Matheny: Not optional for little league coaches

Here is a phenomenal writeup from Mike Matheny addressed to little league parents. It’s the ground rules for a team he was coaching. It’s worth a read if you want to coach kids at really anything at all.

Max’s Jacks

We had a great day yesterday.  My 8 year old nephew hit 2 homers in his 9U travel game.  Previously, he had never hit anything beyond a double.  He does make a lot of contact and has a great knowledge of the strike zone, so he’s done a lot of leading off.  He lead off as a 6 year old on the 7U team.

But this year, he was increasingly playing pepper with the second baseman.  He would offer at the ball middle-away and just tap it down the line.  I decided to move him up from a 29″ 18oz bat to a 31″ 18.5oz bat and it has done wonders.  He can get it around on pretty fast pitches so it is ok for him.  I know most are thinking, “…but isn’t bat-speed the most important thing?”  And it is.  That is true.  You HAVE to have adequate bat speed to be successful but that’s not the whole story.

The rest of the story is mass.  A baseball weighs 5 ounces.  Now when we were kids, the wooden bats were at best, “-3″.  That means 3 ounces lighter than their length in inches.  No more.  And that is typical of wood bats.  And that is why the hardball bat spec is “-3″.  But now with these exotic aluminum bats, the kids are walking up to the plate with bats as light as 14 ounces!  And if you take enough weight off the bat, eventually it doesn’t matter how fast the bat is because the baseball will be victorious in the collision of objects–and the ball won’t go very far, even though the kid squares it up with all that bat speed that everyone raves about.  In the big leagues, the bat is never so absurdly light for this concept to come into play, but with 8 and 9 year olds, it does matter.

There is another aspect to the thing that I suspect is working in our favor.  Now that the bat IS truly longer and a half ounce heavier, he has to put more energy into the swing.  He must be, by definition, LESS tenative and tenative was his problem on the tap-outs to second base.  So now he must plan a little ahead; swing a fraction earlier (be more decisive) and put more energy into the swing.  All those things, plus the added weight and length (which remember, increases the speed of the end of the bat because the radius is longer), make the balls jump off this bat compared to the old one.  And with lots of reps at the cages, he is timing the balls well and squaring them up off the sweet spot.

He can now reach the pitch, middle-out, and PULL it.  That was unheard of before with the other bat.  He also is killing high pitches, and I’m not sure where that came from.  Even if he’s offering at balls a little out of the top of the strike zone, at this point, I’ll trade the diminished plate discipline for the aggressive hacks.  It’s all trade-offs.

So this week during recreation baseball practice, after we had gone to the cages 2 nights this week, he starts KILLING the ball to the pull field in batting practice.  Enough to make all the other kids stop and ooh and ahh.  He loves it.  Now he is asking me if he hits them as far as the big freak kid on the team.  “Hmm, I don’t know, maybe after a few more trips to the cages you will be with him…close”.

Then in the Sunday travel team game he is stoked to play.  He’s openly talking of hitting a triple or a homer.  I tell him “…just get a good ball to hit and put a good swing on it…never worry about the outcome…those hits will come…”

His BP is ok.  Not stellar like the other day.  He gets up in the first and CUES the ball down to first, off the very end of the 2-inches longer bat!  No worries.  He will make the adjustment.  He is smart.  “You were in front of it Buddy.  You got it off the end”.  He doesn’t care.  He’s having fun.  Looking forward to the next at bat.

His next at bat is a rocket, down-hard and past the left fielder and rolling away.  As Max is rounding first I look to see where the ball is and I KNOW: “This is it.  He’s got a homer”.  I wave the kid from second home and then tell the third baseman that he has to get out of the way if there’s no play all while watching Max round 2nd and come towards me.  One more glance to Left Field and they are just getting the ball turned around and there is no question that I’m sending him.  Pointing at third with my right hand, I’m wheeling my left hand in circles and telling him, “You’re scoring, you’re scoring…touch third and go-go-go…”

He makes it in and is mobbed.  His first homer.  And wouldn’t you know it, BOTH sets of grandparents are in attendance.  That’s never happened before.  Whoever says things don’t happen for a reason is wrong.  He also pitched 2 innings and only let up 2 baserunners.

Later in the game, he hits another ball, almost identical.  Down hard and rolling forever and for the second time that day, I’m sending him home.  I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed waving that little boy around third.  He was excited.  His teammates crushed him the second time.  He talked about it all the way home and even the next day.  The bat, the kid, the ball: everything came together.

As an odd footnote, I had played my league softball game on that very same field that morning and even lead off the game with an unlikely (for me) homer myself.  There was some weird energy there that day.

***

Liverpool Chelsea at Anfield Tomorrow: Tue.  Here we go.

8U, 9U: The Good Guys Need YOU.

Since we are now looking for baseball for my nephew beyond what the town offers, I am surfing the web and looking for leagues, tournaments and teams. I’m throwing it out to the readers: Tell me everything you know about starting a team of 9U for AABC or AAU or Little League.

We aren’t going to be the ’49 Yankees. We’re just looking to get into some local, even competition to extend out the season beyond July 4th, which is when the town travel team ends their AABC run. Any lead is appreciated. Email. Website. Phone Number. Your Uncle Phil. Email me offline: fillipmarlowe at the old yahoo dot com. Help my kids out! We want to keep it fun and remember, we’re “The Good Guys”. If you’re a business, maybe you want to sponsor our uniforms. Think of it: The Good Guys, sponsored by Floyd’s Barbershop.

A friend put me onto this site: Click here to launch leaguelineup.com in new window

Click here to launch the ECTB Baseball site in a new window

Click here to launch the AAU Baseball site in a new window 

Click here to launch the AABC Baseball site in a new window 

Click here to launch the Little League Baseball site in a new window

 

Is it THAT bad?

Mrs. Pinetar hates the 1903 Gunner’s Coat.  Just hates it.  And I have found that it elicits strong comments both good and bad.  Not only that, but men seem to like it and women seem to mock it.  Just the other day, one of the nurse managers asked me, “…what’s up with the ZZ Top coat?”  The photo doesn’t render the color properly; it runs a lot more yellow than it looks.  But it’s a nice old-timey canvas that already looks a bit seasoned.  What’s not to like?  Help me out here.

***

McBean; I may not be going to LA and now it looks dead.  I would have needed to rope someone into going and that isn’t looking likely.  Now I find that it is more and more likely that I would go to Orlando myself in July with a kids baseball team in a tournament.  It’s not a done deal but likely.  So now, as anti-Disney as I am, I am facing up to the fact that I might be there nevertheless.

***

One last item on the steroids thing.  No one is talking of the corollary to the story and that is the owners complicity in this.  They knew and LOVED the homers flying out at softball rates.  They didn’t care if a guy’s liver exploded.  Oh, they care now, but only because they are worried about Congress and that anti-trust exemption that makes it all go.

During the roid era, they livened the ball several times.  I do not, for the life of me, understand why that is so hard to prove.  You drop the balls from a known height, say 30 feet.  And you record how high up they bounce.  This was done in 1942 by baseball to determine that the new synthetic rubber (the Japanese stopped the rubber trade to USA for war) was not as resilient as real rubber.  In 1942, the offense was down 25% and it hurt them at the gate.

They used the simple drop test on a batch of 1941 balls and the new ones and made a quick determination that led to the official livening of the ball back up to pre-war standards.  If they could do this simple thing 70 years ago, why aren’t they doing it every year?

If they did, I think they’d have “caught” MLB livening up the ball in 1987 for sure and a few times in the 1990′s to fuel the McGuire/Sosa/Bonds ridiculous homer tears.

My point is (1) The owners knew and contributed to it to enhance it and (2) we’re dopes because we could have easily busted them on the ball end of it.

–ofg 

The Tommy Show! Starring: Tommy!

 

Here we are going to the hospital at about 2:30am. She had the breakage at 12:30am and there was some discussion as to whether we could sleep on it and then go, or head in. The phone call quickly cleared that up: We had to go in. Once that happens, they want the show on the road. We were calm enough to drag our feet over and hour and take this photo on the way out the door. I wore my Nixon Library shirt for luck. Mrs. Pinetar is feeling good and not having any contractions and is quite calm.

This is right after Tommy is cleaned up and Mrs. Pinetar as well. She’s probably had him on her for all of a minute and a half at this point. He was born at 3pm and right here it’s about 3:10pm. We are both really not believing what a neat little guy we’re holding here. What a privilege!

For the record, we checked in at 3:00am and at 7am, they had induced her somewhat with a drug so traditional labor was marked at 7am. Pushing began at 1:25pm and the winning run was plated at 3:00pm on the button.

And here’s the man that causes all the trouble, Tommy. This was taken a day later when he’s about 22 hours old (kind of like El Duque).

Also at 22 hours and below, Mom and Tom, at 22 hours.

Below is one of the few, specific hopes that I had for my little guy, besides just overall health. In the photo here, you can see that Mrs. Pinetar has really long hands and fingers. I have little, stuby, Fred Flintstone fingers. If I had a boy, I was hoping that he would get “the hands”, so that if he ever pitched a baseball, he’d have a chance to throw a nice overhand slider or split fingered fastball, pitches that I can only dream of with my little fingers.

Anyway, check this out:

Nice and long! So I’d say, he has “the hands”.

But there will be no undue pressure on him to do anything. If he wants to be a Curling star, then we’ll be up early and out at the rink. I’m just happy to have him around. We’re both thrilled and feel very blessed and lucky to have had such a smooth ride and people have been very nice to us all the way through. We thank God. Take that, ACLU! –fog

Just for the record, here’s the old man, tearing up the sheet at the Jaques Cartier Curling Club in Quebec City, Quebec.  Oui.

Foggy Hornblower

I had sent out an email to the parents as a thank you for the gift certificate to Ciro’s and I got back three replies today that made my day and, at the risk of blowing my own horn, I’m going to post them here as closure because I think many readers think I’m over-the-top on the baseball thing with the kids and don’t “get” it.  Have a look:

The pleasure you express is very evident.  It’s as much fun watching you as it is watching the kids.  I hope we can have the fortune of you coaching Tommy in the future!!!
 
Thanks!!
 
Tom
 
PS.  We love the nickname (Chemical-Ali).  You never know……, it might be a story he’ll have to tell someday to fans. 

***

Fog – I think you said it best when you said they are only 8 once – thanks again for taking the time with the kids. It was obvious that you were there for all the right reasons and we could tell you truly enjoyed the GAME!

Hope to see you out on the field one day soon.

***

Fog
 
Again, I really want to thank you for working with Phil this year.  For some reason at the end of the season he seemed to go backwards and was a bit upset about comments some of the kids on the team were making to him.  I was thinking that he was going to be discouraged, but he still wanted to be there.  I think that was due to the support he got from you and the other coaches.  He gained a great understanding of what it is to be a part of a team and learned good sportsmanship under you guys.  Enjoy your summer.
 
Catherine

***

No, the kid’s nickname wasn’t “Chemical-Ali” but I changed all the names so I thought I’d see if you were paying attention.    –fog

They’ll Never Be 7 Again

Just finished the season on somewhat of a down note at the tournament in Hackensack.  I can honestly say that I never want to coach 3rd base again; at least for kids this young.  It’s too unpredictable.

My nephew started and we got 2 outs while only giving up 1 run to a very good hitting team.  Then the ball was hit out to the 8-year old in right field.  It was hit right TO HIM.  He actually had to step aside to let it go past him to the wall.  He wanted NO PART of the ball.  Home run.

A few batters later, after more kicked balls, the ball was flied out to him to where he might have had to take one step back and to his right to catch it.  What did he do?  He stood there and waved at it.  All the way to the wall for a home run. By now my nephew is upset.  He should have been out of the inning a long time ago, down, 0-1.  Now it’s a 5 run bulge.

Now we need to catch up and we score some runs and are back in it.  When this right fielder comes up, he hits a ball to the center field wall.  A nice shot.  His hardest all year.  He is coming in to 3rd base and I hold him and yell, “hold up, hold up, hold up…” and he goes hard (the first time he’s run hard all year) to the tag-out at the plate.  I instantly knew what happened.  It was all about him.  He wanted a Home Run and nothing was going to stop him.  He deliberately blew through my stop sign and ran us out of the inning.  He was benched and I don’t think another coach so much as looked at him the rest of the game.

This is the kid who was afraid of getting hit by the ball at the beginning.  He’d get called out on strikes while he was bailing out on every pitch.  We brought TENNIS balls to the practice (my idea) and talked to him about it and reassured him and worked with him and did everything we could to help him hang in there.  I used to offer him 20 bucks if he would hit a ball past the cutout to the left of 2nd base, figuring that he’d have to hang in to pull it and drive it that far.  You know what?  It worked.  It showed me that he was capable of performing, despite his anxiety, IF there was something in it for him.

His parents were completely self-absorbed.  The old man was in 3 different baseball and softball leagues.  The mom was constantly calling the coaches to finagle rides for the kid to games.  The parents went, by themselves, to the Dominican Republic and the kid stayed with the grandparents a block away.  He missed 3 games and a practice and they never made arrangements to get him to the games!  Then we had a special batting practice that I called for just 4 kids.  Keying on 4 kids and throwing to them for all the batting they could handle in an hour and a half!  And do you know that the mother came and pulled him out of the practice for some other obligation after one trip in the cage?!

I am almost sorry that I went to so much trouble to try and help this neurotic little kid with the self-absorbed parent and today, when my nephew was upset that he was hemmoraging runs because this little snot SIDE-STEPPED a ball hit right to him, I WAS sorry.  There’s nothing you can do but vent a little, so I am.

About the only bright spot was the end when the kids got their trophies and I was amazed that the parents gave ME a $50.00 gift certificate to Ciro’s.  I was stunned.  I was one of 4 other guys who helped the coach out.  I was really not official in any capacity but just helped really.  I guess I must have impressed the parents in some ways and honestly, I really, really tried to pump them up no matter what.  I tried hard to get them as many reps as possible, be it in the field or at bat.  I pushed (to the point where I annoyed him) our coach to do more: teach more, throw more BP, throw pops to the outfielders or what have you.  As I said to him, “…enjoy it, we got a great day here and they’re only seven once…”  –fog 

Pitching for 8 year olds

I’ve been coaching my nephew’s 8U team and pitching is really challenging at that age. Recently someone asked me how to go about teaching pitching to a 7 or 8 year old and while I’m no expert, here’s what I came up with: