I saw this weekend. It’s tough when you see things that you know if they fix them good things will happen, but maybe when you are fixing stuff, maybe you are taking some of the fun out of it for the kids — so it’s a thing to think about.
If watching those AA kids light up reminded you why we coach in the first place, come join the newsletter — or grab the free Quick Start Guide — and let’s keep that spark alive all season long.
