Little League baseball provides basics for future players
It happens every Spring.
At least it has happened the last few Springs for me when I’ve watched my grandsons play youth baseball. Be aware that it’s not travel baseball, just plain, ordinary 10 and 12 year old kids with maybe a traveling all star sprinkled in. There are things that I don’t understand.
Take the base stealing, for example.
Why are kids this age stealing bases? The catchers that I’ve seen can barely reach second base with a throw. I’ve seen quite a few games the last few years and have yet to see one runner thrown out trying to steal.
Not one.
A kid gets on first and within a pitch or two, the ball gets away from the catcher and he runs to second with no throw being made. Another pitch or two and he heads for third uncontested. How is this good for kids who are trying to learn the game?
Stealing a base requires no skill other than running upright.
If every kid who gets to first automatically ends up on second, how do infielders ever grasp the concept of a force out, much less learn to execute one?
How do kids learn to be good base runners?
Wouldn’t it make more sense, make the games go faster and be a better education for the kids if stealing were not allowed until they reached an age when a catcher can actually make the throw to second base?
Then there’s the pitching.
I know I played baseball in prehistoric times, but I seem to remember that you didn’t get to pitch in a game until you proved that you could, you know, pitch.
That meant that the same two or three kids did all the pitching. but it also meant that the games were over before the parents’ clothes went out of style and, more importantly, young hitters saw more pitches that they actually had a chance of hitting. The ball was in play more and kids got more opportunities to make plays.
Now, apparently, if you want to pitch, you pitch, regardless of your ability to get the ball anywhere near the plate.
Is this part of the everybody gets to play every position mentality? When did that start? I seem to remember that, by the time you were 12, you knew whether you were better at fielding grounders or catching fly balls. You knew if you were better suited for centerfield than second base.
Maybe there are perfectly good answers to these questions. I’m all ears.
– During his wildly popular Coaches Corner segment on the CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada telecast last week, noted hockey Neanderthal Don Cherry said that it’s “open season” on NHL stars and he used a video of Columbus Blue Jackets center Brandon Dubinsky (he called him Dublinsky) roughing up Sidney Crosby to prove his point. The video shows one sequence where Crosby is interfered with, cross checked and slew-footed without a penalty being called.
Cherry asked his Canadian audience to try to imagine that happening to Wayne Gretzky. His point was that the institution of the instigator rule in the NHL has eliminated the enforcer who could make an opponent pay for roughing up his team’s star player.
That might have something to do with Crosby’s and Evgeni Malkin’s lack of production through the first four games. Maybe it also explains why, through the first four games of Round One, not one of the top 10 scorers in the regular season was among the top 10 scorers in the playoffs.
And why Claude Giroux of the Flyers, the league’s third leading scorer, whose coach referred to him as the best player in the world a few years ago, had two shots on goal and two assists through the first three games against the New York Rangers. Or why the fourth leading scorer, Tyler Seguin of Dallas had one goal and one assist going into Game 5 against the Anaheim Ducks. Fifth leading scorer Corey Perry of Anaheim had one goal and one assist after four games against the Stars. The league’s second leading scorer, Ryan Getzlaf of Anaheim had two goals and two assists in three games and was the most productive of the top 10 scorers going into the weekend.
– Something else that confuses me every Spring: The people in the media who predict a Penguins’ series win in six or seven games and then become apoplectic when the Penguins lose the two games that they would have to lose for their prediction to come true.
– Gregory Polanco is making a mockery of AAA pitching and is being called the best prospect in baseball. The Pirates went into the weekend hitting .229 as a team. Polanco’s been well over .400 all season and is already a very good defensive outfielder. He tore up Spring training for the Pirates and was one of the best players in the Dominican Winter League. He should have been the Pirates right fielder on Opening Day. No matter what.