In my experience, the best players were the ones who had parents who were willing to work with them as they grew up. If you can
teach the parents that a couple of practices and a few games a week are not going to create the next Jenny Finch. Learning how to catch
a ball takes thousands of reps. Learning how to hit takes thousands of reps. Ideally everyone has a top notch coach at home, but to me even
if you have flaws in you swing at 6, it's still worth learning to make contact. Seeing balls and catching them over and over will translate as they
get older. I firmly believe that my DD got to where she is today by my ability (willingness) to play catch any time she asked and her desire to go
to practice 30 minutes early to hit. I remember when she was 7 she decide that she wanted to learn how to catch popups. We worked with a soft ball
for a couple of weeks. Finally one was hit towards her and she made the catch and got a double play. I don't think at the time she even knew why it was
2 outs, but she was still excited. We used to play catch in the backyard and count how many we could throw without dropping one. The day we got to 500
we stopped. Now that she is a teenager it's not the same, but any time she feels the need to work on something we'll still go out and do it.
teach the parents that a couple of practices and a few games a week are not going to create the next Jenny Finch. Learning how to catch
a ball takes thousands of reps. Learning how to hit takes thousands of reps. Ideally everyone has a top notch coach at home, but to me even
if you have flaws in you swing at 6, it's still worth learning to make contact. Seeing balls and catching them over and over will translate as they
get older. I firmly believe that my DD got to where she is today by my ability (willingness) to play catch any time she asked and her desire to go
to practice 30 minutes early to hit. I remember when she was 7 she decide that she wanted to learn how to catch popups. We worked with a soft ball
for a couple of weeks. Finally one was hit towards her and she made the catch and got a double play. I don't think at the time she even knew why it was
2 outs, but she was still excited. We used to play catch in the backyard and count how many we could throw without dropping one. The day we got to 500
we stopped. Now that she is a teenager it's not the same, but any time she feels the need to work on something we'll still go out and do it.
