Remember to bring your camera to each game to take action photos
Forward these pics. to cubspics@westsidecubs.net
2010 Game Schedule Now Available
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Remember to bring your camera to each game to take action photos Forward these pics. to cubspics@westsidecubs.net 2010 Game Schedule Now Available
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Working with a Youth Baseball Trainer
Also when I was a kid, we learned baseball from Pete Rose and Johnny Bench. (I still remember my first head first slide-something that no major leaguer did before Pete Rose). Today, the trend is to take your child to a Professional Youth Trainer to work out and teach him the proper way to play baseball. Frankly, I don't know how Hank Aaron ever learned to hit the ball without a youth trainer. I have taken Logan to a number of trainers and each tinkered with his swing or pitching wind-up or fielding stance, but I soon realized baseball is filled with dozens of different styles and philosophies and all of them are successful based on the player-not the coach. One trainer had Logan hitting with the "squash the bug-no step" hitting
approach and Logan went from a very fine hitter to a very average hitter within
a few lessons. Another changed his wind-up and deliver and we lost all the
left-handed ball movement that he previously had when pitching. If a trainer tries to mold 50 kids into the same style, 48 kids may be mediocre and 2 may be special. This is probably not a very different ratio from boys who never visited a trainer, but loved baseball. The style a child uses is more dependent on the child, than the coach. The real advantage a trainer provides is "practice". Most kids get better with practice. I never fully realized this until recently. Professional baseball players may have their own trainer that understands "their" style and can "spot" changes in "their" style when they go through a slump. In the movie "Bull Durham", catcher Kevin Costner had their star pitcher making all kinds of changes to his delivery (including moving coins from his right pocket to left pocket). In the end, nothing was changed and the more work he got, the better he pitched. Logan recently joined a travel team in which they have an indoor facility for batting with 5 batting stations. With 2 boys at each station each boy hits for 5-minutes and rests (watches/listens) for 5-minutes. During a 2 hour practice each boy hits about 400 balls. After the second practice, Logan was crushing the ball. We really didn't do anything to his swing except stop him from stepping toward third base. However, having the opportunity to practice so much was better therapy than any trainer has ever provided. For some boys, this may be why trainers produce the positive results that many parents see. Simply having the opportunity to play ball makes them better. Kids will emulate other kids and major league ballplayers to learn their technique, but this cannot be accomplished without the opportunity to play baseball. When many of our coaches were kids, we could ride our bikes to the ballpark on any Saturday and find a pick-up game in progress. Kids would range in age from 7 to 14. There was always 9 "spotters" on each team watching for new kids riding up on bicycles. If a good kid rode up, a team would scream "We call Joe" and Joe would play on the team that claimed him first. To be a "winner" you had to have Eagle Eyes. It was difficult to keep your mind on the game and watch for new kids with gloves on bicycles and this was probably the first known example of "multi-tasking". If a team accumulated too many players, the team had to "trade" players in exchange for the new player (the Free Agency Era of baseball probably killed this part of the game). The make-up of the teams would change continuously as the day went on as some boys had to leave to cut the grass or perform chores, but you could expect a 9-10 hour game every Saturday. 100 or so runs scored by the winning team was not uncommon, but no one ever kept score. A parent doesn't necessarily have to invest in the expense of hiring a
personal trainer to coach your son. Simply investing in shared time with
your child is the most worthwhile investment you can make and you will begin to
see a stipend from this work. Your child's skill level will improve and
your relationship will become closer. Typically, you can learn everything
you need to to learn online about teaching baseball. While not all
parents have baseball skills and not all children possess these skills, baseball
is a game that anyone can learn to play and enjoy. For parents that do not
have these skills, a trainer may be a good solution, but not necessary.
You are never to old to learn baseball. There are still 60 and over
softball leagues in which men, who can barely walk around the bases, play for
the enjoyment and fellowship. |
Cubs Supporters
Polar Ice Express |
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Westside Youth Athletic Association Website Helton Genealogical DNA Project - Hilton Family Tree - http://hiltonfamilytree.com
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Today's game of Youth Baseball is a highly profitable enterprise. When
I was a kid there was more money to be made in adult softball tournaments.
Today, the money is in Youth Baseball Tournaments.
My 83 year old Uncle played into his 70's. 
