Arlington Little League vs. Babe Ruth, which is better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABR definitely let certain teams have more than fair share of travel players, like one team has 7, one has 1. Guess which team always win? And humiliate the other team with a score of 20plus-0? LOL, must be a nice ego booster for certain people and their snowflakes.

This is just kids being with their friends. If kids have played together since k or even preschool, they will work together as a team much better than just a bunch of random kids thrown together.

That's the excuse for keeping 7 travels on one team while other teams have 0 or 1? That's ok, you enjoy "mercy rule" those other teams, don't you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Oh trust me, I help out A LOT. And oh I agree of course coach's kids get a certain degree of favorable treatment that's understandable, but oh boy the ABR coach I am questioning is very much "gross about it".

What level are these kids playing that you’re talking about? 8 yo??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Actually it does.

It is a trade really. Coaching takes a ton of time and effort both for the coach and his/her family. It requires coaches’ kids to
also put in lots of extra time and effort too. Typically coaches kids are always the first to the field and the last to leave. They get to help rake the field and mound, help line the field, set up the bases, and pick up trash before the games. After the game they get to put up the bases. And pick up trash. And wait until all kids are picked up - always at least one parent who decided to make a grocery run rather than watch their kid. What 11 year old doesn’t live for those experiences?

Positions are pretty locked for under 12s. Yes you can watch the little league World Series and the kid in left field can actually catch and throw. That’s not what is going on at your local field. Take the two best kids in your league and they might make one of those teams.

If I put your kid at SS and hit 10 ground balls to him where he had to move 5 feet either side - 5 feet to his left. 5 feet to his right. Could he field 9 of them cleanly and throw to first with a good throw so that the first baseman can catch it with a foot on the bag? Yes? Great. Your kid can play SS. 2nd base is the same really. Second tends to get more hit to it, but the throw is shorter. 1st base - can your kid catch throws confidently, and is your kid willing to let bad throws bounce off him to keep the runner from getting to advance? Yes? Great your kid can play 1st base. 3rd base is mostly where you put your less skilled kids for their infield innings. But, that means you need decent left fielders as they are likely going to get more balls hit to them, though right field is where you typically would have the stronger players. You need a better arm to play right field but not in little kid ball. Catcher has to be good at catching the ball and be willing to get dinged up a little.

Now every kid is playing two innings of infield. You have let’s say 13 kids. You have 3 pitchers lined up for a six inning game. You are going with your weaker infielders with your better pitchers. If you have a kid who throws a little harder then you can go with a good second baseman and a weaker SS. If your pitcher is a softer thrower then you need a better SS. During the game you watch your pitch counts.

Now - take your kid’s team and set up the lineup. Make sure your pitchers are sitting out the inning before they are scheduled to pitch so they can warm up. Make sure every kid gets to play at least 2 innings in the infield keeping in mind the requirements of the positions. Now - cross a line through one player who is a no show 15 minutes before the game and redo all the positions. Wait - here he is running over midway into the first inning. Add him back at the bottom of the batting order and tell the opposing coach scorekeeper at the inning break. Redo the positions again.

You want to put kids into positions, literally and figuratively, so they can be reasonably successful. If the kid has the basic skills - throw, catch, swing the bat with a little confidence, they will do fine. And, they can play most positions. But in a typical team of 13 eleven and twelve year olds you will have 1-2 who are not competent at most of those, and 3-5 who lack at least 1 (usually hitting). In 4-6 two hour practices they will not improve. You must help if you want them to get good enough to be confident about their abilities to have some fun.


What if coach's own kid isn't remotely good enough to play SS but constantly be placed at that position (most kids' favorite position), and there are 2 other boys who are outstanding at SS on the team. Is this how it is done to be "gross about it"? Or in order to hide coach's son's lack of qualification, you keep 6-7 best travel players on your team to be his training mate, and boom, now your son wins all the games. What a nice dad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Oh trust me, I help out A LOT. And oh I agree of course coach's kids get a certain degree of favorable treatment that's understandable, but oh boy the ABR coach I am questioning is very much "gross about it".

What level are these kids playing that you’re talking about? 8 yo??

Shall I post name(s) here? Certainty want to!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Oh trust me, I help out A LOT. And oh I agree of course coach's kids get a certain degree of favorable treatment that's understandable, but oh boy the ABR coach I am questioning is very much "gross about it".

What level are these kids playing that you’re talking about? 8 yo??

Shall I post name(s) here? Certainty want to!

Of course not, I’m just trying to get a sense for what age group you’re talking about. Kids are playing in the majors at 10 and there’s no draft before that. So kids are placed on the same teams They’ve always been on with their friends. Yes in some cases a gaggle of them all played travel. If you see issues reach out to the commissioner. There’s a new ABR
commissioner this year and he’s fantastic. Let him know your concerns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Oh trust me, I help out A LOT. And oh I agree of course coach's kids get a certain degree of favorable treatment that's understandable, but oh boy the ABR coach I am questioning is very much "gross about it".

What level are these kids playing that you’re talking about? 8 yo??

Shall I post name(s) here? Certainty want to!

Of course not, I’m just trying to get a sense for what age group you’re talking about. Kids are playing in the majors at 10 and there’s no draft before that. So kids are placed on the same teams They’ve always been on with their friends. Yes in some cases a gaggle of them all played travel. If you see issues reach out to the commissioner. There’s a new ABR
commissioner this year and he’s fantastic. Let him know your concerns.

Reach out for what? Season has started, nothing will change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Oh trust me, I help out A LOT. And oh I agree of course coach's kids get a certain degree of favorable treatment that's understandable, but oh boy the ABR coach I am questioning is very much "gross about it".

What level are these kids playing that you’re talking about? 8 yo??

Shall I post name(s) here? Certainty want to!

Of course not, I’m just trying to get a sense for what age group you’re talking about. Kids are playing in the majors at 10 and there’s no draft before that. So kids are placed on the same teams They’ve always been on with their friends. Yes in some cases a gaggle of them all played travel. If you see issues reach out to the commissioner. There’s a new ABR
commissioner this year and he’s fantastic. Let him know your concerns.

Reach out for what? Season has started, nothing will change.

And there you have it. If you don’t like something, reach out, volunteer, do something. The attitude of things will never change perpetuates things never changing.

[Anonymous]

What if coach's own kid isn't remotely good enough to play SS but constantly be placed at that position (most kids' favorite position), and there are 2 other boys who are outstanding at SS on the team. Is this how it is done to be "gross about it"? Or in order to hide coach's son's lack of qualification, you keep 6-7 best travel players on your team to be his training mate, and boom, now your son wins all the games. What a nice dad.


[/quote


Let’s assume the coach’s kid is the worst kid on the team. Where do I play him. Like everyone he has to play some infield (typically 2 innings) and 2 more innings for a minimum of 4 in a 6 inning game. Let’s assume I have 13 kids on my team. My kid sucks so I can’t play him at 1st or Catcher. And he is not going to pitch because he sucks. So my choices in the infield are 3rd, SS and 2nd. If I am looking to protect him from embarrassment I will play him in the infield when I can get a good pitcher throwing. Ideally when my good pitcher is facing the lower part of the batting order. Chances of a kid in the lower part of the batting order hitting a decent pitcher are maybe 3 in 10. Most of the time the kids at the lower part of the order will swing late so 75% of those hit balls will go on the right side of the infield. Of the remaining 25% - half of those can likely be fielded by the pitcher. The rest are scattered. SS, 3rd OF (mostly ground balls hit through the middle).

The odds of a good 11/12 year old SS cleanly fielding a ball and making a good throw to first are maybe 90% if it is hit at him. If he has to move to his left more than 5 feet - that is dropping to 75%. If he has to move to his right - 50% and I am strongly hoping he does not throw the ball wildly. If you cut those odds in half for my worst player kid - the odds he ever has a chance to field a ball hit generally towards him in 2 innings are maybe 1 in 10. A good fielder converts that 1 chance to an out let’s say 80% of the time. My not good fielding kid does it 40% of the time. So, if you are betting, the odds are that in 2 innings at SS my kid is not going see a ball hit his way. If it happens there is a chance he can field it and make an out. Much more likely that a better player could do that, but it’s a risk.

And, if I’m coaching, I did the required safety meetings, got the required sportsmanship training, did the background checks, meet with the coaches for the pre-draft stuff, attended the tryouts, participated in the draft, dealt with the assigned fields, scheduled pre-season practices, communicated with parents about the team, practices, game schedule, sent reminders the day before, did the practices, spent a couple hours the night before the game making sure the field and equipment are all good, and preparing a lineup, and, of course, arranging my work schedule. Then every game day leave work in time to get to the field early, set things up, do pre-game warmups, coach the game, make sure everything is picked up and put away, and then head for home. Sure - if it looks like my kid can play a couple innings at SS without getting hurt or embarrassing himself - then he will play SS. Or did you think all that stuff magically happened when the baseball fairy came by the field that day?

Teams can be uneven. Mostly that happens when you have inexperienced local leaders combined with inexperienced managers. By 11/12 managers are not so inexperienced. But, the two best 11 year olds are not as good as the two best 12 year olds. And, if you pick friends of your kid over kids who are better then teams can get lopsided. The league folks go over that before the drafts. There are rules for kids who do not show up for tryouts, and records are distributed of the kids who made the prior year all-star teams. Yes, a new kid can be a surprise. But, managers know what kids are pretty good, and what kids are playing club and they get divided up.

As a parent aside: having your kid be one of the weaker players on a team is never good unless the status is largely due to age. An 11 year old can easily understand that they will not be as good as a good 12 year old. That’s not a problem. They get that their turn will come next year. Sometimes cool things happen though. My oldest, at 11, played in a local rec league that was 11&12 kids. His team had good 12 year pitchers and the 11 year olds were all okay for 11. They could largely catch, field, throw and hit a little. So the team did well and got to play in the “league championship” game. Mind you we are talking a league of maybe 12 teams. It was a close game for the first 4 innings as both teams had 2 good pitchers, but the hitting improved as they got to their 3rd pitchers. My kids team was losing by 3 in the last (6th) inning and the last 4 in the batting order (1 being my kid) were the first to bat. All 4 got clean hits scoring 2 runs before the top of the order kids came up. They easily won the game. So - over the course of even a short season kids do improve if you work with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Oh trust me, I help out A LOT. And oh I agree of course coach's kids get a certain degree of favorable treatment that's understandable, but oh boy the ABR coach I am questioning is very much "gross about it".

What level are these kids playing that you’re talking about? 8 yo??

Shall I post name(s) here? Certainty want to!

Of course not, I’m just trying to get a sense for what age group you’re talking about. Kids are playing in the majors at 10 and there’s no draft before that. So kids are placed on the same teams They’ve always been on with their friends. Yes in some cases a gaggle of them all played travel. If you see issues reach out to the commissioner. There’s a new ABR
commissioner this year and he’s fantastic. Let him know your concerns.

Reach out for what? Season has started, nothing will change.

And there you have it. If you don’t like something, reach out, volunteer, do something. The attitude of things will never change perpetuates things never changing.

Yeah, no parent is going to complain to the commissioner at this point, team rosters are set. Complaining now will only get your kids retaliated. It sucks. Maybe the older age groups are better managed, that's why some of you may have had good experiences.

[Anonymous]

I only have experience with ABR and the experience has been great! I will echo the point about ABR being under new leadership this year. The new president is fantastic and each division has a commissioner. If there is an issue or concern, I would not hesitate to take it up with ABR leadership; that is how change happens!

I know that ABR's goal is to let kids play with their friends for as long as possible before they reach the Majors level where a draft takes place. Even still there has been a lot of redistribution of travel players even at younger levels this season to even teams out as much as possible while keeping friends together and players with coaches they requested. I know a few teams were broken up and travel players were placed on different teams in an attempt to make it as competitive as possible. That won't always be the case but I understand that was a big goal of ABR this season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ALL up through AA so far - kids are placed by grade and elementary school, unless they have a special request. Coaches we have had have all be fair and didn’t favor their kids - they are volunteers. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering.

Lots of things prevent one from volunteering to coach, volunteering on other things sure, but not everyone can coach. Just because you can coach does not mean you should make your son who’s below average at best to play the best positions all the time and treat other kids as merely your son’s training mates.

Well, you don't want to be gross about it but you do get to hedge in favor of your child - that's how it works. You're welcome to coach/volunteer too, we can always use help.

Oh trust me, I help out A LOT. And oh I agree of course coach's kids get a certain degree of favorable treatment that's understandable, but oh boy the ABR coach I am questioning is very much "gross about it".

What level are these kids playing that you’re talking about? 8 yo??

Shall I post name(s) here? Certainty want to!

Of course not, I’m just trying to get a sense for what age group you’re talking about. Kids are playing in the majors at 10 and there’s no draft before that. So kids are placed on the same teams They’ve always been on with their friends. Yes in some cases a gaggle of them all played travel. If you see issues reach out to the commissioner. There’s a new ABR
commissioner this year and he’s fantastic. Let him know your concerns.

Reach out for what? Season has started, nothing will change.

And there you have it. If you don’t like something, reach out, volunteer, do something. The attitude of things will never change perpetuates things never changing.

Yeah, no parent is going to complain to the commissioner at this point, team rosters are set. Complaining now will only get your kids retaliated. It sucks. Maybe the older age groups are better managed, that's why some of you may have had good experiences.

Shoot an email to your kid's coach and ask what is up with the team formations? It looks like team A has a bunch of travel players and team B has 1 or 2 How hard is that? Start with the coach. Copy the league folks on the email. It's not hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I only have experience with ABR and the experience has been great! I will echo the point about ABR being under new leadership this year. The new president is fantastic and each division has a commissioner. If there is an issue or concern, I would not hesitate to take it up with ABR leadership; that is how change happens!

I know that ABR's goal is to let kids play with their friends for as long as possible before they reach the Majors level where a draft takes place. Even still there has been a lot of redistribution of travel players even at younger levels this season to even teams out as much as possible while keeping friends together and players with coaches they requested. I know a few teams were broken up and travel players were placed on different teams in an attempt to make it as competitive as possible. That won't always be the case but I understand that was a big goal of ABR this season.

ABR failed to reach that goal this season.

[Anonymous]

Have you checked with your coach to see if all the players on your team requested to play for him or her/play with kids on that team? He/She might have opted to keep their team together with friends rather than splitting it up to take on more travel players.

[Anonymous]

Side question for the coach with the very detailed responses- I thought 3B had to have a very strong arm and quick reflexes to play the hot corner. I know my 1B son strongly prefers an accurate thrower at 3B 😬 (but he plays on the 90’ field so throws across the diamond have a long way to come to him).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Side question for the coach with the very detailed responses- I thought 3B had to have a very strong arm and quick reflexes to play the hot corner. I know my 1B son strongly prefers an accurate thrower at 3B 😬 (but he plays on the 90’ field so throws across the diamond have a long way to come to him).

DP that's true on the 90 field but that PP said his eldest is 11. For example, as they get older they plop a less athletic (slow) kid on 1st, and need fast agile kids in outfield. Whereas when they are young, they stick the kids who are out ot lunch in the outfield since not many are hitting out there yet and the good/quick athletes on 1st since most hits are still infield.