Local Leagues are starting Fall-ball programs across the country, which means two things: A lot of parents who lack experience will be coaching a team for the first time, and a lot of kids will be learning the game from a lot of inexperienced coaches. If you’re coaching beginning baseball in non-competitive levels, the rules [...]
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A reader wrote in and asked my opinion on a very touchy subject. A dad sent an email describing a girls’ high school coach who exhibited angry, sarcastic and belittling behavior when coaching the team. The dad related that he’d spoken to this coach on numerous occasions, expressing his displeasure with the coach’s handling of [...]
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In 2002, I was managing a baseball all-star team of 9 and 10 year-olds. We continued to win games, and this meant I had to continually come up with things to keep the players occupied during downtime in the dugout after we’d finished warm-ups, before taking the field. One of our favorite pastimes was my [...]
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I stumbled upon a Little League blog and began reading comments. The posts that were written were some of the most outrageous I’ve ever seen regarding a youth sports league. It is amazing that these parents believe that they could have the best interests of the children of this community at heart. This particular thread [...]
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We get asked for rules templates for youth baseball leagues running fall-ball seasons. Here is one for what a league termed its “Rookie B” Division, which is a non-competitive coach-pitch level. Most of these rules would also apply for T-ball leagues as well as machine-pitch. Feel free to copy and modify as needed for your [...]
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Great story by Rick Reilly about James Rickenbacker, personal bodyguard to Donald Trump and US Open guard who has interacted with all the great players of the past decade. If you’re a fan of Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, the Williams Sisters, Rafael Nadal or many other tennis icons from the past 15 years, you’ll enjoy [...]
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While it may be cooling down in some parts of the country, in others it is still plenty hot. With young athletes beginning new seasons in a variety of sports, we felt it a good idea to pass along more information from our partner, STOP Sports Injuries.org, on how to recognize and prevent heat-related illness. [...]
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We’ve finished fine-tuning the softball drills and have finally sent them to our production facility. In 4-5 weeks we’ll have the long-awaited softball decks ready for distribution. Our softball guru, Sue Enquist, contributed valuable information to make this deck the best it can be. We know there are thousands of well-intentioned softball coaches out there [...]
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Coaching a Tee Ball, Coach-Pitch or Machine-Pitch team? Your players’ parents will have instant confidence in you once they read this letter informing them what to expect. And while this is specifically written for baseball, it can be modified for other sports as well. Save to your computer and then modify as needed. And, if [...]
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We get asked for this all the time, so we’ll post it for you here: If you’re coaching a competitive team where you’ll be making important decisions on playing time, batting order and defensive positions, your players’ parents can be the difference between this being an enjoyable season and one you’d rather forget. Use this [...]
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