Youth baseball age kids are truly not athletically equipped yet to perform the necessary baseball skills at a high level to be able to play baseball like MLB, college and High School ballplayers. Yet the ‘Big-people’ will not let go of forcing our kids to play “Real Baseball” rules despite the USABaseball/MLB American Development Model’s allowing us to take the off-ramp. We will be interviewing the ‘Real Baseball’ crowd to see why they are so convinced that ill-equipped kids must play “Real Baseball” or nothing else. Coachandplaybaseball.com

Does anyone conduct on-field baseball practice any more? Well if you are fortunate to have regularly scheduled on-field youth baseball practice here are some ideas for you listen to and see if they can benefit your teams. Most of them I use every practice and prior to ballgames.

Get your notepad and pencil and jot down some of these drill ideas and try them out at your next on-field baseball practices. Coachandplaybaseball.com

Youth baseball has a big  problem by using “Real Baseball” rules with almost zero modifications or adaptations. Ever heard of “Sandlot” baseball? Well we are taking a look at starting with “Sandlot” style baseball and find some middle ground with “Real Baseball” rules and procedures. How do we make youth baseball act and mimic more benefits and features of ‘Sandlot” baseball? coachandplaybaseball.com

If you know the truth then are you ready to take a stand? Hear about the main purpose for youth baseball and here’s a hint. It is not to please the ‘big-people’. If it doesn’t benefit the kids then we will not be doing that. The Berlin Wall stood over 40 years and through the leadership of Ronald Reagan the wall came down in two months. We can take a stand for our kids and we can do it quickly. coachandplaybaseball.com

Youth baseball games brings a huge amount of entertainment to the adults. We talk about why adults are so infatuated about watching their kids play baseball. Yet have little or no appetite to make sure the kids practice baseball skills. It’s like they have no concern for them about playing the game well or playing a long time---they just want to go to the ballgames every Tuesday and Thursday night. Coach and Play Baseball.com

How much “player development” actually is going on in youth baseball? Is youth baseball more about entertaining the “Big-people” or giving kids vitally important reps to build and develop baseball skills? Listen in and decide if you think we are just dressing up in our baseball uniforms or actually ‘playing” baseball. Let’s see if there are improvements to our youth baseball systems that we can implement immediately. Coachandplaybaseball.com

Kids who start playing baseball at age 5 or 6 then reach age 13 & 14 have played 8,9, maybe even 10 years of organized youth baseball. They should be pretty polished by the time they are 13 or 14 right? Not always the case. Too many players are lacking baseball skills. The collateral damages of playing too many games, never practicing on the field and having coaches that are trained to organize player development minded practices are often more the norm than the exception. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

How many on-field baseball practices will a player participate in during their under 12-year-old career? From age 7 to 12 or about 6 seasons how often will kids have an on-field team practice? In addition, how many coaches will be thoroughly trained to conduct these on-field practices which include a large quantity of reps, wide range of throwing skills, sampling of multiple positions, many baserunning opportunities, turning double plays, catching fly balls on the run, numerous times to bat? All while having a blast! www.coachandplaybaseball.com

You all have been to your town carnival or county fair right? It’s exciting and entertaining to go to a town carnival. Youth baseball has a bit of hullabaloo around it that somewhat mimics a carnival. It has an entertainment aspect to it. But the consequences of making kids play games and never practicing on the field leaves players ill-prepared for the 60’-90’ fields. Pro baseball has a rookie level that you may not be aware of that youth baseball should take a long look at and it does not look like a carnival. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

When we find something ‘out of order’ like an elevator for example it means it needs some special repairs to get it back functioning correctly. It is broken to some degree and working like it should. Is there any part of youth baseball that we can consider as ‘out of order’?

Well, here is a couple areas that we will discuss and let you decide if there might be cause for an ‘out of order’ sign. www.coachandplaybaseball.com