Dispatch from rec all-star hell

[Shark]

How do you get away with playing rec allstars and travel ball at the same time?

[dustyshoes]

One advantage (amongst a great many) TB coaches have is time. They can spend weeks, months or sometimes years getting to know players, tinkering with lineups and figuring out who can perform in various situations. Rec All-Star coaches have two or three weeks to work with a team they quite often do not pick themselves and then they enter a tourney (sometimes double-elim with random seeding) in which they must succeed immediately or be done for 11 months. About 4 or 5 of their players will be in positions they didn't play all summer, the players aren't used to each other or their coaches, and the coaches aren't used to each other, either. Everyone is trying to shove as much instruction as possible into a severely-limited prep time while also trying to evaluate the talent and juggle mandatory playing time rules.

In short, it's an environment which almost guarantees chaos, poor decisions and hurt feelings. Rec programs have a great purpose (recreate and introduce the game to kids) and once each year they abandon that concept and try to turn themselves into quasi-travel programs almost overnight. The gears rarely mesh well.

You pretty much nailed it for me. I don't think DD's coach is a jerk or anything, I just think the approach taken to this point has been misguided and will only produce worse results if continued. I've seen enough of one of the "control" pitchers getting significant innings now to know that her accuracy will be short-lived, she'll get hit hard once and then become slow, wild and even more mechanically inept. I find myself wanting to talk to her coach but realize it could compound problems rather than help them because no coach likes an armchair parent/coach.

Meanwhile, over on another channel there's this related discussion going on. I don't swim in this particular pool but I know many of you do. I'm tempted to start swearing off softball message boards altogether as the advice given just confuses me and contradicts what little I've learned over the years (all 3 of them). It's probably just as well that I have no idea what anyone is talking about in most hitting threads.

http://www.eteamz.com/fastpitch/boards/ ... id=2073245

Re; the video clip. I do tend to agree with the notion that newbies should develop proper mechanics first before being concerned with accuracy but the notion of hitting your spots by altering the direction of your stride sounds pretty whack to me.

[3'sDad]

Shark: LL just altereed the rule about playing outside of LL during the All-Star Tournament, so many players who do travel can now compete...Jofus & I discussed this about 2 weeks ago.

DD plays 12 U LL during the season, but had to drop down for the 10U All-Star season as she is only 10...she played on the 12U town travel team and is learning to play a new position for All-Star season...she is excited to play All-Stars and most of her team mates have asked her how do do certain things they are working on in practice to date.....so far so good.

[jofus]

How do you get away with playing rec allstars and travel ball at the same time?

Well, if you mean get way with because of the rules, Little League changed their rule about dual participation...


From the little league bulletin http://www.littleleague.org/media/tourn ... ins_08.asp

"Participation in Other Programs - The rule that prohibits players from participating in non-Little League programs (dual participation), once Little League tournament play has begun, has been rescinded at all levels of play for baseball and softball. However, the local Little League retains the right to dismiss a player from a tournament team if the player repeatedly misses games and practices."


If you mean her travel team letting her, or time management-wise, my DD's travel team is allowing the girls to play all-stars, even encouraging it, so they can play with their friends and support their local area ball, while they slow down a little on the travel tournaments. We're probably going to have to shuffle some, and/or drive back and forth a couple weekends, but hopefully it all works out.

[NoNothin]

How do you get away with playing rec allstars and travel ball at the same time?

Well, if you mean get way with because of the rules, Little League changed their rule about dual participation...


From the little league bulletin http://www.littleleague.org/media/tourn ... ins_08.asp

"Participation in Other Programs - The rule that prohibits players from participating in non-Little League programs (dual participation), once Little League tournament play has begun, has been rescinded at all levels of play for baseball and softball. However, the local Little League retains the right to dismiss a player from a tournament team if the player repeatedly misses games and practices."


If you mean her travel team letting her, or time management-wise, my DD's travel team is allowing the girls to play all-stars, even encouraging it, so they can play with their friends and support their local area ball, while they slow down a little on the travel tournaments. We're probably going to have to shuffle some, and/or drive back and forth a couple weekends, but hopefully it all works out.

A girl in Vegas just got disqualified from playing on her allstar team (two days before the state allstar tourney) because she practiced with a travel team about a month ago. This poor girl missed out on a great life experience and is now too late to get on a travel ball team for the end of season tourneys. When we played ball in SoCal there were several girls that played TB and Rec and at a certain date they had to declare themselves as allstar candidates or TB players. I wish Vegas/Nevada would get thier act together. Maybe they would start being competitive with other states. JMHWO

NoNo

[Tucson]

I know for a fact that all the AllStar girls have to do here, is not play TB games, after their AllStar games start.

I am happy to have read that exemption. I will print it out.

[jofus]

I called our regional Little League office last year to ask about the rule, and they said that they could play in other tournaments up until the first game of all-stars, and then couldn't play in any other games until their team was out of all-stars. In WV, the ASA state tournament is the same weekend that all-stars games start (next weekend), and a team that my DD had played a tournament with earlier wanted her to play in the ASA tournament, but her first game was that Saturday night, and they needed someone that could play on Sunday too.

Thankfully they got rid of that rule.

I guess local leagues can have a rule against it, but imho you could fight it since it's not an official rule anymore. Obviously travel teams can make their own rules, but I'm glad my DD's team doesn't take that approach.

[NoNothin]

I think the problem lies within the local association. It's an ASA rec league not Little League. Rec leagues in SoCal don't have the same rules as Nevada.

NoNo

[fosterspoint]

I had a similar experience with my DD last year in 10U All Stars, except that I was the coach. My DD could throw fairly hard, but not accurate enough to get three strikes most of the time. My DD pitched, but gave up a couple runs per inning due to walks. I have to agree that the umps were not as liberal with strikes for the girls who throw hard, maybe I am just a prejudiced parent. It seemed like every batter had a 3-2 count, and a close pitch that was called a ball.

There was some parent grumbling, so we tried almost every other pitcher. None were able to throw consistent strikes, so we lost miserably even though we were not as bad as the scores would indicate. If we had a girl who could throw slow strikes, we would have used her for the remainder of the tournament.

To top it off, we had coached our girls to be aggressive and hit the ball. We told them that they were there to hit, not to walk. We told them that they would learn more and get better practice by trying to hit anything close to the plate, so they were swinging at anything close, just like we told them. The other teams were not so aggressive, many girls did not look like they were planning to swing at anything. Our girls hit pretty well, of course there were some strikeouts and walks thrown in, but mostly they put the ball in play. It is hard to score earned runs by getting three or four hits in an inning, so we did not score many runs.

I still believe that the pitchers who throw hard are going to be better in the long run. The girls who are aggressive and try to hit anything close will be better off than those who look for a walk. But that is not the winning strategy for 10U All Stars. Very few pitchers in 10U rec can throw hard and consistent, so the team that waits for a walk will score more runs and win the games. It is an ugly game when both sides just stand there and walk around the bases. I really think the umpires should expand the strike zone for any 10U rec game, including All Stars.

My DD made the switch to 12U Travel this spring. She took some pitching lessons over the winter, but she was far behind the rest of the team. She started the season as probably the #5 pitcher, which means that she never pitched. She had to spend a lot of extra practice time with her fielding and hitting to catch up to everyone else, so there was not much time to practice pitching.

We are going to keep trying to pitch since she is one of two travel players who will be at her school. We will take some lessons this summer, and try to get a few innings on the mound this fall. If she can get consistent, and develop a pitch with movement, she should be able to move up to #3 or #2 on her travel team next spring. It is a long road ahead with a lot of practice and bucket time.

[3'sDad]

fosterpoint: Our girls are taught to play the same why your team plyaed last year....in fact, in practice as the all-star season wore on they were running laps if they took any BP pitch that resembled a strike...misses were fine, no bat on the shoulders.

Our girls got to the District finals, where the team that won was selective at hitting pitches....at 10U anything close should be a strike and get the girls in the habit of swinging, but your correct, that's not how the game is played.

DD will pitch as much as possible for the 10U team, although she is adjusting to the 11" ball, so the release point is still off a bit.....the flip side is pitching from 35' versus 40' like she did all year makes the fastball quicker....the 11" ball also makes the change-up easier to throw as she can grip the ball better.