Flaws in Travel BB - applies to SB also?

[John T]

Jacman,

Great thought provoking article about the state of baseball/softball. The one thing that we all can take from it is, we as coaches can have it both ways IF we are willing to put in the extra time by practicing more often or putting less emphasis on winning and more on player development.

Another observation is that it has taken quite a long time to get where we are today and it may take just as much time to turn it back. We can all do "Something" to make things better.

I plan on bringing the article to my next Softball/Baseball Board meeting because we just went through a major shift to more Travel Ball and I am afraid we are loosing kids and eliminating them way to early!

Thanks for sharing!!!

 

[nicelag]

Great discussion points! Another scenario I have come across in the younger ages is coaches giving all of the practice reps to the less skilled players (for lack of a better PC term). The coaches response will be something like "she's good enough and doesn't need the reps". The coach has good intentions in wanting to bring all players up to the same level of play, but buy the end of the year the "better player" hasn't been given equal opportunity to improve their skillset and knowledge of the game due to the lack of reps. The key is to give every player the opportunity to improve their skillsets and game knowledge regardless of their level of play. Which, is not an easy task.