Jeff-
I have read this thread with interest. About halfway through I realized that my oldest son played "travel" ball when he was eight. His team played only 9 year old teams (long story, wasn't supposed to work out that way), lost all but two games but had a ton of fun. The competition was better, his teammates wanted to be there and he played with a number of these boys until he was 12. At that time (1999) there was no talk about "pitch count" or worry about arm injuries. My son pitched and has had no problems due to this experience.

In looking back on it, the only thing I wish had been different, was that the coaches (all dads of players on the team) had played all of the boys equally. A couple of the players had more potential than was developed during that particular year. A few of them quit baseball after that and it may have been because they felt they weren't "good" enough. No one should give up on an 8 year old and I think that is one fault of travel ball at a young age.

I hope your son's coaches keep that in mind and don't get caught up in winning at this age. If they are better players at the end of the season and continue to enjoy the game of baseball, the team has been successful.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
Jeff ...

Part of our difference in views may be based on how youth ball is handled in our respective areas. All the kids play LL here. The majors league was so loaded with talent when my son played, the less talented kids went out for a nearby independent league. We didn't have anyone who didn't know how to throw, catch and hit. There may have been varying degrees of fundamental skills, but everyone was competent. A majority of the LL was also playing some level of travel whether it was USSSA or community based. When my son was eleven in LL he was facing four pitchers from the 12U state USSSA champions.

Note: Of those four pitchers, only two is still pitching as sophs in high school. One is rated a 9 by PG. Two blew out their arms. One was a big kid who could break a brick wall with a fastball relative to 12U. He never got bigger, stronger or more skilled. He's out of baseball altogether.

You and I are getting closer to understanding each other. We are not in the same place with rec ball. My league will not allow playing up other than you can move to machine pitch at 6. From there, you have to play in your age group.
Our LL is terrible. My oldest son umpires the 11-12 and the #2 and #3 team in the league played each other the last week of the season. THey pitched #1 and #2 pitchers. There were 32 walks between them and he had a WIDE strike zone. They got beat in all-stars by 20 runs in each game.
They will not let you play LL and any travel ball. So the better players go travel ball all the way down to the younger kids 7 and 8.
Some of you talk about travel in the summer, don't know if it was you or JakeP. That is not an option here. You either play LL or travel. Our LL season goes until the last week of June, when most travel teams are already beginning to finish up here.
I understand people on here come from widely different areas and when we use certain terms it means different things.
To me there is a big difference between rec and travel and then elite travel. Rec here means no travel, only within your league. Travel is a separate thing and means you play within 2 hours of home, for us it means tri-cities tournaments or Knoxville. Elite is the 15-20 top teams in any age group in the nation that travels around the US to play. Some of these actually pay up to $1500 a weekend in expenses to fly in certain players. These are normally, SOCal, NorCal, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and maybe a few other teams. When you talk of these teams, you are not talking players from a geography but players from wherever. I will say that these are where the better players are, not best. I do not agree with this concept. I think it is too much too young. I had a team willing to pay my son's and my expenses to fly to Orlando for a week all meals, flight, and motel. I have to question whether some of this is actually legal in a player keeping his amateur status. I know of a 14U pitcher from Canada last year that would play for any team at $2500 a weekend. He played on 6 teams and played every weekend. This is over the top.
Again, this is not what we are doing with our 7/8 year old team. All of the players are within 2 hours of each other. All games are within that range. We will play a limited schedule with controlled practices by unpaid coaches who have proven experience. I like the fact that all the kids want to be there and want to get better. I hated last year because we had 3 players that would not show up at practice and the parents would tell you that they did not want to be there but they were making them. I could do nothing about it but play them.
I hope that we have not in our discussions scared some parents that their players need to play a higher level off from travel ball. It is not for everyone but in some place and in some situations it is for some.

quote:

RJM: If your son is 5'2'' at 13 years old. 5'10" might be his final hight. Where do you get the 6'2" projection?

He has a late May birthday. So when he played 13U, by the new date he was technically a twelve year old. He was 5'4" when he started the 14U season. He's three months from his fifteenth birthday and is now 5'10". The peditrician predicts 6'2" or taller. So does the sports ortho specialist who x-rayed his growth plates. His sister went from 4'8" to 5"10" in eighteen months as a late bloomer. I'm the shortest male on either side of the family at 6'1". His mother is 5'8". Those online charts also don't account for growth spurts or consider if a kid has aleady had one that year. At one point my son grew five inches in five weeks. One week he grew an inch.

quote:

Originally posted by 3FingeredGlove:

quote:

Originally posted by JakeP:
Remember the stat from the NCAA 1:16,000 HS players play professionally. While we each think we have the one it is more likely we have one of the remaining 15,999.

Alright Jake, you're being pulled over by the factoid police. To see just how ridiculous the 1/16000 "stat" is consider that there are about 7-8 million boys of high school age in the US. If everyone last one of them played HS baseball, and only 1/16000 made it into professional baseball, that would be 500 boys, or perhaps 150-200 per year. In reality, in any year less than 500,000 play any kind of HS baseball, and less than 150,000 seniors play HS baseball. Your "stat" is off by close to a factor of 100.

According to our very own website, 1 in 200 of HS seniors who play on their HS teams will be drafted. Of all the kids who are playing HS baseball this year in any grade 9-12,roughly 1 in 600 will play professionally. Probability

Indeed, the odds of playing professionally are long--even at 1/200 of HS senior ball players.

Here's the site from th NCAA. According to this my number http://www.ncaa.org/research/prob_of_competing/
I believe my number may have considered all pro sports. I'll check.

1:200 HS seniors get drafted. We would have to look at how many gets drafted and how many make the 750 spots in MLB.

Estimated Probability of Competing in Athletics Beyond the High School Interscholastic Level
More interesting would be an analysis of the ratio of 12 y/o's making it. This might get us closer to the 1:16,000

quote:

Some of you talk about travel in the summer, don't know if it was you or JakeP. That is not an option here. You either play LL or travel. Our LL season goes until the last week of June, when most travel teams are already beginning to finish up here.

When my son was nine and ten his Ripken League finished my mid June. Then he played on a community based travel team. At eleven and twelve, LL ended by mid June, but all-stars went into August so that eliminated summer play. He did play USSSA Sunday doubleheaders and two tournaments concurrently with the LL season. The USSSA team played a couple of tournaments in late July but he missed them due to all-stars.

Most of the strong LL all-star programs here have their kids playing travel ball. It gets them ready for more challenging competition. But I'll emphasize the travel following rec ball was extended play, not for development. I didn't have any issue with my son dominating rec leagues in the preteen years. He had a good time. His mechanics would have been the same had he played travel exclusively. I look at the 60/90 field as where the game truly begins to show whether a kid can play the game or not.

Coach BWWWW,
I loved the height predicter. The first one couldn't calculate my son's height because he was above the 97th percentile and the second one based on parents height said he would be 1/2 inch shorter than he is right now. Do you have any more sites? That gave me a nice chuckle on a crazy Friday. I would really like to know how fat I am going to get.

quote:

Originally posted by Doughnutman:
Coach BWWWW,
I loved the height predicter. The first one couldn't calculate my son's height because he was above the 97th percentile and the second one based on parents height said he would be 1/2 inch shorter than he is right now. Do you have any more sites? That gave me a nice chuckle on a crazy Friday. I would really like to know how fat I am going to get.

That predictor is based on the growth chart of boy 2-20 yr old. Most kids follow the chart closely. It takes 5-7 years growth to determine which percentile your kids will follow. If your kid already grew "out of the chart", he can't use this
chart. Although it will not indictate a growth spurts during a month or two, it's pretty accurate when measuring on yearly bases. My son's body growth is very closely follow the 95th percentile line, he's been growing like this since 7 yr old. I measured him on his birthday once a year. So, I am pretty confident where he is going after the puberty.

BTW, My son on his 14th Birthday is 5'9", he is projected to be 6'1.7" as an adult. I believe it's pretty close to my expectation. I would not surprised if his growth stops at 6' or tops out at 6'3"....

Shouldn't I get some extra ranking for stirring the pot up enough to have the longest thread in 2 years on this section. There has been some good discussion and some heated discussion. Again, I hope that those who are just reading realize that everyone has their opinion on youth baseball. That is why some of us have been here for a long time. We learn from each other and develop relationships, good and bad. You may agree with someone on one point and not the next.

quote:

Originally posted by Doughnutman:
Coach BWWWW,
Do you have any more sites? That gave me a nice chuckle on a crazy Friday. I would really like to know how fat I am going to get.

Here is the Link of Boys 2-20 yrs Growth Chart:

http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/growthcharts/boystwoyears.gif

If you are under 20, you may use this chart to find out whether you are over weight or not. IMO, the perfect body should have the similar percentile in both Hight and Weight.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Connell:
Shouldn't I get some extra ranking for stirring the pot up enough to have the longest thread in 2 years on this section. There has been some good discussion and some heated discussion. Again, I hope that those who are just reading realize that everyone has their opinion on youth baseball. That is why some of us have been here for a long time. We learn from each other and develop relationships, good and bad. You may agree with someone on one point and not the next.

You got five check marks. Do I get one for being a sparring partner?

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Connell:
Shouldn't I get some extra ranking for stirring the pot up enough to have the longest thread in 2 years on this section. There has been some good discussion and some heated discussion. Again, I hope that those who are just reading realize that everyone has their opinion on youth baseball. That is why some of us have been here for a long time. We learn from each other and develop relationships, good and bad. You may agree with someone on one point and not the next.

You got five check marks. Do I get one for being a sparring partner?

Sure. I've sure got a few other things that would get this thing going again that I'm sure would keep us until real baseball kicks in. My older two started practice today since basketball ended last night. Have a scrimmage tomorrow.

Did they miss the beginning of baseball practice due to basketball? Were they allowed to practice with the baseball team while playing basketball?

In PA we can't start baseball until March 1 with the season starting March 24. Basketball ends the last week of February for the State Final Four and freshman basketball.

The baseball team has "informal, optional" workouts. My son has been at baseball practice at 5:45am, then school, then basketball. One night a week it's followed by travel basketball practice. Another night he has "optional" s****r practice. Plus he has plenty of homework most nights. When we drive home from the Friday night basketball games (triple header between frosh, JV and varsity) he passes out in the car every time.

Jeff, I have to razz you on this one. How is it that two Rivals.com preseason All-Americans playing their ball in Tennessee (Vanderbilt) are from Maine and New York?

This argument seems silly.
Play your kids where you want.
Everyones situation is different based on what teams are available to them,what the child or parents interest are and how much time and money do you want to spend.
Here in my area while son was growing up, there was only LL and it was coached by dads with limited baseball knowledge. At 13 there was some legion and local travel ball, again limited instruction, these teams were better than most high school teams.

Son didn't learn the proper way to throw the ball or to properly field until he was in the minor leagues. While learning the proper way to throw has saved his arm he believes NOT having instruction in fielding while he was a kid made him a better short stop)

What is the best route to take in baseball.. Don't know if it matters. How far your son advances depends on how much he loves the game and how much talent he has.

This has GOT to be one of the biggest loads of bull manure I've seen this side of the hitting forum, if we spread it right we'll have some healthy crops!
Actually, there's a good bit of info here, just a lot of the brown stuff mixed in.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
Did they miss the beginning of baseball practice due to basketball? Were they allowed to practice with the baseball team while playing basketball?

In PA we can't start baseball until March 1 with the season starting March 24. Basketball ends the last week of February for the State Final Four and freshman basketball.

The baseball team has "informal, optional" workouts. My son has been at baseball practice at 5:45am, then school, then basketball. One night a week it's followed by travel basketball practice. Another night he has "optional" s****r practice. Plus he has plenty of homework most nights. When we drive home from the Friday night basketball games (triple header between frosh, JV and varsity) he passes out in the car every time.

They did not go to baseball until today because the basketball team lost Thursday night. They have been throwing on their own but nothing with the varsity baseball.
They do not let you do two sports here. You have to wait until one is over to do the other. Plus the baseball team has been practicing the same time as the basketball team.
They loved basketball but are glad to get to baseball.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:

quote:

My 7 year old played 8U machine pitch last year and batted 1.000. He never got out. Stole 87 bases and got thrown out 1 time. All of this as a 6 year old.

You've just described half the site's poster's kids at age seven.

LOL, I'm confused. Was he 6 or 7 when the Cubs drafted him?

quote:

Originally posted by YHF:

quote:

Originally posted by JakeP:

quote:

My 12 yr old comes to me every day to help him with shoulder exercises due to mobility issues and inflammation in his rotator cuff tendons in his throwing shoulder. There hasn't been one single day I've had to remind him or make him do his exercises.

You make my point...

Thanks for not addressing the really important stuff in my post, which I assume you don't have much of a reply for.

I knew you would fall for that but didn't realize TR and others would do the same. You know what they say when you "assume" something.


Heated ultrasound for the inflammation and stretching and small weighted stuff for the range of motion and loss of strength.

I know how much it hurts him to do the exercises, but he still does them everyday. He wants to play really bad. But not in Little League.

Now, let's get back to the really important stuff...you guys telling us what's best for our kids.

I would consider the shoulder injury you mentioned being important. I guess you were trying to mislead the other members here? They fell for it? What?

Who is doing the exam on the scapular motion? Yeah, I know you dont think that is important her on the board but injury treatment is something that I feel trumps everything else in the post.

Heated Ultrasound huh? To treat inflammation? Exercises that cause pain? Sounds like its time to see someone who knows what they are doing as far as treating your son's shoulder.

Sounds like you need to mind your own business. My son is now pain free and has full range of motion, after 3-4 weeks of this horrible physical therapy. He still does the exercises at home on days he doesn't throw. He's also on a prescribed throwing program (std. interval program used after TJ surgery).

His orthopedist did my knee surgery a few years ago and has done dozens of surgeries for MLB and other professional athletes. We used their affiliated physical therapists based on his suggestion. I'm just guessing here but I suspect they know more than you.

Who are you people?