Joe Madden's view on Travel Baseball vs the multi sport athlete.

chinamigarden · Mar 18, 2015

Cubs' Joe Maddon no fan of travel baseball - Chicago Tribune

ESA, Ariz. -- In assessing the talents of center fielder Dexter Fowler, Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon likes the versatility that Fowler brings from his days as a high school talent who turned down a chance to play basketball at Harvard..

"I love cross pollination when it comes to athletes," Maddon said. "You get guys who just did not play baseball, meaning they've been around a different set of coaches and styles and ways to get in shape and thoughts. I love that

"Of course, I’m always going to be partial to a former football player as you just love the football mentality and normally this guy is used to difficult practices and playing hurt and having to learn a bunch of players and he probably remembers plays well. He’s more coachable in that regard."

Before Maddon could answer the next question, he reverted back to how strongly he felt that kids should play as many sports as possible.

"That’s why I hate the specialization of kids when they’re on these travel squads that are only 12-13-14 years olds that are only dedicated to one thing, traveling all the time, paying exorbitant amount of money to play baseball with hopes of becoming a professional baseball player.

"I think that’s crazy."

riseball · Mar 18, 2015

The Cubs are a great organization. Many years ago my Great Grandfather used to tell me about them winning the World Series. He does not remember all the details since he was quite young.

3bmama · Mar 18, 2015

I don't like specialization much either. But we had to go to "travel" just to play some competitive ball and to play on a team with kids who had thrown a softball around here. Maybe it's because we live in a Metropolitan area and since we don't actually have to travel very far everyone jumps rec ship for the more competitive tournament teams. Maybe the coaches are the ones driving the specialization. I've seen 10u C teams advertise that they practice 3x a week in the winter. First, no thank you. Second, how can you practice 3 times a week and be a C team? They must not spend much time coaching at those practices.

Rocketech1 · Mar 18, 2015

What the "don't specialize" crowd fails to realize is two things:

1) most students in MS/HS are required to take PE/Gym classes every day where they are utilizing different muscles, techniques, playing different sports, and activities such as the below MS curriculum for DD's school:

Pre-Fitness Testing
Soccer/ Invasion Game Strategies
Pre-Fitness Testing/Beach
Dribble/Volley/Throw
Cardiovascular Fitness Volleyball/ Net Game Strategies
Intro to Health Related Fitness
Multicultural Dance
Basic Weight Training
Aerobic vs. Anaerobic
Body Composition
Cricket/ Striking Game Strategies
F.I.T.T. Principle
Rockwall
Personal Fitness Final
Punt & Kick
Principles of Exercise
Gymnastics
Flexibility
Square Dance
Line/Folk Dance
Tennis
Sports Specific Conditioning
Badminton
Basketball
Volleyball
Track & Field
Plan & Implement Fitness Plan
Grid Games Lifetime Fitness
Tumbling
Rollerblade
Football & Fitness Assessment
Traditional Mod. Games Create-A-Game

2) Without specialization, you will not be able to acquire the necessary skills to play on a competitive softball team (whether its a travel ball team, High School, or College team). While there are always exceptions like Michelle Smith who apparently didn't start pitching until she was 15yo but even she played softball continuously starting at age 5.

Unfortunately, its very difficult to play more than 1 or 2 sports after a certain age (probably 12yo).

CoogansBluff · Mar 18, 2015

This is an example of, ''this guy is really good, so it must be because he did it this way.''

How much football and basketball are they playing in the Dominican Republic?

TorontoCFE · Mar 18, 2015

Rocketech1 said:
What the "don't specialize" crowd fails to realize is two things:

2) Without specialization, you will not be able to acquire the necessary skills to play on a competitive softball team (whether its a travel ball team, High School, or College team). While there are always exceptions like Michelle Smith who apparently didn't start pitching until she was 15yo but even she played softball continuously starting at age 5.

Unfortunately, its very difficult to play more than 1 or 2 sports after a certain age (probably 12yo).

That is simply not true.
There are all kinds of examples and research showing that specialization isn't needed (except for early maturation sports like gymnastics) until high school at least.

While school helps fill some of the gap, it might not stretch athletes enough physically to develop the other
skills like spatial understanding, challenge other muscles, or give athletes the chance to be creative in their activities.

riseball · Mar 18, 2015

Ever notice that folks who speak against specialization are from locations where climate or other factors prevent playing year round? It is about where you end up, not how you got there.

Rocketech1 · Mar 18, 2015

TorontoCFE said:
That is simply not true.
There are all kinds of examples and research showing that specialization isn't needed (except for early maturation sports like gymnastics) until high school at least.

While school helps fill some of the gap, it might not stretch athletes enough physically to develop the other
skills like spatial understanding, challenge other muscles, or give athletes the chance to be creative in their activities.

Let me ask yo this. If Tiger Woods didn't specialize in golf at age 2 but instead played basketball, soccer, and golf at different times of the season, do you think he would have become the #1 golfer in the world (and quite possibly the Top 3 golfer of all time)?

But let's use a more realistic example. DD is 12YO. She is a pitcher. She has been pitching and taking lessons since she was 7YO. She has had some success in Rec, All-stars, Western Nationals, and now Travel ball. She plays in SoCal which is one of the most competitive softball areas of the country (if not the world). She gave up dance and drama when she started playing travel ball last year because she has to practice a lot just to keep up with her softball peers. She also has religious school 2X a week and is a straight A student in honors classes. There is only so much time in the day, you have to pick and choose your priorities.

Maybe your area is different, but around here you pretty much have to specialize in fastpitch to stay competitive otherwise you will fall to far behind your peers (this is true in most of the major sports).

Coach Inouye-Perez (UCLA) told us at a softball camp she likes multi-sport athletes but what she doesn't discuss is all of the time and effort that her pitchers like Ally Carda and Jessica Hall and world-class pitchers like Jennie Finch put in over the years. Tell me those players didn't start specializing when they were at a young age?

YoungBuck · Mar 18, 2015

1) most students in MS/HS are required to take PE/Gym classes every day where they are utilizing different muscles, techniques, playing different sports, and activities such as the below MS curriculum for DD's school:

Everyday you say ! ? I wish my DD had Gym everyday. Rocketech can you visit my DDs school and explain why that's important ?

reagansdaddy · Mar 18, 2015

Rocketech1 said:
Let me ask yo this. If Tiger Woods didn't specialize in golf at age 2 but instead played basketball, soccer, and golf at different times of the season, do you think he would have become the #1 golfer in the world (and quite possibly the Top 3 golfer of all time)?

But let's use a more realistic example. DD is 12YO. She is a pitcher. She has been pitching and taking lessons since she was 7YO. She has had some success in Rec, All-stars, Western Nationals, and now Travel ball. She plays in SoCal which is one of the most competitive softball areas of the country (if not the world). She gave up dance and drama when she started playing travel ball last year because she has to practice a lot just to keep up with her softball peers. She also has religious school 2X a week and is a straight A student in honors classes. There is only so much time in the day, you have to pick and choose your priorities.

Maybe your area is different, but around here you pretty much have to specialize in fastpitch to stay competitive otherwise you will fall to far behind your peers (this is true in most of the major sports).

Coach Inouye-Perez (UCLA) told us at a softball camp she likes multi-sport athletes but what she doesn't discuss is all of the time and effort that her pitchers like Ally Carda and Jessica Hall and world-class pitchers like Jennie Finch put in over the years. Tell me those players didn't start specializing when they were at a young age?

This is a totally fair point and I'm really undecided and/or in the camp where I think both sides are right.

However, do you think that if Tiger Woods hadn't specialized in golf from the age of 2, just maybe his body wouldn't have broken down and betrayed him before he turned 35?

Forgive my Central Ohio bias, but Jack Nicklaus is clearly the greatest golfer of all time, and I believe he was a heck of a high school football player. I also believe he was an All-Ohio basketball player and played youth baseball as well. No specialization for the GOAT. I concede we're talking about vastly different eras.

Joe Madden's view on Travel Baseball vs the multi sport athlete.

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chinamigarden

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