Little League World Series

The best time of the year for me.

They have video replay in the regionals and the series. These kids are so good.

I'd bet all my money on an All Star team that wins a USSSA tournament over Little League.

Watching Maine vs Vermont in regional play. These kids look like the little league teams I have coached and played. Some of the teams which get to the finals have some pretty big kids. I like to see a 12-13 year old who is normal size doing well. These kids are having fun.

Ohio vs. Michigan. I love it as two girls are playing and these kids are good.

I really like the Maine team and do not know if they will make it, but they interview the kids before the game and they have an opportunity to give their favorite sports team, their nickname, or their favorite player.......some of these kids are smart as a lick and have pretty good senses of humor. They are having so much fun.

The Maine team got beat. What a fun bunch of kids. I can spend the next week watching nothing but these kids playing baseball. By the time they are 12 they really have the coordination to execute good baseball plays, just not the muscle and power. It is a pure game at this age and a joy to watch.

2seaoat wrote:Watching Maine vs Vermont in regional play.  These kids look like the little league teams I have coached and played.   Some of the teams which get to the finals have some pretty big kids.   I like to see a 12-13 year old who is normal size doing well.  These kids are having fun.

Little League is a joke and is not pure baseball. They don't lead off, they can't steal until pitch passes home plate, pitchers don't understand what pitching from a stretch is or how to hold a runner on. It's baseball with a handicap. Attend a USSSA tournament at the same age group and see kids who are going to have a clue when they get to the high school level.

USSSA has a million more kids playing and I know it is much more popular than little league in Illinois, but I am not a fan of 10-13 year old kids stealing freely at that age. I caught, pitched, and played the field and a ten year old catcher who can keep runners from advancing is a difficult find when you are fielding a team with 13 kids. It becomes a game of a person who is walked advances to third because most teams cannot make the throw. When kids get stronger, and there are more kids on the team which can make the throws and catch, I have no problem. I just like the kids having fun playing the game I always loved. I always wanted to pitch in the majors and dominated until eighth grade when I broke both radii in my wrist and damaged my tendons. I could not play that summer, and by ninth grade summer I had no velocity in my pitching as a tendon would stick over a bone spur at the break. There is nothing better than standing on the mound playing with a good batter who you need to outsmart with your next pitch......of course two home runs off the church roof told me at a young age that there is always somebody better than your are.

2seaoat wrote:USSSA has a million more kids playing and I know it is much more popular than little league in Illinois, but I am not a fan of 10-13 year old kids stealing freely at that age.   I caught, pitched, and played the field and a ten year old catcher who can keep runners from advancing is a difficult find when you are fielding a team with 13 kids.  It becomes a game of a person who is walked advances to third because most teams cannot make the throw. When kids get stronger, and there are more kids on the team which can make the throws and catch, I have no problem.  I just like the kids having fun playing the game I always loved.  I always wanted to pitch in the majors and dominated until eighth grade when I broke both radii in my wrist and damaged my tendons.   I could not play that summer, and by ninth grade summer I had no velocity in my pitching as a tendon would stick over a bone spur at the break.  There is nothing better than standing on the mound playing with a good batter who you need to outsmart with your next pitch......of course two home runs off the church roof told me at a young age that there is always somebody better than your are.

1) You need to move into the 21st century regarding baseball.
2) USSSA is a choice and if the choice were a bad one, not so many parents would have left Little League and went to USSSA and other affiliations.
3) 10-13 year olds don't play against each other in USSSA. They are broken down in one year increments. If a kid can learn and excel, why hold them back? USSSA is a purer form of baseball than the "hand holding" Little League.
4) USSSA teams are "Select" teams of which you try out to become a part. They aren't rec league teams. Not everyone is good enough. The kids who do make those teams are REALLY good.
5) Again, if it were not fun, then the growth of USSSA and other leagues would not be expanding.

I am not a big fan of traveling teams with all the good kids parents thinking they are going to make the bigs. I like kids trying different sports and evolving into what they can do best in High School. I have a friend who has his son pitching at Villanova and is playing in the prestigious Wisconsin summer league where pro players played when they were in school. His kid quit playing all other sports and focused on traveling teams which often in his teens played 60 games. I have told the dad to be realistic and do not let him get his expectation too high because it damages kids.

My son in law was a big fish in a small pond playing baseball. He was on every traveling team since he was 12 and got a full ride to a university where he played with Granderson. The scouts were filling the stands with Curtis and my SIL was talked to numerous times by scouts about playing in the minors. He had wanted to be an architect, but gave up that dream figuring he was going to play major league baseball because he had been the best and he had a full ride, but in the end he was smart enough to know that getting paid less than 20k a year for three to five years while living with other families was not what he wanted, and in the end, for the next ten years he regretted being so blind and spending so much time on baseball when it was once a game he loved, it became an obsession. He is construction manager now, having gotten his degree in business and not architecture, and I think he resents his father for pushing him so much in baseball. Kids need to be kids. Little league has the best formula.