As anybody who knows me knows, my son is playing travel baseball for the first time this year. It's been intense. 2 practices a week for 8 months prior to the start of the season. Since the season started, we've played about 3 or 4 games a week.
(A little of this is due to a fluke in scheduling. Once the middle of June rolls around, other than 2 tournaments, we only play 1 game a week. Crazy, because the boys will be out of school by then, but oh well.)
My go-to guy on baseball knowledge is my cousin's husband, Clay Snellgrove. He owns/runs the Bases Loaded Baseball school in Murfreesboro, TN. He played 4 years of baseball in college at Middle Tennessee State University (a Div I school), played a bunch of years in the Padres minor league system at their AA affiliate, and I think he got called up for AAA ball once or twice.
So, as far as baseball knowledge goes, this guy is a bona-fide former professional baseball player who has gone farther in sports than anybody else I personally know. (Apologies if I got any of the details of your career wrong, Clay. I think I hit most of the major points, though.)
That's just a very long way of saying, when this guy says something about sports, especially in regards to developing young people to play sports, I listen.
When he says a big barrel bat makes a difference, I go to the store and buy big barrel bats.
When he says that the Mizuno Power Close gloves really are probably the best-designed gloves for younger players, the next catcher's mitt I buy is a Mizuno Power Close.
Sometimes, though, he surprises me. We recently had a long conversation where I shared with him my concerns that maybe Logan is getting a little too much baseball.
Now, I'm not complaining. I'm just neurotic. Logan, if he continues to play travel ball, will only get a month, maybe a month and a half off from baseball every year. That causes me some concern. He's also developing little baseball related injuries that may or may not have happened if he were just playing rec. league. That causes me some concern. Overtraining in any discipline can lead to injury. That's just a fact.
To make matters worse, there are ways for Logan to play MORE baseball. Fall baseball leagues aren't that common up here, but they're around. I basically put my foot down on that one, though, when a parent or two approached me about Logan playing.
There comes a point where, sorry, it's just overkill. I don't care who your boy is, but he doesn't need a 12 month organized baseball routine, with no breaks. Especially not when he's 8 years old.
Now, I do believe, on balance, that travel baseball is positive for Logan. As a previous blog post pointed out, he's getting plenty of "normal childhood" time, but missing out on some of the abject boredom and video game aspects of a "normal childhood". To date, I haven't seen that travel baseball has caused him to miss out on anything positive in his life.
I do worry, though. Clay thought that perhaps the 8 month off-season might be a bit of overkill, too.
He emphasized that participation in other sports may actually help a kid in one sport moreso than merely concentrating on one sport year-round.
In this case, you could take a kid and put him through a 10 month a year baseball program. Or, you could put him through a 5 month baseball program, but have him play, say, soccer or basketball in the off-season. That way he's still developing his athleticism, coordination, etc.
Baseball is tricky, too, because it doesn't emphasize cardiovascular fitness the same way that, say, soccer does. Yes, being one of the fastest kids on the team helps Logan. However, if he couldn't hit, catch and throw, all the cardiovascular health in the world won't make a whit of difference.
(This difference, by the way, really starts showing up after puberty. Pretty much every elite runner in the universe has a story about how they were the world's most uncoordinated soccer or basketball player. They attribute it to having a higher concentration of slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are helpful in sports like distance running. However, the lack of fast-twitch muscles gives them much slower reaction ability than the kids who excel at your typical hand-eye, or foot-eye sports.)
So, is all the off-season work paying off? Yeah, I think so, but not as much as others might think.
As I've said before, 90% of a kid's athletic success probably happened in the womb, not as part of some rigorous training program.
So, let's say your kid is already a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 as far as baseball skills. That rigorous 8 month off-season program? Probably brought them up to maybe a 9.6 or 9.7. However, Clay feels that a shorter off-season program, maybe a month or two, would give them the bulk of that improvement. Maybe bring them to a 9.5.
On top of that, he feels that the additional athleticism they'd gain by playing soccer in the off season would render any remaining difference moot.
So, in this example, a 2 month pre-season program would bring them to 9.5, but their 2 months of soccer give them enough additional athleticism to bring them to a 9.6 or 9.7.
So, what are the lessons to be drawn from all this?
First, I don't think, especially at an early age, that concentrating exclusively on one sport is necessary, even if you think the kids future is in that sport.
Second, even if you are one of the few parents who are grooming your kid, sure that they will get a scholarship to a Div I school or play some sort of sport professionally, you can still probably get them there just as quickly if you expose them to a wide variety of sports, especially when they're younger. (I will add an editorial comment that these parents are what I'd consider emotionally unbalanced and not very realistic. Their beliefs will probably end up causing more harm than good for their kids. If your kid plays Div I ball, that's awesome. However, a lot of very talented kids try and not very many succeed. So, while preparing them to play Div I, you might want to consider having a strong plan B if Plan A doesn't pan out.)
Third, the bottom line of all sports for kids should be fun. Period. End of story. Fitness, socialization, self-esteem, those are all secondary reasons to do it. If your kid isn't enjoying it, you shouldn't be pushing them into it. So, it's important for coaches to make sure that practices are actually fun for kids. It's also important to guage your kids feelings towards participation in sports. Once they start treating it like a job they don't enjoy, it's probably time to try and find something else.
Fourth, there does come a time in late Middle School or High School where a kid with real talent will have to select just one sport to focus on. Especially in sports like Basketball and Baseball since they rely very heavily on specific techniques in addition to general athleticism. However, I still think there should be at least one season where even these kids prepping for an elite athletic career should work on a different sport. It gives them a break, lets them avoid overuse injuries and helps their overall athleticism.
So, how does this all apply to me, personally? Logan can play Mavs baseball so long as he enjoys it. (He still loves baseball. Had to keep him from trying to crash a rec. league practice today. Never saw a kid who loved baseball practice so much he would try to crash other teams' practices.)
However, I hope he keeps an active interest in other sports. So far, so good. He plays rec flag football and in a local church-sponsored basketball league. The longer he can play multiple sports, the better.
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