re: Travel teams eroding community baseball

Everybody plays killed community baseball. Travel teams will run their course and we will have gone full circle - next five years. Some alternatives that I have heard of are select teams that practice almost year round and form their own league staying local. Next step should be leagues with true tryouts and cuts - and no minimum play requirement.

That's what I'm saying. Have them get proper mechanics young and then they don't have to relearn anything. They excel.

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I am pro this amount. Summer fall winter spring ball is not happening for mine.

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the vast majority of travel ballers even the so called elites

play from march to july.. about 3 or sometimes 3 weekends per month.

this perception of year round baseball is mythical... very very few play year round

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You're saying early development isn't important, and you may very we'll be right with baseball. I honestly have no idea.

What is fact, however, is that in the 60's and 70's, TI programs were implemented in several eastern bloc countries. TI stands for talent identification, and they screen kids. They have specific tests they do for the kids, and the few that excel are trained as athletes.

Over 80% of their Olympians in coming years came from their TI program.

There's a country famous for sprinters (that May or may not have doped, just to get that out there) that does the same thing.

Jamaica trains their fastest kids to be sprinters. Usain bolt was part of the Jamaican TI program.

There is a window of opportunity from about 6-9 to teach proper technique. You assumed I meant for baseball. I was talking about running motion.

Sure it can be fixed later but it's much harder.

All the studies back up the claim that although you may be really good at something, you could have been better if you picked the basics up young.

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You realize how many destroyed egos they would have if the US had a TI program? And I'm talking about parents not the kids haha.

But seriously I know of at least a couple programs who are very successful that use their own form of TI with athletes.

Yeah you would have a lot of destroyed egos. I guess I'm talking track. Fast is fast. If your kid can run/jump with the best kids regionally and nationally, don't you think that deserves extra attention (assuming the kid enjoys it.)

The kids that have to be untaught bad habits is a problem with the coach and not the age of the player. Proper glove placement when catching a ball thrown at you, on ground balls, or on pop ups can easily be taught a young age. Teaching a tball team that there are positions on the field and that it is not a 'free for all' when the ball is hit is important. Teaching them how to run the bases(not stopping on first every time) can be taught at that age. Teaching them to stand in the proper place with the ball out in front of them(towards the pitcher) when batting is important. These are all things a 9 year old should have been exposed to. I also find that my players that play multiple sports at a young age pick up on things faster than the ones that don't. Those kids are working out their brain muscle and learning how to adapt to different situations all the time. The same kid that stands out in soccer b/c he understands how the game is played and is not just running and kicking, is the same kid that will catch on to strategies in baseball much faster.

I don't have a practice without going over base running. Don't run one of the drills correct and the whole team starts over. Someone else does it wrong, the team takes a lap around the field to clear their heads and talk to each other about why it is important to pay attention. Don't run out a hit ball and you can go sit with your parents in the stands since you like watchingbaseball so much. Baseball fundamentals have nothing to do with the level of competition you are playing against, and everything to do with how it is presented. Kids need a good structured environment to learn in and a teacher/coach that understands it is a process. If we are all learning and progressing, we will have fun. If we have knuckle heads that want to interrupt learning, we will be the most in shape team that can't catch fly balls.