When I was a kid growing up in rural Michigan I played baseball in the summer. That was little league. When I say summer I really mean during the months when school was out. Actually we started about three weeks before school let out, but the vast majority of the season was summer and during summer break. I so loved the little league that I grew up playing. I is really nothing like what it is today. A big business of fair play and everyone gets to be a winner. Everyone gets to play. Everyone gets to be happy in fantasy land called little league. When I was a kid there were about 11 kids on a team. Of course everyone played, well almost. There were some games I didn't play. Yes, I was a terrible player back then. And when it got down to playoffs I remember getting picked up by a team after the district tournament and not playing one single inning of the regional tournament. Was I upset? Hell yes I was. By age 12 I was becoming a decent little player. I was good enough to get pick up, but not good enough to play on this team that had just won the districts. Was it the end of the world? Was it fair? Life's not fair and baseball is life too. End of the world? I think not. Actually it made me work harder. I was so heart broken that I didn't play I went home and built a pulley device and put a ball on one end, attached to a rope, and the other end a weight. I used it for the next 5 years to strengthen my throwing arm. Then I attached a bat to it so I could strengthen my swing. From then on out when I made an All Star team for Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, or little league. I started at either pitcher or outfield. The bottom line was because I realized I needed to be better I went out and bettered myself. Nothing was handed to me on the baseball field. I had to work for it and I"ll be the first to tell you that in the talent pool I wasn't rich with it. I was short, fat, slow, and not that coordinated. I learned all those things through hard work.
Today with Little League everyone gets to play. You pay and you are guaranteed to play. I really think that sometimes this is DANGEROUS. Today I get 10 year old kids to hit the ball 250 which is about 73 mph. So put a 10 year old boy in the outfield or even at third base and let another kid hit a 70 mph ground ball right at them then watch it hit them in the face. Oh and don't forget that this is Little Jake's first year of playing baseball and he's got to play according to the rules. I have seen coaches try to hide these kids that "have to play" in right field for 2 innings. A pop fly and Jake hasn't got a chance in heck of catching this ball. When the ball was hit he was looking at the butterflies all around him and has no idea that the ball is quickly bearing down on him. At the last minute he hears the parents shouting at him and he starts looking around to see where the ball is. POW! Right in the face. Now blood and tears pour from his head.
I hear about this all the time. What a joke little league is. Do you realize that the All Star Teams that you watch in the Little League World Series are really all the top Club player that still happen to be playing Little League? For me it's a safety issue. I get players from L.L. as clients when the L.L. season starts. If they don't play club baseball I usually don't see them after the season. It's very rare to have a player that doesn't play top club actually make a high school team. I had one this year, but he has quickly learned that he is not at the level that the rest of the kids on his team are. He has had to work 5 times as hard as they have had to just to make the team. So safety is the first issue, talent is the second, and the rules are the third.
So why is club baseball better in my opinion? Because it forces the bad players to get better if they want to stay. It makes the better players better because players are continuing to throw harder, hit harder, run faster, steal bases. I look at a club ball catcher and a little league catchers and it's amazing how much better the club ball catchers are. They have to learn to block and throw. The rules are just like real baseball. There are lead offs, and the runner can leave whenever they want. So catchers have to be able to catch and throw. Pitchers have to learn how tho throw from the stretch and the wind up. They also have to learn how to pick runners and hold them. In USSSA they can even head first slide into the bases and even home plate. Some of the tournaments they have to avoid contact at the plate. In others they don't if the catcher is up the line without the ball then he is fair game to get smashed. That's life and baseball all rolled into one. It's not fair but that is the way the game is played. I also like that in club ball just because you payed doesn't mean you have to play. Kids that pay just to get a spot soon fizzle out and quit because they don't get to play. Parents who have really talented kids get upset when coaches play kids that are poor as player but have all the money behind the team. Those parents eventually find another team. I like the fact that in club ball you have to earn you spot. You have to be the best or at least be outworking everyone. There are no rules in club ball that everyone has to play at least one inning in each game. Just like in life, one has to work hard to get to the top. No raises are handed out because you just showed up and didn't contribute. No promotions in life are given out because you didn't do something to add more value to yourself. Little League baseball gives the impression to kids that all you have to do is show up and you will be rewarded. Everyone that pays gets to play. Well not everyone that goes to college and get a degree gets a job! This is Vegas. How many college grads are out there in this town dealing Black Jack? Plenty of them are. I met a young gentleman a 6 years ago that was broke. Dropped out of college and penniless he asked if I could give him a job. I paid him to paint my garage. We had a conversation while he was doing it and he told me what he was doing. I was amazing, but in the back of my mind I was thinking to myself this kid can't even finish school how is he ever going to do this? He said he would stay later and learn everything about mortgages. He did and helped as many people as he could get into their first homes over the next three years. In his third year he bought a $600,000 property that he rented out and later a 1.2 million dollar home. He had risen to the top of the company he was working for and even offered me a job! No one gave him anything. He outworked 90% of the people in his field and the bottom line is that in life and in sports he who works the hardest becomes the best and creates their own luck. My story is the same. I was a terrible player growing up. I wanted to be the best. When I asked the best what it took they all said the same thing. I takes a lot of hard work. Blood, sweat, and tears are another key factor. It takes a little more to be a champion. A few more swings, a few more grounds balls, a few more throws down to second base, a few more sprints, shag a few more fly balls and work on getting a good jump, a few more bunts, and a few more dreams to be the best. So I just flat outworked everyone around me, and even when the talent was better than me I still pushed them to be better. Why am I one of the best hitting instructors around on this planet today? I just out work all the others. I'll take an extra minute to make sure my student learns what I am trying to show them. I give add extra value and I do more than I am paid for. I also create relationship with my students. They always know they can call on me anytime and ask me questions. I practice the habit of going the extra mile and doing more that what I am paid for. I learned that from one of the best, Andrew Carnegie and Napoleon Hill. One was the greatest steel producers of the modern world and the other a best selling author that wrote about Mr. Carnegie.
So my parting words are these. Not everyone can play baseball, except in Little League. If your kid likes baseball and wants to continue to play let them. Or let them until it becomes dangerous. There are other sports too, football, soccer, basketball, tennis, golf, lacross, you just never know. I had two really good baseball clients that wanted to go to college and play baseball. Life dealt them another card. On played golf as a second sport and the other tennis. Neither got asked to play baseball in college but both were asked to play their other sport and received scholarships. I once played stick ball with Pete Sampras, we went to high school together, he could kill a baseball. We all begged him to play baseball. To told us he was going to be a pro tennis player. Three years later he was.
