I always see great things that come from the Little League World Series... National & International coverage and the celebration of youth baseball, camaraderie, the message that the teams and families have sacrificed to get there... There's a ton of awesome stuff going on in Williamsport...

BUT...

The unfortunate part of the whole LLWS spectacle that's lost on 95% of the viewing public is that IMHO it's not close to being the best youth baseball out there...

If you REALLY want to see the BEST Youth baseball, hopefully people got a chance to see the Cal Ripken World Series last weekend where Forrest Hills, FL Beat Team Mexico in a 6-5 barn-burner. Because of their Championship Win, Forrest Hills, FL will join the REAL best-of-the-best winners THIS WEEKEND in Memphis, TN. at the National Youth Baseball Championship (NYBC)! The NYBC hosts the 10u & 12u National Champions from AABC, AAU, Babe Ruth/Cal Ripen, Dixie, NABF, PONY, USSSA, & Super Series and has them playoff to crown a TRUE NATIONAL CHAMPION!

Both events should gain SO MUCH in popularity this season as they will be beamed into 55+ Million homes courtesy of DirecTV and MLB Network...

I think many will enjoy watching baseball on the 50/70 Infield dimensions, leadoffs & stealing, MLB rules, and the 240-260 ft fences of Aberdeen and Memphis...

For more info:

- National Youth Baseball Championships (Aug. 27-30): http://www.mlb.com/youthmajors

- Cal Ripken World Series 2009 (TV started on Aug.21): http://worldseries.ripkenbaseball.com
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I always enjoy the LLWS.
I think we all know that WS is not truly the best in the world. The Canadian team is a travel team from Western Canada and not even a representative but it is still a great venue. Very few play under the LL here. I only knew 0f 1 here out of hundreds of that age group.

I'm a sucker for any type of baseball that I can catch on TV. I've always enjoyed watching the LLWS - not so much for the skill and/or talent, but more for just the overall experience of the whole event and what it means to those kids and families that are experiencing it. That being said, there's usually some fairly decent ball players each year. However, I've found it increasingly harder to follow, as the actual ability, skill, talent, whatever you want to refer to it as, has gotten to the point that it's not a good representation of the youth game.
There could be two things that attribute to the way I view the LLWS. One, my son is older and therefore I see the obvious difference in skill level. Two, LL is seeing less and less involvement in areas where it once experienced dominance, resulting in more talented (natural ability) players heading to other leagues.
There's still something to be said for the game at that level and there's definitely some enjoyment to be had from watching the unadulterated joy and emotion that these kids get from playing the game.

If you write down the players names in the llws and go on USSSA.com put in the names and what state the team is from you will see alot of these same kids play travel ball at the majors level.

I believe that LL, Inc. meets their goals of presenting the best cometition from teams within their program. They are constrained by geographical boundaries which is not a consideration of typical travel team competition.

Baseball is a population numbers game. I cannot understand the significance of a "championship" with no limitations. Champion of what?

My son and I went to Williamsport several times when he was LL age. It's an incredible environment. It's a big baseball party. The Disneyland of baseball.

It's fun to watch the llws on TV. I also enjoyed watching the Cal Ripken world series last weekend. What a lot of people don't realize is that the llws is not a representation of "all little leagues" accross the nation and world. It represents a small fractional part of youth baseball. That said. I believe the talent represented at the llws is the average "good" talent in all youth leagues, meaning- the kids at the llws representing our nation are the average of what type of talent you would see at any event nationally.

In my area most kids do not play in an affiliated league but have their own. The talent we have is comparable to what I see at the llws or the Cal Ripken world series. In fact, our own city sent a team to the Cal Ripken world series last year. These same kids that went also played travel ball and we played against them several times. These same kids also played in other tournaments where you couldn't lead off, etc.

While I do appreciate the coverage of the llws, I have always been against kids at this age playing on fields that small with pitchers who throw so fast that it scares most kids! Pitchers don't learn to pitch from the stretch, catchers seldom have to worry about baserunners stealing, dropped third strikes are still outs, etc. The rules are not conducive to teaching the game of baseball! Last year our all-star team entered several of these contests and pretty much wasted the competition because we were used to playing with real rules, biger bases, lead-offs balks, etc. Going down to that level was very elementary for our team and we just wasted some of the poor teams out there.

One of the big issues I also see is the big fanfare over the velocity readings and how they compare it to the majors reaction time. The kids know this and so they intentionally try to throw harder to "light up the gun". Many end up having very sore arms about halfway through the tournament because of this! The radar readings are nice and all- a good way of comparing pitchers with their physical maturity, but too much emphasis for sure!

It's good to see other youth leagues getting TV time these days, especially the leagues that play by real baseball rules!

quote:

...especially the leagues that play by real baseball rules!

To the best of my knowledge, only MLB plays real baseball rules.

All our elite teams play by American League rules. That includes running the catcher to dislodge a ball. They start at 15 under real BB rules.
Maybe someone could pass that on to Daque and enlighten him. Obviously the teams we played did the same.

BHD: Noted. The reference point is pre HS on this part of the board. In particular the poster was referencing 11/12 year olds.

Even the universities and colleges in the US have differnces from MLB as do all youth programs I am acquainted with. If Canada uses the MLB American rules exclusively, they are to be lauded. But I would bet there are some extra limitations placed on them such as pitching exceptions, etc. And at the younger ages, such as referenced, I would bet that the field size also deviates. But I could well be wrong since I am uninformed about Canada's particulars.

Question: In Canada, what is the difference between American League rules and real BB rules?

Daque we play American Elite teams who play the same rules. No exceptions for any part of the game.
I have seen catchers knocked out in 16U games. You have to know how to set up for the hit. I have seen 15-16yo throwing 92mph in this league.
I totally understand the age group you are referring to. I am off to Toronto to watch 12-13yo at the CNE.
The American League rules are the same as the MLB teams play. Blue Jays etc.

Daque,

I was referencing the main point about in the llws they cannot lead off, the mound is too close for that age group, dropped third strikes are still outs, there are no pitcher balks etc.

When I said "real rules" I am referring to a larger field, runners leading off, balks, running to first on dropped third strikes, etc. Last year my 12 year old played on 54/80 dimensions. Dropping back down to 46/60 was crazy easy. Almost every pitch he threw would find the strike zone from that distance. On the bigger bases he was averaging around 1-2 earned runs per game as a pitcher. On the small field he finished the season with a perfect 0.00 era.

I have seen this same similar trend with kids at the llws who come from leagues where they are so dominanat from the short distance that they can count all the earned runs all season on one hand up to entering tournament play.

Ginger: I can agree with you about the LL rules and field size being inappropriate for kids now. When LL started up they mainly used softball diamonds with those dimensions at the time. But now the kids have outgrown the LL dimensions except for 11 and below.

If you have been following along on the string about travel ball you know my position that what happens on reduced sized diamond is inconsequential and you will see that the LL kids are not particularly handicapped by the method play as they move up. They catch on real quick.

My point was somewhat tongue in cheek in that the universities on down play under rules different in some degree from MLB. The post was more in response to BHD's comments than yours.

Daque I am not sure what your point is.
As a peewee team which is 13 in the last time our guys play on the 54/80 diamond. I can assure you that our kids had no adjustment to speak of moving to the 60/90 field.
We used to play a US team from just outside Niagara Falls NY. Same age group but they were a LL team. They were interested in a reciprocal yearly tournament with us. Their skill level was so far behind our kids that they never came back. We got along well but they were uncomfortable with the differential in skill level.
Only our elite teams play American League rules starting at 15YO. The other travel teams play a modified version. Those modifications are for safety such as they must slide coming home feet first. Those rules are geared to avoiding collisions. There were also rules about number of innings pitched and rest periods for pitchers.
The elite teams had no such rules.
As far as diamond size there were only the 2 different sizes. I understood but have Little knowledge of LL, that they had 3 sizes. I only knew of 1 local Canadian LL team in our area. They also would never play our guys.
As I told you our guys started on the 54/90 because they needed to develop strength and it had nothing to do with skill.

BHD: The point I was making, somewhat tongue in cheek, was the claim that this league or that plays MLB rules is most likely not purely the case. You have noted some of the exceptions in your post. As an aside, since changes are made, why American over National League? Does your pitcher not bat?

I am in favor of using the 54/80 as an intermediate step as it allows kids to grow and makes the game a lot quicker. We used to have our 13's on that field until midseason and then bumped them to 60/90. Our decision had nothing to do with skills, just strength, as did yours

Guys, instead if littering the board with the same debate, get a room.

We are refining the issues. Don't read. Block us and our posts will not appear.

It's long overdue that LL move away from 46/60 and go 50/70 as Ripken did.

The event is fun to watch but the baseball game looks more like a pinball game with 6'2 230lb kids playing on the toy field, 5'0 100lb kids check swinging home runs with the juiced up bats, outfielders not being challenged to cover real estate and legitimate double plays are almost impossible at 46/60 unless everything is perfect or unassisted.

The USSSA Elite World Series is still the measuring pennicle of elite baseball in the US. The best of the best play in this tournament. You see some of the same elite players playing in some of the other tournaments, but the best accumulation of top players is in the Elite. Primarily at the 14U and below.

The kids today have outgrown the fields at this age.