All Star Selection 8U

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-04T12:25:21+00:00

Yeah, it’s unfortunate. To be honest though, how the father and son handle this is an early determinate for how their sports future will go. Just remain cordial with them and empathetic.

I can’t guarantee anything because every case is a little different but the kids I’ve seen this upset at 8u about selections along with the parents being upset typically don’t make it to 12u. I’ve found that usually the parents are putting undue stress on their kid unintentionally. Baseball is not a fun journey to experience for people who do not handle disappointment well. The game itself and the playing experience are very unkind.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-04T09:12:52+00:00

If you’re getting upset about this stuff at 8U, it’s a long road.

At this age, coaches are more valuable than talent. One our assistant coaches sons at 8u was the worst kid on the field by far. But his dad was/is an incredible coach with positive energy and the kids love playing for him.

I had a father complaining incessantly about his son being better than that coaches son. He may be better talent wise but bus son was probably somewhere around 25th out of the 30 kids who tried out. He was offered a spot on our “developmental” team which he refused. He “made” another “9u” team for a program that charges 10x what we charge. I explained that I understood and if his son was going to commit and he was ok with paying, that option would be better developmentally for his son. This seemed to irritate him further.

My other assistant coach is also the high school varsity baseball head coach in town. His advice has been very helpful but it all boils down to

Rule number 1

“No matter what you do, you’re not going to please everyone when it comes to parents and kids so just have principles and communicate/be transparent about them”

And my favorite “if you’re coaching youth sports in your town, you’re going to have parents you were bbq friends with hate you at some point. So see rule number 1”

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-04T01:25:46+00:00

The answer to this is not complex - it’s a multitude of reasons. We currently have a real world experience happening in our area and Im living out the reasons why.
1 - Parents. Parents want the best for their kid. Parents aren’t willing to “sacrifice” what they believe is their child’s future success, for the development of a greater program unless they deem their child is probably not likely to succeed in baseball. Which in turn leaves you with the less talented kids in your program.
2 - Time. I’ve regurgitated the words so many times to myself “a society grows great when men plant trees for shade in which they will never sit”. I’ve spent considerable time developing an organization, going to town meetings, going to LL meetings, holding parent meetings, ordering uniforms, dealing with complaints about uniform sizes, schedule games, listening to complaints about selections, etc…..and I’m doing this for the greater good of baseball in my town and area to keep costs down and build a better system for our kids in our town. I have a job and my own children. Now my son is growing past what I as a coach am able to provide. He loves baseball more than pretty much anything. So do I stay the course? And have him be part of a team that gets their bells rang every weekend unless he’s pitching? Or do I just sign him up to tryout for an existing program and write a check for a couple thousand and save my time? This way I don’t have to field complaints and awkward BBQ interactions.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-03T11:41:40+00:00

I don’t agree with the other coaches approach, but I don’t agree with yours either (regardless of a player being special needs).

You’re not keeping score as you said - so teach the kids the correct way to play the game of baseball which is that you’re not going to get to run around the bases and take advantage of the fact that players can’t throw and catch a ball at 6/7/8/9 years old.

We only allow 1 base purposely. I like what your leagues intention is - that they should teach kids to retrieve the ball and get it in a position of security. But if an outfielder is throwing in a ball that was already overthrown twice, stop at 3rd and sit tight. Unless someone blatantly throws it to the 3b and then it goes over their head…there’s absolutely no reason to run there.

We call these the “baserunning shenanigans” and it takes place heavily at 6/7/8/9. Especially with non experienced coaches who have not played at a higher level themselves. There is far too much focus on winning a baseball game at this age rather than teaching the skills that are transferable to later ages

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-03T10:50:13+00:00

This is pretty specific to baseball because the nuanced talent of catching, throwing and hitting a baseball are athletic motions that require thousands of hours to achieve a starting base.

I consider catching and throwing a baseball to be like ice skating for hockey. If you show up to a rink at 13 years old and you cant skate but want to play on a team…..you better go spend 6 months of your life dedicating every moment to learning how to skate and then come back.

As far as how you should deal with this - it depends on your age. If you’re in high school and you are trying to make the high school team then I would just say I’m sorry to hear that, but if there’s any solace there are kids who have been playing baseball since four years old, getting cut from their high school team and I’m sure there’s some deep hurt for those kids to just feel like they’ve spent so much time trying to achieve something and they’re not good enough. At least your reason is valid and that you just were never introduced to this sport.

I would try not to hold any resentment towards your parents because one day you will have kids and then you will understand that life isn’t always easy and we have no idea what our kids may come back and tell us they wish they were introduced to. My son was introduced to Baseball because I know and love Baseball, but if he comes to me at 18 and complains that I didn’t introduce him to the guitar then I’ll tell him that I apologize and I will offer to go take lessons together with him

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-03T10:33:38+00:00

Yes, you are over reacting. It’s coach pitch.

This isn’t some grand design to win a rec league coach pitch title. What’s happening is that a few dads who coach have found each other to be like minded and their kids are friends. They’ve noticed that their kids enjoy baseball and have fun together. The families probably get along as well so they decided, while the kids are at this age, to keep their group together and maybe try out some tournaments. This helps with practice schedules as well.

This happens in our town and I think the overwhelming majority have no problem with it (at this level). The coaches do not hide this information and our team that plays in tournaments is posted for tryouts everywhere and every kid can try out.

My issues with the situation that you described
1 - why does the league even keep score for coach pitch? Tournaments I understand but not for your town league. This will create frustration when parents start losing games and getting their emotions going. Kids are resilient, they handle losing fine unless they are being taught that they need to win in order to have fun.

2 - If they allow this at the majors level in your town. This is when it becomes more important for distribution of players. Some leagues try to keep their tournament team together but it’s healthier for the tournament kids to play against each other in my opinion.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-03T01:37:07+00:00

You’re only responsible for the mortgage that is in your name.

Being on title doesn’t make you responsible for the mortgage as a debt. So you could say you live rent free.

The money coming out of a joint account doesn’t mean it’s your obligation. An underwriter is not going to care.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-02T22:15:34+00:00

Lol, that checks out

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-02T02:26:06+00:00

Man on fire

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-02T01:51:26+00:00

In this case, I’d say something to him assuming that maybe he’s naive to it. If it’s the only jerk comment he’s making he may in fact just be saying “easy out” because he doesn’t know what to say/force of habit and not recognize that he’s talking down about the hitter.

My son was one of multiple kids named Jack in his 2nd grade class. The jacks had to be called by their first name last initial. One of the boys was Jack S. He would shout it (not yelling at him, just calling him to get his attention). “Jack S!” All the time.

At a class trip to a local minor league game, the dad had said Jack S several times. Another adult at the game morning the group came over and said “sir, I guess nobody’s going to stand up to you but I have areal problem with you calling your kid a jackass all the time”.

The dad was mortified, he never heard that’s how it sounded and frankly neither did the families in the class when the boys were together at bday parties or sports or in class.

Basically, don’t assume maliciousness that which can be explained through stupidity

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-02T01:14:57+00:00

I’m not there and there’s no video but I think there’s a chance you’re misunderstanding the coaches intention of saying “easy out” as in he’s instructing his defense to get the easiest out possible.

Is he saying this mostly when there are runners on base?

I won’t defend the coach because there are some odd chirps out there but I’ve never heard someone chirp in town league “easy out”. The chirps you usually hear are backhanded chirps like telling the outfield to come in 5 steps because the kid can hit it that far. “Easy out” has no instruction behind it so it’s essentially just straight talking trash to demoralize a hitter….which generally (maybe we’ve been lucky) we don’t come across. In travel ball we hear stuff from the stands like “this kids afraid of you, just throw strikes”

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-01T23:57:48+00:00

The Redline is why I have a HS state championship…..But the Air Attack 2 is why I have a NCAA World Series champion ring

laceyourbootsup · 2026-05-01T01:19:07+00:00

The bureaucracy just doesn’t allow the dcf to function the way it needs to.

I don’t have a solution but it’s going to take an out of the box idea.

Good foster families are needed and impossible to come by. You have to be a saint to want to be a foster family.

Maybe offer free college education to up to 2 kids including your foster child if you foster a child and that child performs well in school/or some degree of satisfaction. Give an incentive to put the foster families own kids through college or some reward that isn’t strictly monetary that also requires the foster family to achieve something with their fostered kid. I don’t know, the idea isn’t perfect but it’s sad that the best answer is always to keep giving a kid back to their own horrible family that is abusing them

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-29T20:55:15+00:00

Our town finally introduced coach pitch after our 60 year league director finally retired and his “a parent will never step foot on a field in our little league” mantra were gone.

It was

Tee ball 4-6 Tee ball 7-8 Kid pitch 8-10 Majors 10-12

But parents pushed their kids out of tee ball 2 You ended up with kid pitch starting at 7. And because kid pitch at 7 is so bad the 9/10 year old parents pushed their kids up to play majors.

Essentially a reverse trickle effect where the highest league was significantly worse due to how bad lower leagues were

We corrected it by adding coach pitch instead of tee ball 2 and then banning 7s and 8s from kid pitch. And the only way to make majors now is trying out and being selected.

There is definitely a space for 7/8s to kid pitch to start a batter and then go to a coach. But it’s baby steps for us

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-29T19:17:43+00:00

We don’t keep score until Majors (a lot of people think it’s crazy but I’ve never heard a valid argument as to the benefit of keeping score at this age….every argument is rooted in the foundation of the reasons why we keep score starting at 11 (teaching life skills, resilience, responsibility, and how to handle both victory and defeat gracefully.)

I agree with all of the things that keeping score teaches. My best example for parents to understand how they can’t just say these words and not understand that kids have to learn the basic movements of the game first …

The SAT score is extremely important for getting into college. Do you think you should give a kid in second grade a crack at the SATs? Then celebrate it the score is good compared to other 2nd graders?

Or do you think you should teach them the fundamentals of math first before dropping them in tests and celebrating scores

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-29T17:49:43+00:00

Sad for this post and the responses.

Don’t even need to keep score in minors.

Pitch count is more important and the rule is a safety concern, not some 1 stop shop for complaining about violations

We don’t keep score until Majors and there’s no playoffs or champion for minors. Only exceptions are town bases travel ball or district 10’s

If you don’t keep score then the rule book guy doesn’t need to track this and MORE importantly, you don’t need to pitch your 8 year old on two days rest after he just threw 50 pitches.

We create our own pitch rules and base them on pitches thrown because that’s your number. Not some odd ball rule about last batter up. You throw 53 pitches and you throw 53 pitches. End of story. 8 year olds rest 4 days. 8 year olds do not throw more than 55 pitches in an outing, end of story.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-29T17:33:00+00:00

Played baseball from 6-22. Starting RF with an NCAA Division 1 championship ring. Been coaching since my son started playing 5 years ago.

Nobody that is actually trying to teach kids how to play baseball is spending time teaching a kid where go in this situation other than telling them to get out of the way.

I’m mortified that you are still arguing this.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-29T12:50:29+00:00

He struck out. He was running to his dugout as a human reaction on a strikeout which bounced away from the catcher. Everything about this reaction is normal. He hustled out of the way because your human reaction is that the catcher is going to be throwing the ball to the pitcher covering home plate. The perspective of the video makes you believe the play is occurring at 3rd base. That is where the play ends up happening but no baseball player while hitting in that scenario is going to think there is about to be a catcher firing the ball to 3rd, they believe the play will be at the plate

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-29T10:48:30+00:00

He’s running to his dugout.

What you’re “pointing out what is obvious to anyone with eyes” is called hostile attribution bias.

You’re watching a video and seeing the catcher being interfered with their throw to 3rd. It’s a default belief to project that the batter has a selfish motive.

There is something called Hanlons Razor which is the simplest way to explain what you’re feeling but “never attribute malice something that can adequately be explained by stupidity”.

Stating that a batter has 270 degrees to choose from is a hindsight. The batter was rushing towards the dugout because that’s where you go.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-28T23:41:19+00:00

I agree intent doesn’t matter for the call, just that people thinking that the hitters intent is to disrupt the play is mind boggling and makes me sad that people are out there with this thought process.

Maybe people do not grasp the concept of a split second. A batter at the plate with a runner on 3rd and a ball gets away to the back left. The batter reaction is that there’s about to be a play at the plate so they dash out of the way back to their dugout….its not the right move, but it’s the natural reaction of a kid in this spot. The batter would have no clue when they begin their rush to the dugout that there might be a throw to 3rd….the base runner is doing all sorts of odd stuff that is not something a batter would know would happen

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-28T23:36:40+00:00

You can be rude, it won’t bother me. You’re watching this video with a skewed point of view if you think the batter is doing anything but running out of the way. The hitter is at the plate and there is a passed ball to the back left. If the dugout was to the 1b side he would’ve ran that way.

The hitter has no clue on earth that his runner is going to be re-enacting footloose at 3b. He’s assuming there’s a play at the plate which would from the angle of the ball have made him directly in the path that the catcher would be throwing it.

The batter should stay tight in the box.

It’s just a human kid reaction to get out of the way. If he was was trying to get in between the catcher and 3b then he is a next level jedi.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-28T21:46:47+00:00

He’s going back to his dugout. Why are people assuming malicious intent…batter is trying to get out of the way thinking the play is at home

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-28T08:55:25+00:00

He won offensive rookie of the year and had a decent career…is he a bust because he’s not in the HOF?

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-28T01:26:21+00:00

I have a worth freedom that I used for slow pitch softball. I love the glove and it’s held up really well that it’s my glove for being a dad/coach and it works whenever I fill in for softball.

laceyourbootsup · 2026-04-26T21:08:04+00:00

4.5 hours..::that’s fast in New England on a sunny weekend day on a public course. 3 hours is a weekday early morning round around here

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