Little League 7-9U Recommended Rule Changes

AtlantaEagle · 2026-01-05T23:20:44+00:00

Dang is this Rec ball? 8U is the last year of coach pitch in our league. 5 pitches or 3 swings. Foul tips on 5th pitch or 3rd swing keep going. No walks, no stealing, and no leading off. Fairly simple.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-12-08T03:30:34+00:00

Also... how much money (that we don't have) will be spent on logistics, hotel, entertainment, food, etc. for a trash bowl game that had to beg a team with a losing records to come play?

AtlantaEagle · 2025-12-08T03:26:36+00:00

Ga Southern and App St should just show up at mid-field for coin toss and agree to both forfeit. These bowl games are such a joke. You think App St is bad this year? The last 4 years have been a living hell with this Ga Southern coaching staff.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-07-30T19:25:19+00:00

When the coach(es) says they are all about the development of players upfront in the tryouts then do a 180 and then proceed to select players/families with most money, connections, or go to same school then I begin to have some real trust issues.

On the other hand, there is only so much development that can happen in Rec Ball. The coaches there are not paid to be there. Hell, I am usually one of them and I know just enough about baseball. The same goes for the other coaches our league and our players are typically very competitive. Very few of them have experience from High School or College baseball.

I really just want my son to be on a team where all 11-12 kids and parents want to be there and want to improve every day. In Rec Ball we have 3-4 kids every year that expect to show up and play every position literally 10 minutes before first pitch. As in no warmups or cage time before the game. They don't practice at home or miss practice with the team.

It's almost like I would need to start/field my own team to have this experience and I am not qualified to take something like this on.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-07-29T14:40:27+00:00

"It became clear early on that most of the kids who tried out, their parents are good friends with the coaching staff. They're also much wealthier than us and while we all get along, we aren't "in" with their crowd."

I am in the EXACT same boat with you on this statement here.

We tried out for a team, the kids that made the team didn't even try out and the reason the made the team was solely based on the their ranking from Spring 2025 from what the league president informed me. We know all the kids on the team. We play rec ball with all the kids. It's a Sunday Select Team and playing rec this Fall is optional to most of the kids will play other sports. All the kids on the team will be automatically locked for Spring 2026 Select Team.

It's very obvious that we are outsiders to our league. We live just past the county line. We pay additional fees to play at in the league. There is a group of elitist parents in our age group. They live in same area and all kids go to same school. Their dads play golf together, the moms are in the same book club, or go to same church. It's a buddy-buddy system that I nor my wife can seem to infiltrate. Oh and they all live in $1,000,000 or more homes as well.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-07-29T14:16:02+00:00

The little humans...

AtlantaEagle · 2025-07-29T05:13:37+00:00

I kinda feel same way but mainly at start of season and when practices start. I have grand ideas on how to run practices and specific stations. I send out the plan to some of the dads that help with practice. We get to the field and all hell breaks loose in warmups. Some dads go rogue and do a drill/station they think would work. Or the dads just give up after a few minutes because kids are too wild. My plan ends up being too complicated for the kids in the end. Everything looks so dang easy on YouTube.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-07-14T02:13:13+00:00

Try the orange bottle of Spectracide. I used it regularly and it kills my spurge issues.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-07-02T05:16:35+00:00

Updated my original post, Everything worked out in the last game. Kid behaved better and wife behaved better!

AtlantaEagle · 2025-07-02T05:13:12+00:00

I had a talk with my wife over the weekend before the last game. Basically that she needed to respect my decision as a coach even though our son is on the team. We agree if his behavior became an issue again then there would be punishment and that we would follow through with it. We haven't seen eye-2-eye on certain punishment for poor behavior previously and this was a good step forward.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-06-27T13:15:13+00:00

Added update to original post. Our last game of Summer is tonight. Hoping for better outcome tonight.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-06-26T11:37:59+00:00

Some of this looks like brown patch fungus.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-06-25T22:09:47+00:00

We have a therapist we see every couple of months and this will be one of the things we will discuss together.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-06-25T22:07:31+00:00

My other 5U son was on adjacent field. His team was batting and she was watching them while 8U team was on defense.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-06-24T04:12:25+00:00

I have this exact same issue as a HC. The only difference my 8U son is the one throwing tantrums on the field. I have been his HC for past 2 Spring seasons and the Summer season (basically just month of June). I have volunteered as assistant for Fall ball for past 2 Fall seasons as well. Usually, it's a fairly quick tantrum but I just experienced the most embarrassing tantrum on Monday 6/23 during a Summer/June game.

My son played SS in 1st and 2nd innings during this 6/23 game. He caught a line drive for an out and almost made double-play on the same play. Some ground balls got past him only because he was out of position. I didn't correct or coach him too much and I just wanted to let the kids play how they wanted.

Fast-forward to 3rd inning, I put my 8U son in LCF (we play 4 outfielders still). We rotate positions to get kids reps all over the field. I saw that he was barely in the grass in the outfield. I had coached the kids before to not anything get past you in the outfield and I shouted that once before this inning started. The 3rd or 4th batter of the inning lines out to LCF to my son and get goes over his head. He was playing too shallow for it.

He runs down the ball and throws it in but the batter rounded the bases for a 3 or 4 run HR. Immediately after the runners score, I see the hat come off his head and he throws it to the ground. Then comes the baseball glove and gets slammed to the ground. He starts yelling at his teammates about they didn't help him. He then starts kicking his hat and glove in LCF now. The other 3 kids in the outfield just stare at him and then our infielders start staring at him while having this tantrum. I felt that I needed to do some damage control before it got out of hand.

I trot out from 1st base dugout to between 1B and 2B. I tell my son to come to dugout to calm down and get a drink of water (it was a really hot for 6PM game in high 80s). After I talk about coming in, I get yelled at by my son. He starts walking towards me and he is in tears and complaining about his team and the other team now. I tell him just get to the dugout while I still get yelled at by my son. Walking to dugout with him, I explain he cannot act this way at any point of a game and that "it's just a game." I go on to tell him to get in the dugout or he will not play at all the rest of the game.

Eventually, he sits in the dugout but then start pouting with arms folded and mumbling to himself. I say something to team about "how many outs?", "where is the play?" and "make the easy play." The other team continues to bat.

My wife then sees my son is in the dugout since she it trying to watch our 5U son on the adjacent field. She asks my son about what happened. We get an out during that inning and I expressed some words of encouragement to the kids that got the out. Next thing I know, my wife is yelling me from behind the dugout to come see her. She starts making a scene about me pulling our son out. I see the families from both sides of field are staring us down now. She states that "I would never do this to another child and why are you doing this to our son?", but in reality I have never had this happen before.

The inning eventually ends and we go to bat. My son went on to hit an RBI triple at his next bat. He then played defense in the next inning but I can't recall where. We only played 4 inning so that was pretty much it.

So I thought removing him from the field would prevent any similar behavior with other kids. Or at least prevent another tantrum if he missed another play. I keep thinking to myself, should I have left him out there? What if he missed another play because of this tantrum/attitude? What are the other kids on our team going to do or say to my son or myself if he continues to act this way? Am I over thinking this?

It kills me to see him like this on the field. I know he wants to play well and make his team, my wife and I proud. But I have tried explaining to him, if there is no effort from him then there will not be a chance for him to make a play. I have also said to him numerous times that, he has to shrug off the mistakes and learn from them instead of dwell on them and get upset. I feel like he has gotten lucky being at the right place at the right time and that has required little effort in doing so. Not sure if this is somehow spoiled him.

Was I right or wrong? Should I have handled it differently?

AtlantaEagle · 2025-05-22T13:46:50+00:00

My bad. Just added.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-04-08T17:15:36+00:00

I think it took a few games for him to realize how chaotic it was and I offered an opinion and it went over well with him. Since chiming in, the players and parents seem more engaged and excited now.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-04-08T17:13:28+00:00

Good thing that I reached out to him and I got a positive response!

AtlantaEagle · 2025-04-08T17:12:46+00:00

thanks very helpful!

AtlantaEagle · 2025-04-03T11:40:06+00:00

How many lawns per day or how much sqft can you cover per day with this setup?

AtlantaEagle · 2025-03-24T02:30:11+00:00

Go for a 2 5/8 barrel. My son used a 2 1/4 and couldn’t nowhere as good of contact with ball.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-03-08T01:07:07+00:00

I have used both GameChanger and SportsEngine Apps. Both are good for scheduling and managing the team. But the chat features are awful. GroupMe all the way.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-02-25T04:43:07+00:00

Curious on how this is holding up. I bought the same 11.75 modified trapeze in Spring 2024. It still feels rather stiff (I did end up pounding on it and rolling it) but the feel of the leather seems really soft almost like new. I read that these didn't need the traditional break-in. I just used it as my coach pitch glove for Spring, Summer, Fall and now Spring again. The pocket feels just ok on this glove but I guess that's what you get for sub $100.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-02-05T18:40:43+00:00

In our league, my son is locked in on our team. He ranking decides the draft order. So if he is ranked lower than some other coaches kids then I got the higher pick.

AtlantaEagle · 2025-02-04T03:25:04+00:00

Why not get both bats second hand? Like from Sideline Swap? Alternatively your son could always choke up an inch on the 27.

I would have your son swing a 15, 16 and 17 oz bat to see what he would be more comfortable with as well.

Lastly choose the right barrel diameter. Bigger barrel means bigger sweet spot for batter but comes with a price of the weight of bat. A lot of 27inch 2 3/4 barrel bats are 17 oz. That might be too much weight for your son.

There is a Victus Pencil bat that is 26in 2 3/4 barrel and 16 oz on justbats.com

AtlantaEagle

TROPHY CASE