dummble said:

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8u coach pitch

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Ive used this for 4 years now. I still use it in 9u kid pitch but it take way more forethought with pitching changes

Example of how I fill it out, this was from 8u last year.

I was thinking of an app that he could run on the fly that would limit some players to certain positions, but I think it just needs to be preplanned since we usually know who is going to miss a game.

We had a chance to tie our 10u game last night...and the umpire called a ball on a swinging strike three!

Even the opposing coach and batter asked the ump for it to be a strikeout...but the ump stuck to his guns...full count and next ptich was the go ahead run! It was a full swing...not a check. full on miss from their leadoff hitter.



Times like that are where i enjoy rec ball. Not one parent or coach (me) lost it. We all tried to get it done right. Unfortunately it didnt work out. The kids were upset, but they also understand it is LL.

A good teaching moment.

evestor1 said:

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We had a chance to tie our 10u game last night...and the umpire called a ball on a swinging strike three!

Even the opposing coach and batter asked the ump for it to be a strikeout...but the ump stuck to his guns...full count and next ptich was the go ahead run! It was a full swing...not a check. full on miss from their leadoff hitter.



Times like that are where i enjoy rec ball. Not one parent or coach (me) lost it. We all tried to get it done right. Unfortunately it didnt work out. The kids were upset, but they also understand it is LL.

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Help me understand this- did the ump see the swing & miss? What about the field ump? Did he explain why he called ball 4 instead of the K?

That's really bizarre.

Only one umpire (stood behind mound) - called 2-2 before the pitch...scoreboard had it , scorekeeper had it. Full cut at it...batter walked to dugout. and already had helmet off. After about 10 second the umpire told the kid to come back b/c it was "FULL COUNT"


it was bad enough to be funny.

amazing.

evestor1 said:

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Only one umpire (stood behind mound) - called 2-2 before the pitch...scoreboard had it , scorekeeper had it. Full cut at it...batter walked to dugout. and already had helmet off. After about 10 second the umpire told the kid to come back b/c it was "FULL COUNT"


it was bad enough to be funny.

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Not gonna lie, if I was coaching I probably would have lost my **** and gotten run. It's one thing if the ump is wrong on a relatively close play but that's absolutely ridiculous.

TarponChaser said:

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evestor1 said:

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Only one umpire (stood behind mound) - called 2-2 before the pitch...scoreboard had it , scorekeeper had it. Full cut at it...batter walked to dugout. and already had helmet off. After about 10 second the umpire told the kid to come back b/c it was "FULL COUNT"


it was bad enough to be funny.

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Not gonna lie, if I was coaching I probably would have lost my **** and gotten run. It's one thing if the ump is wrong on a relatively close play but that's absolutely ridiculous.

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Anybody who has to be ejected from a LL game should never coach again.

Just saw this thread and figured I would check in.

We have an 8u team in a very competitive league, that is a hybrid model of kid pitch and coach pitch, if the kid pitcher walks a batter, a coach comes in and throws 3 pitches, if not put in play with those coach pitches, it's an out.

This is every one of our players first ever season of kid pitch and we are pitching really well, but hitting is a struggle. Knew this would be a struggle for the season as it's a big jump from coach pitch to kid pitch.

Our last two games have been 3-2 loss and 4-1 loss, so the pitching is there, just so very close but not yet on hitting. While I love the hybrid model of kid/coach pitch and the thinking behind it, we have some coaches in the league that doesn't want their kids swinging at anything until there is two strikes on them.

I am the coach of our team and I tell our boys, I don't want to come in and pitch, I want you to be aggressive and swing at strikes.

We moved into this league because last season of coach pitch, we run ruled every team in the league and our boys just weren't getting anything out of it. (This is not a brag, we have had kids return to our team for multiple years and growing something great here, and the league we were in was VERY rec and basic). I knew this season would be a big but very needed jump for all of these boys. They are taking it in strides and learning a ton. All you can do and hope for at this age. They still have to learn and love the game.

We aren't to tournaments yet, but hope to be soon.

Good luck out there and HAVE FUN!!!!

That's a pretty cool concept to get kids introduced to pitching but still let kids hit.

My younger son's 8U team is getting set to play up in some 9U kid-pitch tournaments coming up and I'm pretty sure it won't be pretty.

Zero first year kid pitch is pretty. It's either walk fest, lots of HBP or a kid that's superior and blowing them all away

DBill said:

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I am the coach of our team and I tell our boys, I don't want to come in and pitch, I want you to be aggressive and swing at strikes.

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Good for you - our first kid pitch season we played a team that did not swing one time and it was encouraged by the opposing coach out loud. We run ruled them and the other parents were very open about how little fun their kids were having.


On my kids 10u we strike out a ton and are happy about it. It is not uncommon for us to have 7 of 10 players put the ball in play and 3 strike out swinging during first up bats. Other teams average 1-2 in play and looking for walks past the 3 hole hitter.

I agree with you about wanting the kids to swing and have fun, but how do you balance it with teaching them not to swing (and strike out) on pitches that they will probably never hit? Or is that a problem for them?

I'm talking stuff bouncing on the plate or above their heads, etc.

Our 8U AAA coach pitch tournament got cancelled on Monday of last week. So perfect game put us in a 9U AA kid pitch tournament this past weekend. We went 2-1, with none of our kids up there looking for a walk. Went 2-0 on Saturday but ran out of capable pitchers on Sunday and had a mini walk-a-thon. It'll have its ups and downs. My son flat out stunk pitching, he was part of the walk-a-thon, but we'd barely practiced it, so I assume it'll get better.

Was a great learning experience all things considered. None of our kids had pitched before Tuesday of last week. they handled it well. Also, none of them want to go back to kid pitch, so if we can find more capable pitchers, I think we may just try our hand at kid pitch the rest of the way. Was pretty proud of my son, got beaned in the head in his first at bat of the first game, and then got himself a line drive single into left on the first pitch of his next at bat. Always pretty positive to see that he wasn't scared to dig back in.

One interesting story, after my son got hit, he trotted down to first (a few tears in his eyes) and their first baseman called him a crybaby and asked him if he needed his mommy (I coach first base, so I overhear everything). He wiped a tear away and asked him how old he was, their first baseman goes I'll be 10 in May, my son just replies, "I'm 7, so shut up".

I think a big determinant of when to take and how to coach your kids is what or who they're facing. Looking for walks in a tournament environment is ridiculous. Every team there is going to have competent pitching and you're just giving away strikes.

As opposed to some of the teams we have faced this year on my sons Rec team your stupid to swing just so its fun when the kid cant throw a strike.

There is a situation for everything in baseball but the biggest part in my opinion is teaching the kids when to and not to take as well as understanding what pitches will be called a ball vs which will not.

Quick question on this topic, what answer do you give the kids when umpires are calling balls that hit the plate a strike? or balls in the other batters box?

We realized about the 2nd inning the umpire had a big zone (which I'm all for at 9U), we just told them before you get to 2 strikes take it if its not one you want to hit, but scoot up on the plate, take that outside corner away, and protect it if anything is close. Also told them a strike is whatever the umpire is calling that day, so we need to be able to adjust.

It was a lot for our 7 and 8 year olds to comprehend.

That's more than most kids can comprehend. In games I don't explain why I'm telling them stuff. I tell them an adjustment and hope they make it.

So in that case "hopefully we get that call too, move up in the box and swing if it's close" a 9 yr old doesn't know what take away the outside means, a 7 or 8 yr old dang sure doesn't

Those things can then be addressed and discussed at a practice or after the game but not much sinks in after games

redline248 said:

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I agree with you about wanting the kids to swing and have fun, but how do you balance it with teaching them not to swing (and strike out) on pitches that they will probably never hit? Or is that a problem for them?

I'm talking stuff bouncing on the plate or above their heads, etc.

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I am in rec ball so the pitches at 10u are 40-55mph at max so teaching pitch selection is much easier than a 10 year old getting blasted with 58 over and over.

We use positive reinforcement - encourage swinging "if you can hit it correctly". Never get upset with a bad pitch swing b/c the player knows "I couldnt have hit that anyhow" and will correct it next time. The only issues we have are with high pitches. Our players are good at not swinging in the dirt and not swinging outside if you cant physcially get bat on it. All this without truly preaching where the strike zone is.


The worst on my team is my kid. He is best at making contact on any team he has ever been on ... but he will hit a ball above his head and then look confused when you tell him to stop doing that as if it was dead nuts in the strike zone. He has played 24 kid pitch games - walked 6 times and struck out 8.

Our boys finally got their heads out of their collective asses and played some baseball this weekend. 11u AAA. We went 2-2 but easily could have won both games we lost. We had 40 hits in four games.

We will always struggle to beat the very best AAA teams because we are from a small town and we do not have tryouts. But we know we can compete in that division. We were 1-4-1 in AAA going into the weekend. We are starting to run into a 'want to win' problem with a few of our boys. I think that is something that a lot of teams run into at this age. Are you here because your mom signed you up for baseball and we have a tournament or are you here to win?' Finally this weekend we played to win.

The game we lost on Sunday sucked though. We lost 8-4. We had a two out throwing error on our SS allowing two runs to score, got thrown out twice at the plate because our runners hesitated, and had (and I love you umpires) a really bad call go against us in the last inning that changed the game. two on one out and our hitter pulled one down the line that according to our 3b coach hit the back side of the bag. Everyone scores and the play finishes before they realized the home plate umpire called it foul. Would have been 8-6 with the tying run up. Instead kid struck out on the next pitch.

Anyway fun weekend and hopefully we keep moving forward.

Lots of baseball this past weekend and had to divide & conquer. Youngest playing 8AA in Beaumont so the Mrs. took that duty since I took the boy to Austin a few weekends back.

They went 1-1 on Saturday- evidently looked awesome in one game and garbage in the other. What are you gonna do, they're 8. Had all kinds of weather delays. Were 8 seed on Sunday out of 13 teams so they had to play at 8am. But they came out mashing and won 2 games, beating the #1 seed in the process, before losing in the semi-finals. Evidently the boy did well- hit the ball hard all weekend, played well behind the dish, and when he was in the OF catching pop ups, and even threw a kid out at third from right field when the kid tried to advance from second on a base hit.

The man-child playing 13AAA went beast mode at the plate. Hit .600 with a 1.867 OPS, and 5 RBIs. He hit one monster shot where he was held to a double because he started trotting instead of sprinting on a blast that hit the 300-foot fence in the air in dead center. They went 2-0 on Saturday to earn the #1 seed which was good because a scheduling snafu caused their 6pm game to start at almost 8pm and their second game didn't finish until almost 11pm. Fortunately we didn't have to play until 2pm on Sunday. Went 3-1 losing in the semis. Dude pitched a little too- 2.0 IP, 1K, 1H, 2BB, and the most important thing- 0 runs.

Oh, and my older son's coach got tossed in the first inning of the first game on Saturday.

The ump behind home plate was terrible. Just awful zone and terribly inconsistent. We were the home team and our pitcher was a kid who consistently throws 65-70% strikes. Anyway he's pounding the zone as usual and not getting calls.

Like stuff well inside the outer-third and belly-button high getting called balls. Coach goes and asks "what's wrong with those?" and ump immediately goes to "don't argue with me, he needs to get those down."

Coach argues a bit and ump gives him a warning so coach goes and sits down but the same crap and the visitors take a 2-0 lead. Coach calls time, goes out to the mound and talks up the kids. I can see the pitcher laughing and I find out after the game the coach told them "I'm just doing this to piss off the ump and I'm gonna get tossed in a bit."

Same crap from the ump and now the parents from the other team start getting chirpy. Coach goes off and is yelling about calling things fair and fighting for his kids. Boom, he gets tossed. Other teams fans get even more chirpy and they actually have music playing the "Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, good bye" (if you don't know most teams drop the music by 11U or so).

Anyway, we get out of the inning with some strong defense and are only down 2-0.

We proceed just mash their pitching (including my man-child's double) and put up 11 runs in the bottom of the first and cruise to a 14-2 win that got called on the mercy rule after 3 innings. The other team's fans shut up really fast.

redline248 said:

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I agree with you about wanting the kids to swing and have fun, but how do you balance it with teaching them not to swing (and strike out) on pitches that they will probably never hit? Or is that a problem for them?

I'm talking stuff bouncing on the plate or above their heads, etc.

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We generally have pretty good umpires that have a fairly respectable zone for this age, shins to chest a ball or two in and out. It is definitely a learning curve for sure and some have adapted quicker.

There is definitely a worry of getting hit by most of them.

We have combatted this a few different ways. First with the strike zone, we normally have 2 practices a week, one fielding and one hitting. During the hitting portion, we have a station setup and dedicated to ball and strike identification. Players take their stance with their bat, but do not swing, this is done by short toss then regular over head pitching by me. Each pitch, they have to watch the ball all the way back to the net then tell me ball or strike. Each player will do about 15 short toss then 15 over hand pitches. I will intentionally mix the balls and strikes. Once they do this, we go into swinging, because I tell them, you just told me which ones are balls and which are strikes, so swing at the strikes.

For the being nervous about being hit, we do a short toss station as well where we mix in inside pitches and hit them with a few too. The hard part of this is getting them to turn the right way to have it hurt the least. First few times we did this they were very nervous, but over time with it being a short toss underhand drill, they are adapting well. And yes, it's underhand so doesn't hurt, we have done this with tennis balls as well as baseballs.

Anyone coming to the Beaumont Super NIT? They have us in Crosby for 10Major. Nice complex, but is sucks having to drive for a "home" tourney.

We've been playing really good baseball lately. Hopefully we can keep it up and win a few games.

PhatMack19 said:

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Anyone coming to the Beaumont Super NIT? They have us in Crosby for 10Major. Nice complex, but is sucks having to drive for a "home" tourney.

We've been playing really good baseball lately. Hopefully we can keep it up and win a few games.

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Not us.

But last year in 12U playing that Beaumont Super NIT we got sent to play in Lake Charles and weren't told about it until the Tuesday of the tournament week so I don't feel all that bad for you having to drive 45 minutes to play in Crosby.

Our org has a "no picking up outside the organization" policy but I'm pretty sure the man-child is picking up to play with the 13AA team we have this weekend since they only have like 3 healthy pitchers. This team has had kids from the major and AAA squads play with them since they're short-handed. Considering the boy is playing up a year I don't feel guilty about it.

Tiny 1st world problem time:

What kind of belts/pants combos do y'all use for your kids? Most of the pants have belt loops that are too narrow for the metal bracket that adjusts the length of the belt.

They're a little expensive, but I really like the Mizuno short pants for my kid. I don't have any issues with the adjustment buckle fitting through the loops, and they fit him really well.

https://www.amazon.com/Mizuno-Youth-Premier-Baseball-X-Large/dp/B008M3C226/

My kid likes Adidas ClimateLite and whatever belt from Academy.

Also gone through several pairs of Rawlings

We love the Mizuno knickers. When they went up in price, we started going with Champro. They are a little loose and don't have the padding on the backside, but I like saving $20+.

…I also don't mind putting them in the 'practice use' drawer if I can't get a stain out.

We get Easton Rivals knickers for my kid. Don't seem to have issues with the metal belt slide, but is a snug fit.

redline248 said:

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Tiny 1st world problem time:

What kind of belts/pants combos do y'all use for your kids? Most of the pants have belt loops that are too narrow for the metal bracket that adjusts the length of the belt.

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It is getting to the end of the high school season and we are still fighting for a playoff spot and seeding. It is a fun time of the year with a lot riding on each game.