So I am a has been mediocre high school baseball player that never really coached, but what little success I had was from being what I consider well coached back in the 90's and a love for the game. So my knowledge of how the game should be played comes from a couple of Ron Polk Mississippi State camps and some coaches that taught the same type of stuff.
The modern game left me behind and I moved to a place where baseball is unimportant to say the least. My oldest kid was a decent little ball player in TX, but COVID killed his first year of coach pitch and he just didn't want to play. Football and wrestling became his sports. But last spring he and I were "begged" to help our local travel ball organization.... Which was a bunch of kids worse than most Southern rec players. He is in love with the game again thankfully. He's still in 5th grade and might still have a chance to be a decent high school player if he continues to work, but id definitely behind.
I was asked to revive the Babe Ruth program of 13-15 year olds. There were a few competent baseball coaches a few years before and behind, but there was nothing beyond 12u baseball until high school and I agreed to pitch in for 1 year, coaching kids I had never met that weren't good when they had last played. The next year the daddy ball coaches would all move up.
So, it was awesome. A true bad news bears situation. These kids sucked, but I taught a couple of them to throw strikes and they were all fast as lightning so we learned to run the bases, bunt, and put the ball in play. We couldn't field and my best player missed half the games for ski and hockey camps, but it was fun...
Anyhow. There were 8 teams in our league and we came in middle of the pack, but I found possibly the greatest baseball town in America in the process. It was like the 80's there.
It's Orofino, Idaho. 150-200+ people would come out to our solo Babe Ruth baseball games. They ran full concessions and their kids all were out mowing, chalking, and raking the field before and after the game. They were the most fundamental team I have ever seen. These 17ers were the epitome of the baseball I loved.
Here's their field, a town of+/- 3,000. They're 2A and were the 7th ranked high school team team amongst all classes last year. Probably a dozen future NAIA stars and no NCAA or MLB guys on the team. It was glorious.... Here's their field of dreams level field....
Anyone else seeing it done the right way? Or is it all pay for coaching, parents screaming, exit velocity and 17 the fundamentals everywhere these days.
The modern game left me behind and I moved to a place where baseball is unimportant to say the least. My oldest kid was a decent little ball player in TX, but COVID killed his first year of coach pitch and he just didn't want to play. Football and wrestling became his sports. But last spring he and I were "begged" to help our local travel ball organization.... Which was a bunch of kids worse than most Southern rec players. He is in love with the game again thankfully. He's still in 5th grade and might still have a chance to be a decent high school player if he continues to work, but id definitely behind.
I was asked to revive the Babe Ruth program of 13-15 year olds. There were a few competent baseball coaches a few years before and behind, but there was nothing beyond 12u baseball until high school and I agreed to pitch in for 1 year, coaching kids I had never met that weren't good when they had last played. The next year the daddy ball coaches would all move up.
So, it was awesome. A true bad news bears situation. These kids sucked, but I taught a couple of them to throw strikes and they were all fast as lightning so we learned to run the bases, bunt, and put the ball in play. We couldn't field and my best player missed half the games for ski and hockey camps, but it was fun...
Anyhow. There were 8 teams in our league and we came in middle of the pack, but I found possibly the greatest baseball town in America in the process. It was like the 80's there.
It's Orofino, Idaho. 150-200+ people would come out to our solo Babe Ruth baseball games. They ran full concessions and their kids all were out mowing, chalking, and raking the field before and after the game. They were the most fundamental team I have ever seen. These 17ers were the epitome of the baseball I loved.
Here's their field, a town of+/- 3,000. They're 2A and were the 7th ranked high school team team amongst all classes last year. Probably a dozen future NAIA stars and no NCAA or MLB guys on the team. It was glorious.... Here's their field of dreams level field....
Anyone else seeing it done the right way? Or is it all pay for coaching, parents screaming, exit velocity and 17 the fundamentals everywhere these days.
