i find coaching tee-ball more rewarding and fun than the older ages. this will be my last year coaching tee-ball (actually it is coach-pitch) and my daughter will move on to fast-pitch softball next year, and i am going to miss it. what i find rewarding is seeing all the kids i coached in tee-ball now playing at the higher levels and feeling that in a small way i helped them. some of them have really turned into good players, and they will still stop and say "hi, coach mofo" and remember.

coaching the 11-12 year olds is fun, but is is a whole new level of stress that im just not sure i am cut out for. we have a good group of kids (minus one now, i guess) who are coachable and pull for each other, but it is the crazy parents that concern me. i think this town has a higher concentration of crazy than i have ever been around before, and i am still getting used to it.

So, I'm to guess that he'll delete the thread soon?

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Why bother? Your team has no chance against the Lakeview all-stars...

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Practice rained out agaiin yesterday. Hope we get our game in tomorrow.

Im not working on these spray charts and batting order algorithms for nothing.

I'm not at that level yet. I was hoping the "travel team" industry would weed out those types of parents from park district leagues.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

It might be worse now.

The dickhead parents are still there, except now they are just parents of the un-talented children.

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not even close. its the parents of the good players who are dicks. half of these parents are my friends. but still being dicks, the bad kids parents say nothing.
and we have moved on to lil league. this will be my last year. huge pain in the ass.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

"good players"

Most of the kids out there are more concerned with picking the dandelions.

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Not true. At the 7 yo level there are a couple of kids that don't pay attention but the majority are either focused, want to learn, want to play, good, or want to make their coach happy.

At the 7 year old level they shouldn't be hitting off a tee. It should be kid pitch or coach pitch by that point.

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Coach pitch starts at 5. And taking the kids personalities/attention span out of the discussion for a minute - coach pitch is one of the hardest things ever. You have to pitch to a person that is 1/2 the size of you from about 20 feet away. You can't wind up/follow through, so it's more like throwing darts with a baseball and expecting a novice hitter to hit something that isn't following a flat path.

No wonder the kids can't pay attention for very long.......

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Not everywhere.

Where we play T Ball is 4.5 to 7. (7 year olds can play in the actual baseball league if they want)

So if coach pitch is at 5, is there T Ball at all?

4-5

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Can't you underhand toss it in?

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First of all you gotta brush the little fucker back. Thats your (Spanky's) plate!

Tball is 3-5, coach/kid pitch is 5/6 on up. At 3 and 4 its more about socialization though.

My fiancee's cousin just turned 5, and they do 3 inning games- first inning is off the tee, second 2 innings are coach pitch. The usually lob it up there underhanded which seems to work.

Kids shouldn't be playing Tball at 7 years old.

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I hate to be the one to ask this question, but how many line drives have drilled Spanky in the head so far? That glove he is wearing can't cover the whole thing.

He might want to have a chat with Mickey Hatcher:

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Coach pitch, 6 on 6, hour max, 3 out or 3 run inning, single base advance at our PD. I was skeptical but it is working out better than I thought. It has helped them stay more involved with what is going on but there isn't a focus problem when we play regular baseball.

6 on 6?

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It's harder for them to judge the ark.

Coach pitch in our league is 3 innings, everybody bats each inning. If the kids doesn't hit the ball after 5-6 pitches, they bring out the tee.

I use my head to my advantage. Nobody will ever get a line drive hit back up the middle on me. My WHIP is pretty respectable.

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No outfield. Not many hit it out there anyway. What gets through the infield they go get.

Well, its obviously different everywhere. Are you talking about Oak Lawn?


I think 3 is a little young. I mean not that it would be harmful to the kid, but seems a bit young to me.

Thats gotta be embarrassing for the kid. Id rather just take my strikeout.

Evergreen Park in this instance. I remember playing Tball at age 4-5, and by 6 it was kid pitch. Lots of walks back in those days...

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3 seems really, really young. 4 was pretty much a nightmare as it was. I know they don't hit/throw that hard, but pretty much most 4 year olds don't pay attention - there was a lot of kids getting hit with the ball/near misses.

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Most of them seem to prefer the tee in a way - they can swing for the fences (ok, edge of the dirt) when it's on a tee. Most of them have slow/over-controlled swings when it's pitched.

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They don't need it much, most can make contact. I think in a 2 hour game this past weekend it was only brought out 2 or 3 times.

Where's the Ark now?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

T-ball 4-6 here, and the 4 year olds should not be there, just about the money. 7/8 is machine or coach pitch, they get 5 swings if they don't hit it they bring out the tee. When my son was 8 to the better kids the 2nd half of the season, we made them play by the baseball rules of 3 swings and you are out. To teach them baseball and that you are going to strike out. Kid pitch starts at 9/10. When I played many moons ago, it was kid pitch starting at 7.

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2018
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