If you're moving to a new area, sports is a great way to blend in and make friends.
Little League World Series is…..
- Thread starter torbee
- Start date
Absolutely my hope. I don't know crap about baseball training is my only worry.
I would start working with him NOW. My oldest (then 10) started baseball this year and he was lost for the first month. His pure athletic ability got him by some but there are so many little nuances that you only pick up playing a lot. Where to stand in the field, backing up on defense, backing out of batters box, etc.
Spend the rest of the fall playing catch nearly everyday, even for 10 minute and hit the batting cages or go to find a backstop and hit balls once a week. He needs to build his confidence too.
Eh. Fiancee (no pics) is looking into jobs paying 2.5-3.5x as much as they do here. More than makes up for COL increases, and our politics line up better with Newsom than Ricketts.
Your going to be in the valley, homey. The middle of California is basically Oklahoma. I grew up in Bakersfield
I lived in Barstow for a while. I get the demographics of the area. Covis is right there, which is MAGAville, USA. It's just that we can find 4BR houses in Fresno for less than 400k, which is what we're going to need. We'd prefer to be in Southern California, but would rather invest the 150k in our kids' futures.
Good advice. Also would recommend he watches a bit of these LLWS games. Kids are striking out, missing grounders, making mistakes, etc. Knowing he doesn’t need to be perfect is good.
I’ve always hit tennis balls to simulate fly balls to my kids as practice without the risk of a fly ball to the face. And any hitting is good like QC said above.
But watching games is good to get the mental part down. And as silly as it sounds, you learn a lot about the basic rules playing a video game like MLB The Show if he has a console.
Has Top Tier replaced the Reds as the best CR area program?
I don’t believe so. Looks like the Reds weren’t great at 13U or 14U. But their Major level teams got 2nd three times and 4th two times between 8U and 12u at state.
Top Tier Iowa had a 4th, 10th and 1st between 8U-12u and a 1st at 14u so I’m guessing they are catching up quick but just don’t have the depth yet as 9u, 11u and 13u are all AAA.
And we love bishop. Schatz is our favorite bakery. Their jalapeño cheddar bread gave me back my freshman fifteen.
Edit: jalapeño cheddar sourdough bread
An umpire had a video on TikTok I watched where they said they were told at the little kid levels to purposely have a wider zone to incentivize swinging so that there weren’t 5-6 hour games because kids couldn’t pitch well enough not to walk every batter. That made sense, but still sucks.
Was watching the one at 6. Final strike was a foot outside. The fact they're calling such shitty strikes is teaching them bad habits too.
But for real, couldnt pay me enough to be an ump
This advice is good, but I’d also take a deep breath. 10 is fine to pick up baseball. He’ll be a little behind on the finer skills and the baseball IQ, but so much baseball development takes place from 13-16. My oldest was respectable through 12, but nothing great and he rarely got to pitch. Fast-forward to 13/14, he decided it was something he wanted to do and invested time in a bigger/stronger/faster throwing campaign and he became a pitcher. Wound up as a PO (Pitcher Only) on one of the best HS teams in NC (made final 8 his senior year).
He was never going to have a pro career, but he could have pitched in college if he’d have chased it, but he’s heading off to NC St. to major in engineering instead. Long story short, if the kid has talent and wants to drive for it, there’s plenty of time.
It shouldn’t be ridiculous, but this is true. I’ve umped, coached and I’m involved with a Little League board now. If you call a strict zone at 9/10 years old, kids will learn quickly that if they just don’t swing at the first strike or two, they’ll walk more often than not, which leads to all kinds of crap everywhere in the game. Hitters don‘t want to be aggressive, pitchers get frustrated and the games become walk-fests.
In my ideal world, I’d give 4-6 inches up and down, 6 inches inside and 2-3 inches outside. Make the zone bigger and give kids incentive to swing, but minimize the crap where they’re called out on a foot 8 inches off the outside corner that they couldn’t have touched with a boat oar.
I sat down with him tonight and discussed this with him. He seems like he’s very committed to the idea, I just told him he needs to show me he’s committed to the action. Once he does, I’m all in, and we’re going to do everything we can to get him where he wants to be. I’ve never seen him talk about committing the way he did tonight.
I think my grandfather really made an impression on him before he died and my son wants to make him proud. And that’s great with me.
Here’s a story with my oldest. He would go in and out on being all-in on baseball (which is fine, everyone needs to learn their loves from their likes and invest where they want to invest). He caught a great coach just before his 14 spring who was a former pitcher and gave him the path. The kid invested. Threw with me. Threw on his own. Did a lot of body weight strength stuff at home and a former coach of his has a gym and we did some training there. He put himself all in.
Freshman year he tried out for JV and got cut. A few days later, that youth coach from 13/14 came to our house to talk through it. We all made it clear from the start that if that was as far as he wanted to take it, that was totally cool.….but if he wanted to make HS varsity eventually, here’s what he’d have to do. We met on a Thursday and the coach said he didn’t want to hear from my kid until Monday.
At that point, my kid decided on his own to go completely all-in. I believe he probably hit his 98-99% potential outcome as a player. He made JV as a soph, then stuck on varsity for junior and senior years. He wasn’t their best pitcher, but he went in and got outs and lived his dream. He got to start on Senior Night.
There’s always room to grow as long as they think there’s room to grow and they’re willing to go for it. You can’t want it for them. You can’t make them do it. They have to want it and yet everyone has to also recognize that there is a max level for what they’re capable of. The “you can be anything you set your mind to” is great when they’re 10, but there comes a point where the kid simply isn’t ever going to throw 95 mph.
Iowa formally protested that Missouri used an illegal communication device to review a call yesterday. The Missouri assistant has been ejected and suspended indefinitely.
I’m assuming the protest came after the game because I’d think that game would reset at the point of the protest if Iowa had done so during the game. The Iowa coach put up a hell of a complaint at the time though, enough to pull the players off of field and bring the director on.
Sad, but if it’s Iowa vs Missouri tomorrow, things could be even more interesting.
I’m assuming the protest came after the game because I’d think that game would reset at the point of the protest if Iowa had done so during the game. The Iowa coach put up a hell of a complaint at the time though, enough to pull the players off of field and bring the director on.
Sad, but if it’s Iowa vs Missouri tomorrow, things could be even more interesting.
- Sep 13, 2002
- 98,464
- 205,893
- 113
Seems the coach may have missed the mark a bit. Good lesson to the kids 🤦♂️
The Little League Parent and Volunteer Pledge
I will teach all children to play fair and do their best
I will positively support all managers, coaches and players
I will respect the decisions of the umpires
I will praise a good effort despite the outcome of the game
I hadn't heard that, link?
that was a huge call too as IA would have had runners on 2nd and 3rd
Nothing on the webz. They led into it on today’s broadcast. Still can’t find a link.
The words “formal protest” were used by the commentators though.
- Sep 13, 2002
- 98,464
- 205,893
- 113
For someone from Omaha or Iowa, it will feel pretty familiar, IMO.
Fresno has a nice, walkable downtown. Very similar to a Des Moines or Cedar Rapids or Davenport.
- Sep 13, 2002
- 98,464
- 205,893
- 113
Funny thing about calling balls and strikes is that when baseball was first invented, there really was no hard-and-fast strike zone. The expectation was that batters had an obligation to swing at and try to hit ANY reasonably pitched ball. So really, Little League umpiring is more in mind with the original intent and spirit of the game.
Some interesting history:
History of the Strike
By Eric Miklich
Below is a synopsis of the history of the strike in all forms except the "Foul Strike."
1857-1870
- A ball struck at and missed by the Batsman without its touching his bat.
- A ball legally delivered by the Pitcher and with in the legitimate reach of the bat not swung at by the Batsman.
1871 (National Association of Professional Base-Ball Clubs)
1875 (NA), 1876 (National League of Base Ball Clubs)
1886 (NL), 1882 (American Association of Base Ball Clubs)
1886 (AA) and 1884 (Union Association)
- A ball struck at and missed by the Batsman without its touching his bat.
- A ball legally delivered by the Pitcher at the height called for by the Batsman and over Home Base, but not struck at by the Batsman.
The Umpire was also instructed in 1871, not to make a call on the first delivery by the Pitcher to the Batsman, unless swung at and missed or hit foul. This ended after the 1874 season.
In 1872, the "low ball" was changed and defined as being twelve inches off the ground to the Batsman waist and over Home Base.
In 1877, the rule for the lower portion of the "low ball" was changed back to the Batsman's knee and the belt replaced the waist in determining the upper and lower portions of the area called by the Batsman.
After the 1886 season ended, NL and AA, the batter could no longer call for a low or high ball.
1887 (NL + AA) - 1888 (NL + AA)
NOTE: The National League and the American Association were two separate businesses but began using the same rules in 1887, and continued to do so until 1891, when the American Association had four of its clubs "absorbed" by the National League.- A ball struck at and missed by the Batsman without its touching his bat.
- A ball legally delivered by the Pitcher that does not pass below the knee and above the shoulder and over Home Base, but not struck at by the batsman.
- An obvious attempt to make a foul hit.
- .
Noted 19th century base ball expert, historian and author, David Nemec, adds that, "As is the case in almost every significant rule change, it is often impossible now to determine the exact thinking that went into the change. This is most evident in the foul strike. I suspect the 1887 rule was imposed mainly to target Mike Kelly, but it's nearly impossible now to establish this conclusively. The rule regarding foul hits was almost never enforced unless a player really ticked off an umpire. The foul bunt rule except on sacrifice attempts was also almost never enforced until 1895."
No, Townsend
Fargo bats awaken too, catcher dropped ball or would have gotten kid out at home
3-1 now, only 1 out and runner on 3rd
That was a reference for Braves fans.
