| I have seen significant changes how youth | | | | Most youth American players today lack the |
| baseball has been 'taught' in the U.S. since the | | | | knowledge and experience that we had because |
| 1960's, and the changes haven't been positive. I | | | | they have more options to take up their free |
| didn't say coached because coaching refers to | | | | time and they therefore have varied interests. By |
| strategy and competition, and the concentration | | | | not spending more time practicing, playing, or |
| of youth baseball must be on skill development, | | | | watching baseball, they are lagging behind kids |
| rules understanding, and team play. We need | | | | from other countries in skill development and |
| teaching coaches for that, because today's | | | | general baseball knowledge. Why do Latin |
| players show deficiencies in these areas more | | | | American players dominate professional baseball? |
| than previous generations. When people of my | | | | In most cases playing baseball is the only sport |
| era started playing baseball, it was the most | | | | available to kids there to participate in, and by |
| popular sport in America and engrained in our | | | | playing constantly they progress quickly. |
| culture. There were many different forms that | | | | Can we and should we go back in time to help |
| helped improve individual skills: fast pitch, whiffle | | | | our youth rediscover the magic of baseball? How |
| ball, ledge, penner, or just throwing popups to | | | | can we, as teachers and coaches, make the |
| yourself, and we didn't need parents to organize | | | | game relevant and necessary for players who |
| these activities. We called our friends who would | | | | get distracted and sidetracked easily. We have to |
| call their friends, we threw off walls or our house | | | | show kids what made us love baseball, and pass |
| steps, and we had games with whoever was | | | | along that love. That's the challenge we want to |
| around and made up our own rules. We became | | | | take on. In future articles we will discuss how to |
| better players by thinking or playing baseball | | | | effectively teach and coach our youth athletes to |
| every day. Plus we learned the game by watching | | | | maximize their talents while identifying the |
| baseball on television or going to major league | | | | negative methods to avoid that I've seen too |
| games if we were lucky enough to get tickets. | | | | much of in the past 30 years. |