Inside the Cupboard
For over a dozen years, I’ve written a weekly Inside the Cupboard. My opinions have pretty much stayed the same from day one although I will say I have softened somewhat in some areas.
One area is NOT where the boundaries are for competing with local teams, teams you go to school with the players or teams that your school neighbors theirs. Handing someone a 20-0 or 20-3 loss in football is not ‘bad’ but in especially baseball or even basketball, there’s no excuse for it.
I’ve taken a lot of heat for some of my die-hard ideas and practices that I think are a must to be adhered to daily. Imagine my surprise and my approval when I received the following from a coach at Optimist Park (and yes I know it’s MERE but I would rather children play at an Optimist Park rather than a MERE Park). The coach shared this with all the coaches in AA (Coach Pitch) ball. “After playing 2 games and watching some other teams I just want to put this out there. When you play us I want you to know that I am less worried about my ego and more worried about teaching the boys fundamentals. If your first baseman drops the ball, we are not running. If the ball is rolling around the infield, we are not running. If you look at the next league all the way up to high school, we are producing a group of guys that do not know how to play the game. They cannot throw and catch, they cannot run through first base, breakdown and look for an over-throw. It's sloppy baseball. Our all-star teams get beat out in two games. We have to do better as coaches and it starts in this league. You may beat us by 30, and I will be okay with that, I just want you to know why we are playing like we are. I do want to say thank you to Justin as we played his team last night for our first game and he had a similar approach.”
It matters not who wrote it – it came from a coach who has witnessed what he described, not an older than dirt lady with outdated ideas, rules and baseball knowledge. Many moons ago, someone told me about curve balls and the damage they could do to an arm. I was told by one of the best coaches ever, “If a 10-12 year old kid can’t get a player out on fast ball and a change up, he needs to find another position on the field.” He was adamant the arm was not fully developed until age 14 minimum. I still think Nolan Ryan is the best pitcher to ever play the game. He played it the right way and that’s all there is from Inside the Cupboard this week.
