8U First-Timers

Rocketech1 said:

Curious to know how these coaches know how to teach it at 10U but not be able to teach it at 8U? In fact, I would argue that the earlier you teach sliding the better. Glad you are the exception to the rule in your league.

I get the feeling that there is still a big divide in parents expectations of what girls can do vs. what the boys can do. I have coached both rec fastpitch and baseball from 6u - 12u and can honestly say that I don't really treat the players any differently. The girls are just as capable of playing "high level ball" as the boys if the parents would let them.

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I don't want to hijack Maclobo's thread with a discussion on the balancing act between keeping it fun for the pure rec players trying a sport, developing the skills of the upper 10pct, and giving the upper 1/3rd a chance to get exposed to the higher skills.

Exactly my question to our board. I understand the concept of some age appropriate adjustments to the rules so coaches don't win games by taking advantage of rules for things they willn't get away against a well coached older team. I do mix in drills and skills that are a stretch for the players so they improve.

I encourage our 6u coaches to sneak basic pitching mechanics into a practice or two for their 6yo's near the end of the season. I encourage our 8u coaches to teach sliding in practice. There is some concern on 50 or 55ft base paths the less experienced players might get in the way and get hurt if someone slides.

One of my favorite stories is one of our 7yo's on the 8u All-Star team so excited about sliding that for the first several games she'd run off the field from defense and slide in front of the dug-out.

I think 8u is the perfect time to learn sliding! The older they get the harder it seems to be to learn, on average. Our 8u all stars team used a tarp with baby powder on it. The kids thought it was great.

grcsftbll said:

I think 8u is the perfect time to learn sliding! The older they get the harder it seems to be to learn, on average. Our 8u all stars team used a tarp with baby powder on it. The kids thought it was great.

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A big sheet of cardboard on the OF grass works great, too!

At this age, if you want to win more than you lose, it comes down to one thing...defense. If you can teach your girls hoe to throw well (wassermastrength.com e-book), field well(Howard Kobata's DVD series on fielding) and then worry about hitting, you will be good. Hitting, I would recommend the e-book found here...tewkshitting.com. If you don't want to spend the money on these, I would highly recommend searching on here for the topics that interest you. It's free and has an awful lot of great information.

My teams catching has come a long way in the past 6 months and I think it has to do with how we warm up. I actually stole it from watching an 18u team warm up and mixed it with a little bit of what Howard's dvd suggested. I feel it is perfect for the little ones. I have the girls stand about 10 feet from each other and underhand toss the ball to each other. The tosser is not allowed to toss the ball till the fielder has her throwing hand up by her glove. Then we stress catching the ball with two hands. We also stress stepping towards the the ball with the glove side foot. Next I have them turn 90 degrees and we flip again. This time the girl throwing acts like she just fielded a ground ball and they underhand flip to their partner. On this one we want the toss in front of the girl, target is her glove. Then they turn 180 degrees and do backhand feeds. Again as if they just fielded a ground ball. This one is tough for them but they figure it out.

What the girls get out of this is a ton of easy catchable balls. Makes it easy to teach glove position and build confidence. Once they mastered this we started adding in tagging. After we do these drills we put them on one knee and start tossing. These I ask the girls for no talking while we do this one drill. I want them to go slow and focus on proper mechanics. Then I stand them up and we play catch. We finish with what I call dancing. This I stole from wasserman I believe. The girls love it. We get all the balls on one side. With the girls turned 90 degrees we call call out right, left, back, and throw. Pretty much we step forward with our right foot, then left, then right foot goes behind left foot, and we finish with a stride and throw. The goal is for everyone to catch the ball. We do this 10 times. After a month of doing this we were going 8 out of 10.

since we just finished our first year of 8u, the one thing i would say is, dont get frustrated. as everyone has said, try to make practice a competition as much as possible. we would end every practice by dividing the girls into 2 teams and placing one team on home plate, the other on second and run a relay race around the bases(helped the girls realize they can run fast when they want to). the difference between our team in spring and our team in fall was immense(overall aggressiveness). good luck and stay sane.

Another thing we did at 8U is if we lost the coaches needed to do a cart wheel, if we won the players needed to do a cart wheel. They had a good time laughing at me and provided a lot of advice.

Good times.

quincy said:

Another thing we did at 8U is if we lost the coaches needed to do a cart wheel, if we won the players needed to do a cart wheel. They had a good time laughing at me and provided a lot of advice.

Good times.

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Luckily, I've got a decent cartwheel (at least for someone 6'1 225!). I can't hold a candle to my DD, though, as gymnastics seems to be her true calling. It's amazing what those little girls can do!

One more question...

Reading through the board a bit, it seems like a lot of people mention pitching in 8U. Our leagues here are all pitching machine at this level (boys and girls). How common is 8U pitching throughout the rest of the nation???

Our league in Northern California has '1st half' and '2nd half' pitching rules. There is a 3 run limit for the first 3 innings, the last inning is unlimited. No new innings after 80 minutes. About half the games lasts 3 innings, sometimes 4.

Our league runs 3 general instructional sessions for 8u pitchers near the beginning of the season. We encourage all the girls to try pitching, but when we reach 2nd half rules, encourage the coaches to pitch their best pitchers at least 2 innings.

1st half- pitcher pitches 3 pitches, then coach comes in and pitches 4-# of strikes (another pitch for a foul ball). So the player gets at least 1 pitch.

2nd half- 'Normal' pitching rules, but if the batter gets 4 balls, the coach comes in and pitches-- balls reset to 0, and assumes the strikes. If 4 balls are reached, girl is out.

Machine pitch probably develops slightly better hitters, but you want to develop pitchers in 8u.