Baseball league

[Anonymous]

My son is a good rec player in 4th grade and wants to be on a slightly more serious/competitive team, but we really cannot handle more than once a week practice and one game on the weekend. Is there a league for this?

[Anonymous]

We are in Bethesda

[Anonymous]

Probably not.

[Anonymous]

Our (serious and competitive) little league has two games per week (one Saturday, one weeknight) and anywhere from two to 5 practices a week depending on the level and team. 4th grade could be anywhere from AA to majors. My kids only had one practice and one game per week in t-ball.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, not really.

IF you want to make the switch to 10u travel, you're probably looking at DHs on a weekend day, when you don't have a tournament; tournaments are both weekend days.

And 2 practices a week

[Anonymous]

Ok, of the leagues out there that are 2 practices a week and 2 games on the weekend, is there one that really focuses on growth and development of the players rather than just winning games?

[Anonymous]

Baseball is different.

As your DS ages, there is an expectation that you will do some of that "development" work on your own. Most of my son's practices (upwards of 80%) are focused on defense, situations, etc. Hitting is to be done on your own time with your own coach. They still get a few balls in the tunnel, but there's not a ton of dedicated time spent to it

So a lot of the "development" in the more competitive leagues is self-driven. You need to find a hitting coach (or pitching coach or whatever) and schedule independent development on that area

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, of the leagues out there that are 2 practices a week and 2 games on the weekend, is there one that really focuses on growth and development of the players rather than just winning games?

Also, its not a "league" that focuses on development. Within the league, the team priorities could be way different.

We were on a team were the league play was 100% development/experimentation. They would try things in league play that they had practiced (like squeeze plays, or different pick-off attempts, etcs) and give kids opportunities at positions that were secondary to them, or where they were lower on the depth chart.

But tournaments were played to win. But that was just this team's philosophy. Other teams within that league treated league play games as must win.

So we did poorly in league play but did well in tournament play

[Anonymous]

BCC Baseball has a Select league that is in between rec and travel. They play 2 games a week on Friday and Sunday.

[Anonymous]

Little league practices more than once a week in 4th grade. You don’t get to be more serious about the sport without actually being more serious.

[Anonymous]

No, not really. Most will require more of a time commitment than that.