The Red Falls Red Sox finished the season 24-2 and won the League Championship. They thought they were a good team. They were not. The league thought the team had a successful season. From a player and team development perspective, they did not. The team batting average for the season was .323 and the team’s pitching ERA for the season was 3.89. The team’s players thought they were good hitters and good pitchers. They were not.
In the State where Red Falls plays its games, youth and high school players can choose to play baseball in the school leagues, Little League Baseball, Junior Baseball, Cal Ripken Baseball, American Legion Baseball, Babe Ruth Baseball and numerous Club Ball teams that play an independent tournament schedule. As a result, the talent in any one league is typically average at best. A league champion wins a lot of games because they play very average teams with very average talent.
Coaches on most teams coach their team how to play the game to win games against the teams in their league. The only standard of execution and development they measure themselves against are the teams and players in their league and in the tournaments they play. The coaches and the league are satisfied if the team simply wins games.
The coaches don’t know how to, or spend an insufficient amount of time attempting to, effectively develop the individual skills of the players. The league does not provide the coaches with enough equipment and training to coach the individual skills of the players to superior levels. There is no system to progressively develop the players as athletes and players year-to-year. The league simply chooses coaches who are Dads of the players and/or who are the most politically powerful.
Consequently, rarely do the players’ ability to throw, field, and hit a baseball significantly improve during the season except by them receiving coaching outside of the team and the league. The majority of players in most leagues cannot afford such private coaching. If a player improves year-to-year without private coaching, it is usually as a result of genetic gifts and puberty.
Athletically gifted players may be deluded into believing they are exceptional because they are the best players on their Select Team or in their league. The truth is good is never good enough.
A very common scenario is that most of the players on a winning team play together for several years and dominate the competition they are accustomed to playing. Even Club Ball teams thrive year-to-year and build their reputations on winning games and tournaments and not by any objective measure of building the individual skills of their players.
Formerly successful players and teams don’t get an objective dose of reality until they play teams on a state, regional or national level or at least until they are evaluated by an experienced and knowledgeable coach at the next level not associated with their current coaches, team, and league.
The cold reality for a hitter may not arrive until he is required to hit elite pitching with a wood bat.
Most balls that are caught and thrown accurately and hit hard by youth and high school players are not caught, thrown, and hit properly. The uneducated eye only sees the result. The educated and experienced eye sees the process from the ground up the kinetic chain that led to the result. This is most significantly true in pitching. For example, the horizontal wrist snap curve may be very successful as a 12-year old, but may ultimately lead to surgery as a 17 year old.
A few years ago, I remember sitting with five college coaches from all levels of college baseball, community college to D1, watching two Club Ball high school baseball teams play. The parents probably thought their children were elite players because they had paid thousands of dollars every year to play in the Club Ball circuit. And yet, after the game was done, the coaches unanimously agreed that of the 22 players who played in the game, only two had the tangibles and intangibles to play college baseball. The game was played at the beginning of the Summer, but when I asked the coaches if they would come back at the end of the Summer to watch the teams play again, they all agreed they would not. “Why?”, I inquired. “Because none of the players will work daily with a knowledgeable coach to improve their skills; they will simply be satisfied with winning games.”
True talent is not defined during the journey; it is defined by the legacy. In the meantime, one needs to persistently work hard every day to become a better person, athlete, and player so the diffusion of talent against whom they are measured will not give them the illusion of success.
In the State where Red Falls plays its games, youth and high school players can choose to play baseball in the school leagues, Little League Baseball, Junior Baseball, Cal Ripken Baseball, American Legion Baseball, Babe Ruth Baseball and numerous Club Ball teams that play an independent tournament schedule. As a result, the talent in any one league is typically average at best. A league champion wins a lot of games because they play very average teams with very average talent.
Coaches on most teams coach their team how to play the game to win games against the teams in their league. The only standard of execution and development they measure themselves against are the teams and players in their league and in the tournaments they play. The coaches and the league are satisfied if the team simply wins games.
The coaches don’t know how to, or spend an insufficient amount of time attempting to, effectively develop the individual skills of the players. The league does not provide the coaches with enough equipment and training to coach the individual skills of the players to superior levels. There is no system to progressively develop the players as athletes and players year-to-year. The league simply chooses coaches who are Dads of the players and/or who are the most politically powerful.
Consequently, rarely do the players’ ability to throw, field, and hit a baseball significantly improve during the season except by them receiving coaching outside of the team and the league. The majority of players in most leagues cannot afford such private coaching. If a player improves year-to-year without private coaching, it is usually as a result of genetic gifts and puberty.
Athletically gifted players may be deluded into believing they are exceptional because they are the best players on their Select Team or in their league. The truth is good is never good enough.
A very common scenario is that most of the players on a winning team play together for several years and dominate the competition they are accustomed to playing. Even Club Ball teams thrive year-to-year and build their reputations on winning games and tournaments and not by any objective measure of building the individual skills of their players.
Formerly successful players and teams don’t get an objective dose of reality until they play teams on a state, regional or national level or at least until they are evaluated by an experienced and knowledgeable coach at the next level not associated with their current coaches, team, and league.
The cold reality for a hitter may not arrive until he is required to hit elite pitching with a wood bat.
Most balls that are caught and thrown accurately and hit hard by youth and high school players are not caught, thrown, and hit properly. The uneducated eye only sees the result. The educated and experienced eye sees the process from the ground up the kinetic chain that led to the result. This is most significantly true in pitching. For example, the horizontal wrist snap curve may be very successful as a 12-year old, but may ultimately lead to surgery as a 17 year old.
A few years ago, I remember sitting with five college coaches from all levels of college baseball, community college to D1, watching two Club Ball high school baseball teams play. The parents probably thought their children were elite players because they had paid thousands of dollars every year to play in the Club Ball circuit. And yet, after the game was done, the coaches unanimously agreed that of the 22 players who played in the game, only two had the tangibles and intangibles to play college baseball. The game was played at the beginning of the Summer, but when I asked the coaches if they would come back at the end of the Summer to watch the teams play again, they all agreed they would not. “Why?”, I inquired. “Because none of the players will work daily with a knowledgeable coach to improve their skills; they will simply be satisfied with winning games.”
True talent is not defined during the journey; it is defined by the legacy. In the meantime, one needs to persistently work hard every day to become a better person, athlete, and player so the diffusion of talent against whom they are measured will not give them the illusion of success.
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