Fundamental Baseball or dirty pool?

[fordman]

Hi All,

I help coach my 8 yr olds little league team. It's end of the season tournament time!

We did something tonight that we havent done all year. We told our batter to get up to the plate, dig in, but throw dirt on home plate.

The opposing team didnt catch on until after 15 batters or so took away the strike zone from the pitcher/catcher and the umpire. When the umpire would clean the plate, the next batter got up there and covered it up again. We had two 7 runs walked in innings (we have a 7 run mercy rule per inning) back to back. The other team didnt notice until or 15th batter got up there and walked all the way around home plate and kicked dirt on it. Then and only then, the other teams coach said something.

After their team said something, it became a pissing contest, the umpire would clean the plate, our batter would kick more dirt on it. So we told out batters to stop but only after we had a parent on our own team (most have no idea how the game of baseball is played) told his son not to kick dirt on the plate and if he did he would ground him for a week.

So, we won the game 16-1. We hit the last 2 runs in.

What says you? Good fundamental baseball or did we get one p on the other team and umpires?

Fordman

 

[michaelstepper]

Can't say I've ever taught or been told to kick dirt all over the plate. Had a guy warned for it in softball

 

[Brewer Andy]

8 year olds? Dirty pool

 

[tpeichel]

8 year olds? Dirty pool

Agreed. The poor pitchers have a hard enough time throwing the ball over the plate as is. I want my kids learning to hit, even at 12 years old I don't want them working walks. Put the ball in play.

 

[fordman]

Can't say I've ever taught or been told to kick dirt all over the plate. Had a guy warned for it in softball

You've never seen the first batter in an MLB game step up to the plate and the first thing he does is kick around the dirt, erase the batter's box line and kick a little on the plate to take the corners away?

I was tought that at 8 yrs old!

Fordman

 

[fordman]

Agreed. The poor pitchers have a hard enough time throwing the ball over the plate as is. I want my kids learning to hit, even at 12 years old I don't want them working walks. Put the ball in play.

The tourny we're in is the best vs the worst, kinda like the NCAA basketball tourny. We faced a no.16 team, we're a no.1 team. The pitcher(s) only threw 9 hitable pitches the whole game, we hit those.

Fordman

 

[Musial Collector]

Dirty
And you asked for our opinion so dont get all pissy when some dont defend your actions.

I have to ask though, if youre a 1 playing a 16, why would you need to take away the corners???

 

[fordman]

I'm not getting pissy.
Any how, when their pitcher warmed up, he was throwing decent pitches. When we stepped up to bat, he was a total different pitcher.

When the tournament was seeded, we asked if we can avoid the no.1 vs no.16 format. We wanted a blind draw but the powers that be wanted the seeding

Btw, we play in a select league that is very competitive. We play in a league that does a lot of traveling. We play in 4 states, 56 games a season not including tournaments.

Fordman

Sell me your Jay Bruce cards!

 

[TwinsWin]

Dirty play. 9 year olds come on. It's not like your playing to make it to the LLWS.

 

[tpeichel]

The tourny we're in is the best vs the worst, kinda like the NCAA basketball tourny. We faced a no.16 team, we're a no.1 team. The pitcher(s) only threw 9 hitable pitches the whole game, we hit those.

Fordman

Ugh. Kid pitch at that age is tough.

 

[MansGame]

#dirty

 

[jpruitt2]

Dirty.

And having 8 year olds play a 56 game schedule plus tournaments is just stupid. As a high school coach, I constantly see kids like this every year. By the time they get to an age where their body is able to handle something like this, most are either burned out or they are always injured mainly because of the strain that was put on their bodies at a young age.

 

[Gwynn545]

Dirtier than [MENTION=1720]cgilmo[/MENTION]'s upper ring of his belly button...
You should be banned from coaching (or whomever's idea it was).
Your team should forfeit.
The players on your team should be grounded for the summer for listening to you.

Obviously, none of this is going to happen.
At the least, you should write a letter and apologize to the parents on your team.

 

[fordman]

So, when these kids and parents signed up, they paid in upward $2000.00 just to play. They went through a tryout process and physical.

The parents knew the travel and game/practice commitments from day one. They knew/signed agreements that the coaches will make all on field decisions without parent input.

As for the game schedule, next season, it will be curtailed to 45 games including tournaments as the league's board agreed to disband 3 teams in the league.

The local community leagues don't have enough players to field 3 teams county wide, so if we wanted to play and get decent coaching plus play other teams at our level, we had to go with the select league.

Fordman

Sell me your Jay Bruce cards!

 

[MrMet]

I don't think this way of baseball is how I'd want my 8yr old to learn how to play the game

 

[rickeyfanatic]

Being a coach of 8-12 year olds for the last 4 years, I'm on the other team, we're going to have a conversation outside the fence about it. Teach fundamentals, encourage strong work ethic and respect for the game. Do not encourage bending the rules or just being a dick for the hell of it. What is the end game with that line of thought? If you are the #1 team, then shouldn't the kids be kicking the hell out of the #1 6 anyway? But you go to this length of trivial stupidity to what, rub it in?
SMFH.... Grow up.

 

[AmishDave]

The kids you're coaching, if they continue to do this tactic as they get older, will find out, when they face a pitcher with control, how harsh reality is.

This is why I don't want Naomi doing anything sports wise. If at 8, we're already teaching short cuts, then **** hard work, **** being a team player, **** doing the right thing.

And 56 games at 8 years old is absolutely absurd. This is why kids don't wanna play sports, because the parents are reliving past glories or just want their kid busy so they can 'do their own thing'. Everything about this post reeks of rotting garbage.

 

[predatorkj]

I'm not sure if say it's dirty. But I'd say at 8 years old, they've got plenty of other things they still need to learn. This IMO seems like it wouldn't even need to come into play until 14 yo or up. Most 8-9 yo's don't have the control to even warrant taking away the corners of the plate.

 

[A_Pharis]

I'd try to teach the kids to improve their batting eye so that they wouldn't need to induce called balls. That way, maybe they could hit the ones that would be strikes. If the opposing pitcher was having such a hard time throwing hittable balls - then why not tells the kids to lay off the dirt kicking?

At that age, teaching to deceive is pretty dirty.

 

[hive17]

Agreed. The poor pitchers have a hard enough time throwing the ball over the plate as is. I want my kids learning to hit, even at 12 years old I don't want them working walks. Put the ball in play.

I have to agree with this. It may be a legit tactic, and the ethics of it can be debated, but what kid wants to play baseball just to take a ****-load of walks? It can't even be considered "working" a walk, since there's no skill involved. Teach them to hit.