Little League Politics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to volunteer to coach or make friends with them. It's not all about skills, same with life #LifeLessons

OP here. Yeah, DH and I are not baseball coaching material. That's why we contribute to the team in other ways. And we are friendly with the other parents -- we just don't see them outside of baseball because we aren't in the same school district. Little League should not be limited to kids whose parents know enough about baseball to coach.

Yes, but that is life, especially in this town. If you want your child to have the best chances, you need to be involved in the "politics". Not saying it is right or wrong, but there it is. Also you don't have to coach, just get involved.

Her DH does field maintenance and helps at practice and she scores the games. Those are two important ways to be "involved."

OP, what scoring system do you use? Are you keeping a paper book? I recommend looking at Gamechanger. It's a good way to keep the stats cumulative and help illustrate your points about how players are performing.

Yes, we keep a paper book. Thanks for your recommendation -- I will look into Gamechanger.

You have to use an Apple product to download the app and actually score the games, just FYI. And there's a bit of a learning curve -- score a Nationals game or something first. But once you learn it you can start to see trends pretty clearly in the numbers. It's very useful. We use it for travel ball.

It's not information we share with parents or kids -- but it's a good gut-check against assumptions and biases. It's also useful at the end of the season if the coach wants to give some stats-based accolades. You can usually find something someone has done well or improved upon or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, but a followup question. Does this kind of favoritism/politicking extend to high school sports? Do the high school coaches actually pick and play the best players? Do we just need to stick out the nonsense in Little League to get to a system that is more equitable?

Yes and no. For some sports, such as basketball, coaches pretty much know which kids will form most of the team.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but how could a kid who never hit the ball all season, as you assert, make an all star team? That's so weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but how could a kid who never hit the ball all season, as you assert, make an all star team? That's so weird.

Yep, the kid struck out most of the time and got walked the rest of the time. Never hit the ball. Dad is the assistant coach.

[Anonymous]

A few points -

- gamechanger is really helpful - (even if there are no issues). so appreciate the parents who do it as it takes a lot of time during the game and does seem to take a learning curve.

- our kids play a lot of sports, but were told by several baseball parents (kids now in college), that you do have to re-evaluate where your kid is and move teams. Need to have that as an expectation going in. And unfortunately, there were many experiences with not so great coaches.

- we moved to a organization that does not have parent coaching, not perfect, but do like it better

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PPs, especially about GameChanger (although be careful how your scorekeeper accounts for errors -- everyone should understand what makes a play an error) and never escaping the politics.

The problem is, with baseball, and I assume many other team sports, it's not always obvious why some kids are favored over the others. Baseball is a game of failure so you're going to see even the best athletes "fail" much of the time. How a player "fails" makes a difference and is perceived by each coach differently (i.e. some coaches have no trouble with a good pitcher who can't hit, others won't stand for kids who hit but are too slow to effectively run the bases, etc....)

Escaping to a travel league might take the daddy ball out of the equation, but even then, coaches will find their favorites and your opinion may differ with theirs. If your son wants to continue to play baseball, these are all things he needs to learn to live with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but how could a kid who never hit the ball all season, as you assert, make an all star team? That's so weird.

Yep, the kid struck out most of the time and got walked the rest of the time. Never hit the ball. Dad is the assistant coach.

That stinks. On all of our little league teams the All Stars have been picked by a vote of the players so the coach had nothing to do with it. It does still allow for the possibility that a group of friends could all vote for a less talented friend but, as far as i can tell, it hasn't worked out that way. My DS (who's never been voted All Star) has always felt that the teams' picks made sense. But, our teams also are not dominated by one school or set of friends.

[Anonymous]

OP, that sucks. You almost always see a certain of favoritism, but what you experienced is at the extreme end. For some reason, Little League seems a little more associated with this than other sports. A couple ideas are:

1. Try to network and hook up with another coach in the league that is more fair minded and needs pitching or allows more kids to pitch
2. Kind of forget about All Stars. There is a lot of machination around Little League All Stars and you cannot count on a fair shake. Unless your kid is flat out dominant, it is hard to get in from the outside. A more common story I have heard is the All Star teams are basically pre-selected from the travel teams associated with the Little League. Your league's All Star team is probably not going anywhere anyways especially if it is run like you describe.
3. Consider travel baseball if your kid is really into baseball. You may be able to to find a travel team that is a better situation. The situation you have encountered has led others into travel baseball and lacrosse. Not recommending it, but it is an option.

[Anonymous]

We're lucky we haven't seen this much with our DS's baseball team (12U Pioneer League in NOVA) but we did see it a lot in our DD's softball team (10U NVGSA). I was stunned by it and couldn't believe what I saw (and saw it again when we played that coach's team this season). Our first team was great. The second and third teams weren't (the third in particular was appalling). This last (fourth) coach she had was fabulous and we'll be requesting her next season. I don't care what days practice is on. We want her. What made the other teams even worse is how cliquish the girls were. My DD is a pretty good player (moments of great and improving) and a great social skills. She really struggled and ready to quit. I'm glad she gave it another try.

[Anonymous]

I coached the LL team and did what I could not to play favorites, but to be clear, as soon as we could, we moved to a league with independent/professional coaches to avoid the conflicts OP suggests.

it does suck, but it is human nature.

I score games on paper/by hand, but do recommend a digital app. I am just a nerd that way.

[Anonymous]

Same experience on Cap city team. Look into dynasty or northwest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but how could a kid who never hit the ball all season, as you assert, make an all star team? That's so weird.

Yep, the kid struck out most of the time and got walked the rest of the time. Never hit the ball. Dad is the assistant coach.

I'm confused are you OP or do you know OP or did I miss a post?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to volunteer to coach or make friends with them. It's not all about skills, same with life #LifeLessons

OP here. Yeah, DH and I are not baseball coaching material. That's why we contribute to the team in other ways. And we are friendly with the other parents -- we just don't see them outside of baseball because we aren't in the same school district. Little League should not be limited to kids whose parents know enough about baseball to coach.

Yes, but that is life, especially in this town. If you want your child to have the best chances, you need to be involved in the "politics". Not saying it is right or wrong, but there it is. Also you don't have to coach, just get involved.

Her DH does field maintenance and helps at practice and she scores the games. Those are two important ways to be "involved."

OP, what scoring system do you use? Are you keeping a paper book? I recommend looking at Gamechanger. It's a good way to keep the stats cumulative and help illustrate your points about how players are performing.

You knew what I meant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, but a followup question. Does this kind of favoritism/politicking extend to high school sports? Do the high school coaches actually pick and play the best players? Do we just need to stick out the nonsense in Little League to get to a system that is more equitable?

There's all kinds of coaches in high school. The ones that know their sport and how to coach have a shot at playing the best players because of the respect they have. These teams tend to win and people like that so play time and position issues won't come up as readily. On the other hand, some coaches play politics very heavily for job security and its usually with THAT parent who was a nightmare coming up. Those teams don't tend to win their league championships and THOSE kids are usually just adequate and still receiving awards. I think there's an inverse relationship between politics and leadership ability.

[Anonymous]

Saw above a suggestion for trying DC Dynasty. Their coaches tend to be young, fresh out of college and competition themselves. No politics that we ever saw as the coaches only interact with the kids. Plus, their families tended to travel a bit in the summer so there was usually plenty of playing time for all and the coaches were very receptive to players wanting to try different positions. It is a travel organization so there are tryouts. Travel is mostly local league games in DC and Virginia.