The Little League Coach

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Can One Player Destroy a Team?

The trading of Manny Ramirez today makes me ask the question, is a single player’s attitude enough to bring an entire team down? An analyst on ESPN today wondered why in an "individual sport" the Red Sox would trade their best player. How, he asked, could one player bring down an entire team?

Absolutely

This may or may not be true at the major league level, but in youth sports I say ABSOLUTELY a bad attitude can destroy an entire team. A bad attitude on a weak player will probably not effect a team, but a star player w/ a bad attitude will destoy the entire team’s moral.

Just Say No

I know coaches, and I am one of them, who will pass on a player w/ an attitude even if he or she has more talent than the next selection in the draft. I will take 12 average players with good attitudes to 12 superstars that can’t get along or don’t listen. I will usually win also. It is amazing how you can bring a team together with eager kids and a lot of hard work. It is equally as interesting how much faster a team can be torn apart by a kid with an attitude.

What About the Parents?

Another thing that will tear a team apart is a disrespectful parent. How will a kid ever respect the authority of a coach if their parents don’t show the coach respect? I once had an all-star team of fairly talented players. We were playing a team we should have beaten. I had the tying run on 3rd and one of my best bunters at the plate. I gave the squeeze sign. The ball came in at a perfect bunt level, the runner took off for home, and the kid swang and missed! Easy out. We never recovered.

What angered me the most was the look the kid gave me after fanning at the pitch. It was as to say, "I am not going to listen to you because my dad said I don’t have too". I know his dad had told him this because his dad did not respect me. I really don’t care what his dad thought of me, but as parents, we have to instruct our kids to respect the authority figure.

Of course this guy was a regular season coach as well and could have put in for the all-star team. He chose instead to sit in the stands and critisize me constantly. Again, I don’t care, but the effect it had on the entire team was disasterous.

Get Rid of the Cancer

Apparently the Red Sox thought that Manny was such a cancer on their team that they were better off without him! How bad of an attitude do you have to have to get traded from the team that you have delivered over 100 RBI’s and hit over 300 for 8 years for? I can relate, I will NEVER draft another kid with a bad attitude or a bad parent. Life is too short not to have to put up with an ungrateful parent or kid.

What is the worst experience you have had with a kid?

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Clinic On Saturday

We are holding a softball hitting clinic on Saturday and I can’t believe the response we have gotten! Guess we will have to find some additional help! At least the kids are still pumped to play.

Own It

What do you do when you screw up? Do you try and hide it? Avoid it? Or do you own it? This is one of the best lessons we can teach our kids through sports. Own it! Make an error? Apologize and get a hit! Get picked off? Make a diving catch. Own it and make up for it!

Fall is Coming

The fall season is coming! As frustrating as it can be, it is still one of my funnest times. Our fall season is instructive and not competitive. It gives the kids a chance to move up a division and get experience there for next year. The problem is, other leagues keep teams from the prior year together or play too competitive in the fall. In the end, all our kids get better and in the long run, that helps us to excel.

Fall Means Football!

Woohoo!!!! Time to waste away every Sunday for 3 months! Go Redskins! Can you say Jason Taylor? Too bad Sean Taylor isn’t there as well. They would be hurting people very bad! The NFC east is still the greatest division in football. Always has been, always will be. Of course, I hate the Cowboys, hate the Eagles, and dislike the Giants, though I dislike them the least of all.

Fall Means Playoffs!

The fall means baseball playoffs! There is no better time in baseball than the pennant race and the playoffs. Does it get any better than a game seven? Where else will you ever see a team’s ace pitch relief on 2 days rest? I love the fall!

Endless Summer

Of course since I have moved to Florida we no longer have a winter. Yeah, I know, it gets down into the 50’s every once in a blue moon, and people here wear layers! But, really it never gets all that cold. Gotta love it! I moved here because when I was visiting, on a January 15th, I remember the date, I was in shorts, playing golf w/ aligators lounging on the fairway! It doesn’t get much better than that!

Time to Get Busy Again

I have been off and had much time to catch up on chores around the house, online, and here at the site. Very nice! But I am done! I need to get back on the field and start working! Hopefully I will pick up some more individual training clients to keep me busy until we start practicing again.

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As most of you know, I provide individual training during the times that I am not working my day job or coaching one of my teams. This is typically pitching practice or hitting, or something specific that the child needs to improve. As such, I ran an ad on Craigslist to attract some more students. Instantly I was contacted by a gentleman that wanted to book 3 hours of my time a week for his son.

OK, all excited, I emailed him back. The weird thing is he said he was an engineer from Kentucky, stationed in Paris, France, yet he could barely communicate the language. RED FLAG! So, I played along. I responded, gave him a price and waited.

He replied that the price was fantastic! He wanted to book a month’s worth of lessons, but he needed my address, phone number, etc., to send a check. He was going to send a check for an additional amount because he wanted to make sure his son had spending money when he was in the states. I was to cash the check, take my amount, and wire the rest to his bank account. RIGHT!

This is the classic internet scam, only with quite a deceptive twist. I responded that I would not need the money now and that he can pay me at the first lesson, I have no problem with that. Think he will respond?

Obviously these scams must work, but have you ever heard of anyone falling for them? Please let us know.

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A Guest Post from

The Little League Mom

(AKA E. Peevie of the Green Room )

You’ve been following the debate , of course, about whether or not I should bring C. Peevie back to Chicago from our idyllic vacation resort in South Haven for the final Little League championship game.

Well, as I reported in The Green Room (http://greenroomthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-are-champions.html ), the family was supportive, so we made the hot, un-air-conditioned drive, and arrived with about an hour to spare. I got comfortable in my folding camp chair in prime real estate behind the Brewers’ bench, where I sat for exactly one scoreless inning.

Then C. Peevie got up to bat with one runner on base and one out in the top of the second. I’ve mentioned that he’s been struggling at the plate, and when he whiffed the first pitch, my stomach lurched.

Moments later my boy scorched a line drive over the third baseman’s head and past the left fielder for a triple—driving in the first run of the game. I left my middle-aged mom self behind and jumped about 17 feet in the air. “Go, Zeusk*!” I screamed. “Run like the wind!”

C. Peevie has many strengths, abilities and assets. Speed is not one of them. And yet that boy—my boy—pulled off a triple, setting the stage for two more runs that inning. The Brewers led until the fifth inning, when the Twins pulled ahead by one run. By the end of the fifth inning, every fan on both sides of the field was standing, cheering every pitch, every play, every blink.

Coach Lou moved C. Peevie around, starting him in left, playing him in center and right, and a couple of innings at first base. Sometime around the sixth inning, he fielded a sharply hit ground ball about eight feet from the first base bag. He knocked it down, and fumbled it for a second. The crowd roared.

Then we saw the kind of smart teamwork that coaches dream about: C. Peevie realized he couldn’t pick up the ball and get back to the bag quickly enough to make the out. Abandoning his feckless fumbling, he darted to the bag. Meanwhile, the second baseman, in heads-up play, scooped up the ball and tossed it over to C. P. at first for the out. On the Brewers’ sidelines, we passed the defibrillator down the row.

Finally, in the bottom of the seventh, the Brewers faced a desperate one-run deficit. Batting for the last time in regulation play, the Coach’s son Tommygun led off, smartly accepting a walk. He easily stole second on a dropped pitch, and the fans urged the batter, my friend ChefKat’s son and wielder of a Big Bat, Nick, to bring him home.

Another dropped pitch, and Tommygun headed for third! We all stopped breathing, and yet somehow we were screaming at the same time! The Twins’ catcher threw the runner out, and we were two outs away from earning a respectable but disappointing second place trophy.

Big Bat Nick came through with a crucial single, and the next batter drove him home, tying the game four-four. We held them in the bottom of the seventh and went into extra innings. Honestly, I do not even remember any details after this point, probably because my brain was too deprived of oxygen, except that there was no score in the eighth, and the Brewers scored three runs in the ninth, and held the Twins scoreless to take the crown.

The boys celebrated with zero-proof champagne, and the adults celebrated with real bubbly. I was so grateful that C. Peevie had this experience, and I do believe the Little League Coach is right: it will remain distinct in his memory for many years, and perhaps even for the rest of his life.

And now I’ve made a deposit in my memory bank as well, one that will make me grin every time I revisit it. The trip was definitely worth it.

*Zeuskarelli is my weird and unlikely nickname for C. Peevie.

(Read more from The Little League Mom, AKA E. Peevie, in The Green Room , where she writes about parenting, politics, and other p- and non-p topics, and even posts a little poetry periodically.)

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We played Scene It? TV Travel DVD Game today and, of course, my team kicked butt! It was pretty fun and we played about 5 rounds. I recommend it for travel or play at home. It was all about Television, but they have ones for kids, Disney, and movies as well as many other editions. Pretty fun game.

For parties they have a party mode where it plays continuously. This would be a great option for conversation starters!

Go ahead and buy this game by clicking here:

Scene It? TV Travel DVD Game

It was most entertaining!

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1. He is born with natural talent
2. She works harder that the other players
3. He has a good attitude
4. She has mastered a position
5. He is a great pitcher
6. She is a great outfielder
7. He is a solid hitter
8. She can lay down a bunt
9. He has honed his skills
10. She is the best she can be and that is good enough

Anything I forgot? Please chime in.

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One of the best ways to drive traffic to your site is to submit guest blogs to other blogs. We are happy to print your guest blog if you wish to submit one to us.We only have a couple of requirements:

1. It MUST be original material not found anywhere else
2. It must be entertaining.

It need not be about baseball or softball but can if you wish. It can reflect, instruct, complain, rant, rave, it really doesn’t matter! There are not minimum or maximum word requirements and images are welcome, links are encouraged.

So come what are you waiting for? Send me your best effort!

Send submissions to rick@thelittleleaguecoach.com.

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Now that all the tournaments are over and we have set records in our concession stands we are off to visit family! Experienced Little League parents know to plan their vacations in late July and early August, so that is what we do. I hope to continue posting up there, but I cannot make any promises. Please don’t hate on me if I miss a day.

This trip might be a little awkward as well. It is the first time our family has gotten together since our father died around Christmas. In fact, that was the last time we were all together. It is also pretty much the first time I can remember that he won’t be there. There had to be other times when he wasn’t there, but I can’t remember them.

This is something we will skate around all weekend, but I know it will be in the forefront of everyone’s mind. We lost my sister’s husband last year as well, so neither of them will be there. Times are changing, the kids are older and some don’t attend anymore, the second generation of kids and grand kids have begun to grow up and everything is a bit different now when we get together. I guess that is how life works. Either way, I will have fun.

So, the next time I post it will likely be from the car on I-95. Waive is you see me!

What is your favorite family get together place?

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One of my personal pet peeves is kids outside the dugout swinging bats. We generally don’t have a lot of trouble w/ this in our own league, but other leagues seem to do this ALL the time. With the addition of the batting cages and hit downs we need to be very cognizant of where the little ones are!

Please take extra effort to insure that if bats are being swung, safety is the #1 priority!

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