Long Cold Winter

In the afterglow of the highly competitive 2013 World Series, MLB now turns to the offseason. The free agent signing period begins, the 2013 awards will be presented and the ‘hot stove discussions’ will begin among fandoms across the land.

For hardcore baseball fans, as the late, former MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti once wrote, the offseason is especially tough.

“It breaks your heart,” he wrote. “It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.“

Generations of diehards suffer through the long cold winter.

But, as a recent yahoo article pointed out, there may be fewer sufferers down the road a decade or so. MLB and baseball in general, is not captivating young fans the way it did in previous generations. There are various reasons for this trend ranging from the late start times of high profile MLB games such as the All Star Game, the playoffs and the World Series.

Also, the author suggests, baseball’s slower pace doesn’t translate to the hustle/bustle of the modern era.

If I may switch caps for a moment – from Writer Jeff to Coach Jeff (or Commissioner Jeff) – I think the challenge is deeper than just the speed of the game.

First, Lisa offered the mom point of view on this topic. As she pointed out, there are many more extracurricular options for kids now as opposed to 20 years ago as such activities as soccer and martial arts gain popularity. And, she added with a sigh, people are so much busier now than ever before.

Beyond scheduling, there is also our approach to teaching the game.

As I wrote earlier this fall, there are some guys coaching the youth in this – and every – sport who are volunteering their time to boost their ego and stoke their own competitive fire rather than doing it as a way to foster a love of the game. 

When I served as a Commissioner in our rec leagues, we had a rule that required all players were played equally, batted equally and rotated among positions. Some of the ‘competitive coaches’ somehow forgot to apply that rule to the 10th and 11th players on the roster.

How often would that player lose interest and just hang up his spikes. It happened more often than you’d imagine - sometimes even during the season.

A second flaw in our system is that many youth coaches are not properly trained in how to teach fundamentals. Often, we just pluck some guy out of the bleachers and say ‘Here, you need to coach this team.” This is the case even though there are countless academies ready to teach volunteer coaches how to teach.

Baseball is a game that must be appreciated to be fully enjoyed. Because there are so many various skill sets that must be done properly to be correctly executed, a solid foundation of baseball fundamentals is necessary. This helps a young player to learn and grow and excel.

If he or she doesn’t learn and grow and excel as a player, the player will give up.

We often saw a pronounced drop off between ages 10 and 11. Can you imagine if your baseball career was over at age 10?

Fortunately, that didn’t happen to our team much because our coaches used to a system designed to help the players to succeed and to enjoy the game.

I used to tell coaches that the key measure of success as a youth baseball coach wasn’t logged in terms of wins and losses but rather in terms of how many players from your team last year returned to play baseball again this year.

Teaching a solid skill set of baseball fundamentals – and making it fun – are two keys to achieving that goal.

The good news is that, at least here in Farragut, baseball is as popular as ever. The youth program at Farragut Baseball, Inc. continues to thrive and the high school team routinely competes for state championships. In our little corner of the world, America’s pastime never really experiences a long, cold winter.

JG

Originally posted 11/4/2013