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If You Think Little League Baseball Does Not Teach Important Survival Skills, Think Again

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley found someone else.
Sometimes as parents we forget how simple Two years later we won the league
and subtle the lessons in life can be. championship, and when we did, I was
I was reminded of this yesterday surrounded by winners who had become my
afternoon when I heard the cheering of friends. I did not need my parents to do
youngsters playing a Little League this for me, I did not need some meddling
baseball game in the nearby city park. It adult or juvenile counselor to do this
is amazing when the noise of kids at play for me, I needed to do this for myself.
can carry the sound a half-block away and When I got the guys together and we took
into the open window of your living room. that trophy down to Jewell Realty, we all
Little League baseball games can get shared in the excitement of being
noisy. Kids are excited when the bases winners. Later that summer I would walk
are loaded and their next hitter sends a by Jewell Realty, see that trophy in the
screaming line drive into the outfield. window, and know who I was and what I had
They know that the outfielder will likely become: a winner. Jewell Realty did not
boot the ball, and as it gets by him on win that trophy, I won that trophy, and I
its merry way to the fence, all three knew what it would take to win another.
players on base will score and the hitter Our parents never saw us play, they were
will probably come home safe with an too busy working.
inside-the-park home run and 4 ribbies If someone had come around after that
(runs batted in) to his credit. first season and given each of us a
Ah, baseball, spring is in the air and trophy for losing, we would not have
summer is approaching. accepted it. Think about it: the message
The pure fun of sport is so normal and so they would have been sending us was we
natural to our human experience. think you are so bad that you could never
I read a study once that interviewed win a title, so in order to sooth your
hardened criminals spending life in precious little feelings, here is a
prison for capital crimes, such as trophy for being a loser.
murder. A psychologist asked inmates what I think I would have spit in their face.
they missed most now that they were I was that competitive. I might have been
spending the rest of their lives behind a 9 year old but I did not need some
bars without possibility of parole. meddling parent setting goals for me that
The answer stunned me, and it should stun I thought were so low I would trip on
you too. What they missed most was not them walking across the baseball diamond.
their girlfriend, or sex, or drinking, or If you think a 9-year-old child cannot
drugging, or gambling; it was the sound have some dignity, you are dead wrong,
of kids playing. Perhaps the one, real, and have probably been wrong about a lot
positive memory they have of their life of things in your life.
was when they were a child playing. Once we won that championship and
These are two compelling extremes: experienced our moment of victory, you
children at play without a care in the could have taken that trophy away and it
world, and incarcerated criminals who are would not have mattered. I knew what I
burdened with the reality that they will had sacrificed to win that trophy, and
never again be free to play. after all of the blood, sweat and tears,
With all of the violence we are now nothing any stupid parent or adult could
seeing with youngsters who solve their do would have made me feel less about
supposed "problems" by shooting their myself. I knew I was a winner, and I
perceived "enemies" (many times friends wasn't going to settle for anything less.
and family), I am reminded that some of Parents, if you do not understand one
our children today seem less able to cope thing in raising your children,
with adversity, and even less so with understand this: if your child goes
patience. through his or her entire schooling
How is it that they clearly lack coping period (kindergarten through high school
skills and patience, two necessary traits graduation) and never experiences real
for survival as an adult? success at anything at least one day is
It will take someone a lot smarter than his or her life, your child will be
me to give you the right answer to this handicapped for life. Nothing could be
question. more arcane, stupid and bovine.
I will leave that answer to what some Don't you dare try to prevent your child
educated professionals who study from failing. Let them try and when they
psychology think. fail, pick them up, dust them off, and
In the meantime, I choose not to tell you encourage them to try again. It is in
what I think, but to share with you what failing that we learn to succeed.
I know. If you as a parent cannot be a winner in
Here is one thing about Little League your own pathetic life, if all you have
baseball that is being taught by some to offer is whining and complaining about
parents and some leaders in some this and that, and bemoaning how your
organizations that is really not worth child is treated, then get the hell out
teaching, and that is this: of the way and let your child fail to
Certain organizations have adopted the ultimately win on his own.
misguided practice of rewarding every kid Take a snapshot of two pictures.
on each team regardless of their effort In one a child is given a trophy, a team
or performance. In other words, a team photo and a baseball card with his
can lose every game all year and each kid picture on it featuring a loser who
gets a trophy for participating, a team accomplished nothing. In the other
picture and his or her own baseball card snapshot, a child is given only a trophy,
with their mug on it. or the team is given one trophy to
Apparently some parents do not want to admire, because they have worked their
hurt their child's feelings even though butts off, improved their skills, played
the child makes little effort, is clearly their hearts out, taken risks and won a
incompetent at improving on any skills of league title. Which is your child?
the game, does not understand the game, Any child who has worked to get to the
and really could care less. top of the mountain, and experiences the
I doubt the parents in the example given sheer joy of competing and winning, is
have a clue about the lessons they are someone who will go much farther in life.
teaching their children by insisting on I can tell you from experience in hiring
this foolish practice of making their that there is an incredible correlation
child feel like he or she has between having athletic success at the
accomplished something. high school or college level and success
First, they are encouraging mediocrity by later in life. The reason is simple:
rewarding nothingness. Practice this winners win and losers don't.
stupidity a few more generations and we Do not misunderstand what I am sharing
will have our children thinking they can here. It is not that you cannot win
show up to work as an adult, do nothing bigger and better in life unless you are
and get paid for their lack of skills, a successful athlete in your youth, it is
effort and production. that you need to have a sense of
Second, they are rewarding children for accomplishment and recognition doing
having no concept of goal-setting and something that takes hard work,
achieving goals. The parents are not dedication, effort and goals. It could be
encouraging any concept of singing, it could be acting, it could be
self-improvement and providing no playing a musical instrument; suffice to
incentive to do so. say any activity that allows you to fail,
Third, they are teaching no learning learn, improve and succeed over a period
skills in how to cope with failure, and of time.
not providing a shred of understanding It certainly helps to have a strong
about the function of failing. Losers father in the house to help teach his
would be astonished to learn that children what it is to be a winner, to
successful people have failed more than learn coping skills, patience, hard work,
losers ever thought of failing. dedication, effort, improvement and
One of the big differences between losers success. A strong single mother can do
and winners in the game of life is that the same.
when winners fail, they get right back Do not play patty-cake with your children
up, dust themselves off, learn from the when they are 9 years old, do not
experience, and try again. knowingly set them up in life to fail,
Fourth, they devalue the kids who do work let them struggle and succeed. If you do
hard, fail and then succeed by rewarding not do this someday they will be adult
a bunch of kids who haul off and do and not know how to act when they are put
nothing, learn nothing, and have no sense down, put upon, made fun of and beaten up
of real accomplishment. emotionally. They will figure it out if
I remember going door-to-door as a you do not protect them and their
9-year-old kid, looking for a sponsor for feelings so much they become helpless and
a baseball team I was putting together. I inept.
instinctively knew kids would want to be They will learn to cope and be stronger
on my team if I could get them a free for the experience. When they reach
baseball hat and shirt; we would then adulthood they will be able to dismiss
look like a real team. I had played on a people around them who have mediocre
team that had nothing; we could not minds and are mental midgets. They will
afford uniforms, we were lucky to have a be polite as they treat these losers as
glove or borrow a glove. irrelevant (which they are) and be
I found that sponsor, a business called unaffected by their negative presence.
Jewell Realty in Flint, Michigan. I found Then they will move on quickly to be with
a sponsor because I was looking for a the winners. It is the losers who are
sponsor. The people that owned that left standing alone and wondering why.
business were impressed that a 9-year-old Do not play to participate, play to win.
kid would have the guts to walk all over It is not winning that is the be all to
town and ask businesses to sponsor his end all, it is that in the process of
rag-tag team. I put up with the nos and winning we learn important skills that
getting kicked out of places because I make us much more effective in playing
wanted it that bad. and winning in the game of life. After
The year was 1953 and we were terrible; all, life is not a resting place; life is
we lost more games than we won. We were a testing place, it is now and will
put upon, put down, slapped around and continue to be as long as you live.
got the crap kicked out of us, but I A wise man said it and it bears repeating
never quit, and I made sure my teammates here: When everyone is somebody then no
didn't quit either. When someone quit one's anybody.
trying, I kicked him off the team and




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