Watched two games now (we won both, yay!) and I'm updating my OP and feel kind of like a crap person for saying that.

This kid is THE BIGGEST cheerleader and promoter for the whole team. Every time a kid is up to bat, he's cheering him on and by name, every one. He walks up and down the bench just encouraging everyone and cheering everyone on and it's awesome. So he strikes out, he IS getting up there and trying his best and he does seem to be getting better a little bit at a time.

He seems like a really good kid and I apologize for calling him a "dud". He's far from a dud for this team.

^Outstanding. He sounds like a leader.

You rock. It’s no big deal, you said what’s in every parent’s mind when they’re watching… but perspective really helps.

We had a kid in our last “fall ball” that was very overweight and could not do a damn thing right, but by God he was enthusiastic, and by the end of the season, he was hitting the ball. He might even have made majors this year.
He’s a great sports fan and I really hope that he does well because he embodied the spirit of the game.
Best to you and your kid. These times are fleeting and we need to remember to make it positive and fun!

So an update on my son (age 9) U10 baseball team here:

He's one of 4 teams in the league we are in; Blue, Gold, Gray and Red

His team, Blue, did REALLY well this year and won all of their regular season games against the other 3 teams plus 3 teams from other local leagues.

They had playoffs and his team came in second there which was still pretty good as the Gold team was a tough competitor.

And here's where it gets a little crazy/disappointing:

We were told there would be an All-Star team formed from 4 kids from each of the 4 teams and my son was chosen, YAY! We only got to have two practices together as this new joint U10 team but were feeling pretty good. We were to play teams from the other local leagues just as we had in the regular season.

We got to the first game against the other "All-Star" team and here it turns out they are a TRAVEL TEAM and are all these big beefy kids, I swear some of them were 12-13-14 years old. They're also using hotter bats (USSSA) than our league allows (USA) and they SMOKED us.

It's double elimination so we had our second game last night and THIS TEAM is also a Travel Team and bigger more experienced kids and we are all like "WTF is going on here? These are not teams formed like ours was, they clearly have all been playing together for years. They also smoked us and also had the hotter, bigger barrel bats.

It was kind of a disappointing end to the season but we are going to talk to our league commissioner and ask if they knew what exactly they were sending us to here.

My son plans to play soccer this fall along with his younger brother then both will do baseball in Spring of 2025. The younger son will be in coach pitch and will be his first time doing baseball but he's shown a lot of interest and is doing well batting and catching in our backyard.

It's great that my kids all love sports because they didn't get that from me, LOL!

lol! I hear you. The last tourney we went to, the other team had on wristwatches that called the plays. Every batter, the pitcher and the entire infield took a quick glance at their wrists before throwing the pitch.
We are 11U. Never saw that before. And almost every team we played had walk up songs pity their sound coordinators had trouble controlling the music when we were up to bat..

Oh, and in our state/league, curve balls aren’t allowed til 12 or 13..something about arms and development.. every team we played against last weekend had pitchers throwing curves, sliders, changeups.. and some of our boys have never seen that.

And sadly, lots of the parents were jeering and some of the teams themselves catcalling instead of cheering on their team.
As I’ve been told, and as I’ve discovered, kids sports do not get easier.

They are 11 and under, for chrissakes. We just formed this team last fall, and swapped up a couple kids this spring. One team we played had 50 MORE games under their belt than we did this year, and they’ve been playing together for 4-5 years.. it was quite an education. Brace yourself.

Congrats on 2nd, and more importantly, the fact that he still loves to play! May he continue to enjoy it.

SMDH

I want my kids to play to HAVE FUN and a good time. I’m not interested in trying to make them into the next Ken Griffey Jr.

Once we heard about the insane schedule and requirements and COST of all these “travel” soccer and baseball teams both the wife and I said NOPE, not doing that.

It seems to me this whole “travel” sports thing is ruining youth sports and is going to wind up burning kids out if they can’t just be kids.

My best buddy since Jr. high
Kept track of his milage.

He had three grand kids.

He drove 8,000 miles last year, for baseball, soccer, basketball and football games.

I was astounded.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
My best buddy since Jr. high
Kept track of his milage.

He had three grand kids.

He drove 8,000 miles last year, for baseball, soccer, basketball and football games.

I was astounded.

Nailed it.

My oldest step granddaughter plays travel softball, her grandmother and I love going to the games but her parents don’t have a pot to piss in and it’s a really unnecessary expense they are incurring right now. She’s 11 yrs old and while she’s far from being totally non athletic, she doesn’t have the heart to play competitively on that level but her parents keep pushing it. The money they spend that they don’t have on travel and tournaments is astronomical. I really want her to do well but she is not a prodigy at this point and while I love watching her, I always question the point of this. She would be much happier in her local league with competition at her level instead of playing with the upper level and and being discouraged. . Some of this stuff is just too much.

I have one niece that played three sports starting in 7th grade.

As a sophomore she got noticed and got invited to camps for exceptional athletes.

She plays for a two year college now on scholarship.

And it happens again! Sour notes from the other team when they lost. Coaches storming onto the field and yelling at the umps when they called the last out. Female fan of theirs screaming at our kids AND the umps.

Remember, in some of these games, the umps are young adults, maybe late teens. Kids themselves.

The other team was yelling to the point that our kids, who normally scuffle a little to be the first one in line for handshakes, hung back and were hesitant to line up.

And they wonder why no one wants to officiate these days in youth sports. At least in our youth hockey games the ref has the right to remove a fan or a coach- and I’ve seen it done in both cases.

My kid isn’t even a teenager yet. This makes my stomach churn.

quote:

Originally posted by irreverent:
And they wonder why no one wants to officiate these days in youth sports. At least in our youth hockey games the ref has the right to remove a fan or a coach- and I’ve seen it done in both cases.

My kid isn’t even a teenager yet. This makes my stomach churn.

'Little League Baseball' Umpires DO have the right to remove Coaches AND Fans from the field. Thankfully, I've never had to Eject anyone, and closest I've ever come to doing so was issuing a Bench Warning. Different situation, but after a State Championship game (actually Gm.2 of a 'Best of 3'), my Umpire Crew did need to be escorted to their cars by the Police due to threats/behavior by a Coach though!

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:

'Little League Baseball' Umpires DO have the right to remove Coaches AND Fans from the field. Thankfully, I've never had to Eject anyone, and closest I've ever come to doing so was issuing a Bench Warning. Different situation, but after a State Championship game (actually Gm.2 of a 'Best of 3'), my Umpire Crew did need to be escorted to their cars by the Police due to threats/behavior by a Coach though!

Hmm. Maybe these umps were just being polite..or maybe they didn’t know their power.

Happily, that same team lost again yesterday, so they’re so far down in the bracket we shouldn’t even have to see them today.

I genuinely hope they reflect on their behavior- whether or not they agreed with the calls, their behavior was an extremely poor example to set for the kids. They could’ve quietly shared their disagreement instead of making a display of it..