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

[FP26]

It's doable my dd pitched all through HS played 3 varsity sports, marching band,concert band, NHS, student government and pulled down top grades. It took a lot of coaches and a band director who were all willing to work with her. Is it for everyone? Nope but it was what my dd wanted and she made it happen. What your dd wants and is willing to make happen. She doesn't have to give up pitching. But if she wants to, let it happen.

Thanks chinamigarden. She is the captain of her own ship, but my guess is that she will give up basketball before she gives up pitching. She has decided to do both for this season (10th grade), but she is definitely not as excited about it this year as she was last year.

 

[Softball scholar]

Just curious if anyone else feels this way concerning pitchers? Even if you are pro multi-sport, should pitchers view this differently? Do a higher percentage of pitchers specialize?

.

FP26,


My DD is a pitcher and loves playing other sports. She is a freshman this year and is right in the middle of volleyball season and fall travel softball season. We're still debating playing basketball this winter. By playing other sports, were constantly running into issues where we have to compromise practice time or even game time. MY DD also just moved up from Freshman to JV on volleyball. This is great but, now we have two more weekends of conflicting times with softball tournaments The softball coach is frustrated when we miss practice or games as also we have another pitcher on our softball team that misses because she plays volleyball. It just fall season, so not as important but its still a juggling act. I hope the softball coach doesnt take it out on my DD. Thats a risk we take.

Just an observation about pitchers is that they generally are the taller girls. For example, my DD is 5'9" as a freshman. Being tall also helps these girls excel in volleyball and basketball. I think you see pitchers specialize due to the hours they have to practice, but they also are the good basketball and volleyball girls. So i wouldnt say its necessarily true they always specialize.

Softball and pitching is my DD #1 focus, but she loves volleyball and is good at it at. If she wants to play, Im going to fight to give her that chance.

I also believe multi sports provides benefits from the cross training, less chance of injury due to repetitive use, and less chance of burn out.

 

[FP26]

Thanks scholar. That juggling act is exactly what is bothering DD right now. She is just finishing up softball for the year, but is already several months into "unofficial" basketball workouts and practices. She doesn't like to miss practice or games, but is forced to choose. She is also interested in joining some other clubs/activities at school but doesn't feel she has enough time to commit to them. Ultimately the choices are hers, but it is definitely getting tougher each year.

 

[riseball]

FP26,


My DD is a pitcher and loves playing other sports. She is a freshman this year and is right in the middle of volleyball season and fall travel softball season. We're still debating playing basketball this winter. By playing other sports, were constantly running into issues where we have to compromise practice time or even game time. MY DD also just moved up from Freshman to JV on volleyball. This is great but, now we have two more weekends of conflicting times with softball tournaments The softball coach is frustrated when we miss practice or games as also we have another pitcher on our softball team that misses because she plays volleyball. It just fall season, so not as important but its still a juggling act. I hope the softball coach doesnt take it out on my DD. Thats a risk we take.

Just an observation about pitchers is that they generally are the taller girls. For example, my DD is 5'9" as a freshman. Being tall also helps these girls excel in volleyball and basketball. I think you see pitchers specialize due to the hours they have to practice, but they also are the good basketball and volleyball girls. So i wouldnt say its necessarily true they always specialize.

Softball and pitching is my DD #1 focus, but she loves volleyball and is good at it at. If she wants to play, Im going to fight to give her that chance.

I also believe multi sports provides benefits from the cross training, less chance of injury due to repetitive use, and less chance of burn out.

A very interesting conclusion given the rest of your post.

 

[BobInMadison]

I once heard a radio interview with Tommy John.
He is of the opinion that young pitchers destroy their arms by overuse.
Notice the current crop of major league pitchers simply cannot handle the workload their predecessors could.


Back when Tommy John was pitching, there were still a lot of workhorse pitchers like Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver and the Niekro brothers. Since that time, pitchers have pitched fewer innings. Not only is Nolan Ryan's strikeout record secure, but 300 game winners are becoming rare. There were 5 great pitchers who came up in the 1980s, 4 made the 300 club, one blew his career on coke. While there are some great pitchers these days, not sure if any will ever make the 300 club.

 

[dbronstein]

I once heard a radio interview with Tommy John.
He is of the opinion that young pitchers destroy their arms by overuse.
Notice the current crop of major league pitchers simply cannot handle the workload their predecessors could.

He's not the only one who thinks that. The problem is all the pitches they throw in travel ball and high school. Then they get drafted and the teams try to limit their innings and pitch counts, but the damage is already there. Most youth coaches don't care, and even with tourneys having limits, most are innings, not pitches. And then the kids play league games during the week and throw more pitches because the limits are separate.

 

[chinamigarden]

He's not the only one who thinks that. The problem is all the pitches they throw in travel ball and high school. Then they get drafted and the teams try to limit their innings and pitch counts, but the damage is already there. Most youth coaches don't care, and even with tourneys having limits, most are innings, not pitches. And then the kids play league games during the week and throw more pitches because the limits are separate.

And you have the parents taking their kid from team to team letting him guest play for one while playing for another. Neither coach fully aware of how much pitching he is doing.

 

[marriard]

First anything said by college coaches/pro coaches about specialization comes down to this:

"I wanted to use the player up physically and I am really annoyed when someone has already done this"

Or

"I am going to ignore how recruiting works in this country and how I am part of this. As a coaching group we could all get together and change it, but we wont. Btw I verballed a 13 year old 8th grader last week"

It isn't hard - all the NCAA and other related codes have to say is this: "No recruiting until junior year in high school. No verbals. No promises. No nothing." It would go a long, long way in stopping specializing until a kid is at least in high school and would also allow the kid another two years of maturity - and some more time to decide what they are looking for when they go to college. It wont stop it of course because there are crazy parent, coaches and occasionally players, but it would certainly change the dynamic drastically.

Right now, if all the big time colleges and most D1 programs are going to complete their recruiting by the end of a players HS Sophomore year, for a player to be recruited they have to outshine 95+% of all the other players in the nation. Even as an elite athlete, if you haven't specialized well before this point, you are going to be beaten out by an elite athlete who has specialized with the skills. That means you need to start prepping for THIS time being the prime recruiting period - so something like two years before they are 14 years old and in their first year in high school. Most have no clue what they want to study. Most are nowhere near being physically mature. It is stupid.

It is also always amusing when I see things like "OSU football has 80% multi sport athletes". Well of course they do - OSU football is comprised of a group of natural ultra-elite level athletes. They can be average in another sport just by turning up and letting the athleticism handle the playing. The further you go down the hierarchy of colleges (not by division necessarily but by program), the less access to the ultra-elite and other elite levels of athlete becomes. Local mid-D2 program near by: 0 multi sports girls. Two mid D1's locally - one has 2, the other 1. There was a girl on our local HS softball team last year who was technically a mutli-sport athlete - in reality she did track and field meets when softball didn't conflict. She finished top three in state in her event WITHOUT EVER training for it - totally an elite athlete.

Or I see examples like Jennie Finch. She was 6' tall in high school and athletic.. of course she could play basketball. Michael Jordan played AA baseball at age 31 having not played since HS and was pretty average at it for a AA player - but think about that - he was so athletic, we was somewhat around average in the minor leagues with 3 months skills training even though he hadn't played in 14 or 15 years and had never played at a high level in the sport. That's scary athletic.

Btw, I consider pitching a completely separate sport from the rest of the game of softball. If you bat/field AND pitch, that is a multi-sport athlete to me right there anyway.

 

[SandlotMom]

Yes, she did! Almost 20 years ago before kids in HS today were born. In this century the competition is stronger and specialization is becoming the norm. What was once considered balanced is now viewed by some as over-committed and unfocused.

To you and other softball parents hoping for a college scholarship. I still see a lot of advantages to being a multi sport athlete. I like my team to stop playing by a certain part of the year to do another activity. I don't see any research that suggest young kids should specialize. If there are, I'd question the researcher. There are still many coaches that talk about recruiting multi sport athletes. The research is also there to support it. So, to your "over committed and unfocused" is not at all what my daughters look like. They are committed to the sports they play, the team they are on, and development of their skills. My oldest is top 3 on her soccer team (comp) and top 3 on her softball team (also comp).

I think the idea of specialization is a myth and was created by overzealous coaches and parents (mostly dads) hoping for scholarships instead of focusing on the real purpose of youth sports.

 

[SandlotMom]

First anything said by college coaches/pro coaches about specialization comes down to this:

"I wanted to use the player up physically and I am really annoyed when someone has already done this"

Or

"I am going to ignore how recruiting works in this country and how I am part of this. As a coaching group we could all get together and change it, but we wont. Btw I verballed a 13 year old 8th grader last week"

It isn't hard - all the NCAA and other related codes have to say is this: "No recruiting until junior year in high school. No verbals. No promises. No nothing." It would go a long, long way in stopping specializing until a kid is at least in high school and would also allow the kid another two years of maturity - and some more time to decide what they are looking for when they go to college. It wont stop it of course because there are crazy parent, coaches and occasionally players, but it would certainly change the dynamic drastically.

Right now, if all the big time colleges and most D1 programs are going to complete their recruiting by the end of a players HS Sophomore year, for a player to be recruited they have to outshine 95+% of all the other players in the nation. Even as an elite athlete, if you haven't specialized well before this point, you are going to be beaten out by an elite athlete who has specialized with the skills. That means you need to start prepping for THIS time being the prime recruiting period - so something like two years before they are 14 years old and in their first year in high school. Most have no clue what they want to study. Most are nowhere near being physically mature. It is stupid.

It is also always amusing when I see things like "OSU football has 80% multi sport athletes". Well of course they do - OSU football is comprised of a group of natural ultra-elite level athletes. They can be average in another sport just by turning up and letting the athleticism handle the playing. The further you go down the hierarchy of colleges (not by division necessarily but by program), the less access to the ultra-elite and other elite levels of athlete becomes. Local mid-D2 program near by: 0 multi sports girls. Two mid D1's locally - one has 2, the other 1. There was a girl on our local HS softball team last year who was technically a mutli-sport athlete - in reality she did track and field meets when softball didn't conflict. She finished top three in state in her event WITHOUT EVER training for it - totally an elite athlete.

Or I see examples like Jennie Finch. She was 6' tall in high school and athletic.. of course she could play basketball. Michael Jordan played AA baseball at age 31 having not played since HS and was pretty average at it for a AA player - but think about that - he was so athletic, we was somewhat around average in the minor leagues with 3 months skills training even though he hadn't played in 14 or 15 years and had never played at a high level in the sport. That's scary athletic.

Btw, I consider pitching a completely separate sport from the rest of the game of softball. If you bat/field AND pitch, that is a multi-sport athlete to me right there anyway.

Almost 100% of Womens Soccer National team...multi sport athletes.