Anyone have any experiences with politics in youth baseball on rec teams or travel teams? Crazy as it sounds you almost have better luck outside your own community unless you're the coach or a friend of the coach.

Politics in youth baseball.......like the poor, it will always be with you....But its not lmited to youth or travel ball, it extends to all sports at all levels....it exists in all facets of the game (including umpiring).....

The best tool to beat politics is to perform....the higher in baseball you go the more coaches need to win, so performance will win out.....

There will always be some controversy about who makes the All Star team etc. We did have one experience that soured us about one particular league. When my son was 9 our local city rec program was behind the times. The program for the 9/10 year olds was still machine pitch. In order to play "real" baseball we went to the neighboring town's Pony League. It was a lot of fun until one evening in the league's post season tournament. Our team was playing the league president's son's team. The game had started 45 minutes late due to finding a flooded 3rd baseline. In the bottom of the last inning (due to time limit, not # of innings)we scored 2 runs to win by 1 so we thought. The league president came out and said another inning needed to be played. Besides bothering us just a little it irritated waiting teams and parents whose game was now going to be over an hour late in starting and would be threatened by darkness. In the new inning the other team scored 2 to take the lead again. In our at bat we got a couple of base runners so they decided to intentionally walk one of our better hitters. This upset a parent in the stands who was waiting for the next game. He called out "this is B*** S***". The president came out and told the guy he had to leave and that we would forfiet because of his actions. It took several minutes to convince the president that the fan had no relationship to our team. Finally when play resumed our next batter hit a grounder to the shortstop who booted it, 2 runs scored and we won. Ironically the shortstop was the president's son. It was an ugly scene that 9 and 10 year olds didn't need to experience all because of the ego of this league president.

no doubt you'll find some favoritism

there are several ways to counteract it ... but ... none of them work

my suggestion

make sure your son is a hard worker
work with your son alot
when it's your turn for treats, don't skimp
when the field needs work be there
praise the coaches son

also it's a HUGE advantage if you know someone with access to a helicopter for drying wet fields

JMO

There are politics in all levels of baseball. So don't think they end when you are out of youth baseball. I have also seen them at the HS and college level.

IMO "politics" is the most overused word in all of youth sports. Of course if you ask the guy you are spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars with to train your kid they may not give the most accurate view of his or her skills. If in fact you are relying on your own judgement make sure you understand what coaches in that sport at that level look for. Better yet, spend a little time observing a few practices before chalking up your kids experience to "politics". Is he the one wrestling instead of fielding?
Practices are when positions typically are won or lost. Politics do exist, but not to the extent many believe.

The Best way to avoid politics.....



WORK HARDER THAN EVERYONE ELSE!

my kid doesnt play because of politics. this statement is heard all the time. often its ****. youth coaches arent looking to screw yuor kid over. they simply have a different opinion on things. and often there opinion is right because i have yet to talk a baseball dad with an accurate view of his kid's abilities. the other thing you have to remember is...great coaches coach highschool, college and pro ball. great coaches give private lessons and make money off of it. great coaches do not coach 12 y/o baseball. people need to stop excepting coaches at these levels to be great talent evaluaters, they are usually just dads who like baseball. "politics" is the most overused word out there in this situation.

Politics or whatever you want to call it? Just deal with it eventually if you have talent it will work out. Been there done that

I asked a kid how baseball is going. He said he quit. I asked why. He said he was not getting a fair shake because of (fill in the blank). I said is that the way you handle it. His response was I am not a bench player. I told him now he was not a player at all. Blank stare. Welcome to the new breed.

I agree . Ball players get past it. Quiters quit. It is only a matter of time.

Will, your "blank stare" made me laugh out loud!
My oldest wanted to play for an 18u team and they pretty much told us they'd be doing us a huge favor and put him on the roster but he probably would not get to play much all season. He then went to another team in the same league and they said they'd LOVE to have him! For that team he played every game! He batted 3rd in the order, played 3rd base,Lf, and was in the pitching rotation as a starter. His team won the league championship, got huge rings and we beat the team that he wasn't good enough to play on by the outrageous score of 21-3.
My youngest son was the best pitcher on his 10u fall team and only got to pitch 2 innings all season because the coach didn't like him. I love the kid, but I can see where he might rub some people the wrong way.(very confident little rascal) I had other coaches tell me that they told their team that they were lucky that we didn't throw our best pitcher! I know that often it's because a parent does not have a clue about their kids ability, but I also know that sometimes the coach just doesn't like you or you're not in his little clique so you're not going to get a chance. Sometimes you don't fit that particular coaches "profile". I guess if you're good enough you just keep working and hope the right person will give you a chance. By the way, my youngest now 12 played on a good 14u fall team (when he was 11)and pitched (you guessed it) 2 innings, but this time it was because the coach LIKED him, not because he deserved it!

bobbleheaddoll

This was a high school situation so maybe a little different.

let your son ply the game on the field and you play the game off the field it is just how it works

I think it helps quite a bit if the parents show the coach respect and do whatever they can to help, setting a good example for the kid and hopefully the kid does likewise. But there's always going to be times when none of that or the kids ability seems to matter, and the best thing you can do is just work harder, learn something from it, and move on.

When my son was 12 years old, we moved to another town about 1-1/2 hours away. He had been playing select baseball for several years up to that time. There was also a Dixie league in this new town and the kids at school asked him if he wanted to play in their league. He decided to so he could get some extra playing time. He still continued to play on the select team in the town we used to live in. Well, at that time, he was very big for his age and threw the ball very hard. At 12 years old in Dixie ball, the pitcher's mound is 46' from home plate. He was throwing 70mph at the time. From 46' this seemed like 100mph to these country kids. He blew through the league winning every start and his team made the playoffs. He gave up something like 10 hits and had around 80 strikeouts.

Here's where things get interesting. They started the playoffs and his team kept winning. It boiled down to the finals and the commissioner for the 12 yr. old age group had a son coaching the other team and a grandson on the team as well. All during the regular season, there was a female umpire that would really squeeze my son when he was pitching, so much so that there was always a lot of people getting really mad about it. Come to find out, this girl was the daughter of the commissioner I mentioned earlier. Anyway, two days before we were to play the championship game, the commish made a call to my son's coach saying that he could no longer pitch because they found out that my son was playing on another team in our other town at the same time he was playing Dixie ball in our new town. Hmmmmm.......he'd been playing on this team all year and everyone in this town knew it, including the commish and nothing was ever said about it before this. Needless to say, we went balistic and called the state director's office and come to find out, the commish was the state director! We didn't think there was anything we could do.

After the commish got so much grief over all of this, at the beginning of the championship game, he got the microphone and announced to the crowd that he was sorry that he made a mistake and that my son could pitch.

He pitched a no-hitter and struck out 14 in the championship game. After the game, the All-Star teams were announced and the MVP's and all and he wasn't even picked for any of the awards. He was by far the best player in the league, hands down!! Everyone in the league knew it, but he got hosed on the awards and almost hosed on getting to pitch, so the commissioner's son's and grandson's team could win.

True story!!

Another politic story............same town...........my daughter is in 8th grade. Started on the A team in volleyball and basketball in the town we moved from in 7th grade and led the team in every stat. Got to this town and she is sitting the bench on the B team in both sports playing some. We moved back to our former town at the beginning of 9th grade and she was the starting outside hitter on the varsity. I'm talking a 4A Texas school. She got 2nd team all-district her freshman year in volleyball. Was defensive player of the year her sophomore year in the district!

I guess the other school was a little jealous of her ability and didn't care if she could play or not. "Nobody's gonna move in here and take one of our girls spots" is what we overheard some of the parents say at the time. This was a smaller 3A country school, too!

Man, were we glad to get out of that town!!