I don't see much value in thinking back on DD's historical coaches to compare former player vs. non-player, parent vs non-parent, male vs. female, old vs. young, fat vs. skinny, etc. Sample too small. Leads to lazy thinking, IMO.
Question for the high school parents
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- Jun 8, 2016
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Only variable with predictive value IMO would be Yankees fan or not...
Only variable with predictive value IMO would be Yankees fan or not...
DD did play for a Boston-bred Red Sox fan once.
DD, a Southerner, learned that heart and short (as in shortstop) rhymed with hot. She thought he was saying, "You gotta play with Hot, girls!"
(I'm not actually from New England myself, as my profile says. I got confused on my application. This all happened in North Carolina.)
- Oct 3, 2019
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You have the patience of a saint...
I'm a fan of Wasserman too. That's why I was surprised when I witnessed several nationally ranked 14U programs using the old school L-drills, wrist flicks etc. L-drills massively screwed up my daughter, but these girls were getting it done at a very high level. It made me question just how important a particular school of thought really is compared to other factors.
- Oct 26, 2019
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Changing arm patterns is very difficult. This works both ways (bad to good and good to bad). Those girls probably had good arm patterns to begin with and a few wrist flicks won’t change it. Heck, I was taught with the old Tom Emanski L-drills by some coaches and I can assure you I didn’t actually throw that way.
- Jun 8, 2016
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I am surprised anybody taught you how to throw at all. Not that you are an old man like me, but I cannot remember a single coach talk about throwing at all...lol.
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The most jarring realization when I started coaching and quickly learned that while I knew how to do most everything but had no idea how to teach it was that I don't think I was ever taught, by a coach in a practice setting, most of the basic skills of the sport. It's very likely my dad taught me how to hold a glove/catch a ball when I was 3-4 years old, but I don't recall any coach ever doing that. Same goes for throwing. We would slide in practice, but nobody every actually taught us how to slide. You just...slid. And everybody figured out how. Hitting was a little different. I do remember (mostly bad) hitting instruction.
- Jun 8, 2016
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Yes. I remember my father giving me a few fielding tips and that is about it for instruction about anything (even hitting) until I got to college and even then I only remember fast/slow/fast in terms of fielding a GB and then a queue about staying closed regarding hitting after my freshmen year. I never saw myself swing (outside of dry swings in a mirror) until college when they videoed us. That said in the summer my father would hit me GB and pitch to me everyday, plus whatever I would do with my friends, so I probably just figured it out with repetition..not the most efficient way of doing things I guess but that was how my father learned in the sandlot so that was what he did with me. It was sort of a Hogan "dig it out of the dirt" mentality.
That said, I couldn't hit my Sr. year in HS so I could have used some instruction from somebody
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- Oct 26, 2019
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My father played professionally in the RedSox organization and coached at the college level. He owned a baseball camp business with former SF Giants reliever Gary Lavelle. I was around good instruction at a pretty young age. What our generation did was a lot of free play. This generation doesn’t really do that. If you see kids playing outside now, you will see a parent close by guaranteed.
I was talking about it this last night at my DD’s basketball practice. They don’t even know how to get open on an inbounds pass. I’m pretty sure we just figured that out on our own too.
