Any Parent’s Recipe for Great Baseball
Reserve your copy! Any Parent’s Recipe for Great Baseball will be published as a book, probably a 6 x 9-inch trade paperback, probably about $15.95. The date is not yet announced. Reserve your copy by eMail! nsperling@california.com
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by Norm Sperling
Coach
The Surprise Invitation to Coach
January 20
The bad news is that Mason wasn’t drafted for Majors, and will therefore be stuck in AAA-level Little League again this year. Mason and I think he’s borderline-qualified for Majors, where he’d be a middling player. In AAA, he’d be one of the better players. Here in San Mateo, Majors is a lot more competitive, while AAA is a lot more fun.
But Mason wasn’t drafted for Majors. Neither was his teammate from last year’s AAA Brewers, Nick Miguel. That means that Nick’s dad, Don, will manage Nick’s AAA team again this year, just as he did last year. The Brewers were very successful – went all the way to the city playoffs, and once beat the dominant team. And they had a great time.
The son of last year’s coach was drafted, which means that he’s no longer available.
So Don phoned me this Noon to persuade me to be his coach. He needs Mason to be a mainstay pitcher. He likes my dependability and my scorekeeping; I try hard and am pretty good at both. I reminded Don that I don’t know technical baseball and never played the sport myself, and therefore can’t coach stylistic details – I don’t know which way to point your pinky when batting with runners on first and third, for example. All that’d have to be his domain, assisted by family volunteers. That doesn’t bother him; he values what Mason and I can do, much more than he’s worried about what I can’t do.
I discussed the coaching possibility with Mason as soon as I picked him up after school. He’s only mildly disappointed not to be in Majors; AAA is indeed more fun, and he’ll play a lot more innings. He thinks that it’d be great to have me as coach – so all this is the good news – as long as I don’t turn unusually harsh at him, the way he’s seen other dads bark at their own kids. He doesn’t think the team will miss too much baseball technique; Steve didn’t coach a whole lot of that himself. Steve was a great fitness and flexibility trainer, though.
Lumin also thinks I should say yes. It’ll bump his PONY League team to second-priority, but it’s highly unlikely that PONY coaches would want me to do much for them anyway. Lumin thinks I’d enjoy the job – he’s right – and while it decides every schedule conflict in favor of Mason’s team, Lumin’s not really losing much attention. Privately, I’m ecstatic. Being invited – even because the coach wants Mason, rather than really wanting me – marks the pinnacle of overachievement for an utter non-athlete like me! It’s an enormous compliment. I’d love to do the baseball stuff, and Don will lend me his coaching videos, from which I hope to learn at least a little. So I accepted.
Characters: The Miguel Guys
Don Miguel is an expert in refinishing furniture. He played baseball incessantly as a kid, and softball incessantly as an adult. He’s coached lots of Little League teams. So he knows baseball and he knows kids. His wife, Bonnie, works in advertising. His older son, Donnie, went through Little League but now concentrates on swimming. Nick, 12, is a fine all-around player, who can adapt to any position instantly. Don’s littlest son, James, 4, is the youngest T-Baller in the league.
January 26
When I walked into the coaches’ meeting, several managers were immediately disappointed, because it meant that Mason was a “coach’s option” whom they therefore could not draft, and they seek pitchers like him. I knew 1/3 of the group. There were several veterans I’d seen around the diamonds, and quite a number of people I don’t know. The Board member in charge walked us through the rules.
January 29
The Saturday tryouts were very long and nearly a bore. A few well-known players didn’t show up, at least one having been alienated by the ingrown Majors Clique that runs the whole league. The guy ought to get other chances to play baseball, even if he’s soured on our league. Perhaps something like a nearby private, heavy-coaching program.
Don rated the player-tryout numbers in his established way; I mostly kept written notes. I asked my boys what indicators to look for in the critical hunt for pitchers; they immediately said to watch how the players throw from shortstop and from right field. I did, and noted several potential pitchers. Also, Mason wanted to watch the entire afternoon tryouts after lunch, so I set him up with a clipboard and paper and a pen, and he made special notes about potential pitchers, too. He also knew a kid who was a behavior problem in school, and we aren’t eager to invite a behavior problem onto the team. (Of course there can be larger circumstances to be alert for. Some kids just need a man to be with, and won’t give us trouble because they’ll be with us. There can be other circumstances, too, like a kid who’s motivated to earn something, and we stipulate good behavior as part of the price.)
I expected to have lots of chat time with Don, but that didn’t happen. The coaches at adjacent tables heard everything we said, so I quickly clammed up. Other kids were also in easy earshot, so we couldn’t say anything confidential. So we scarcely spoke. I’ll bring a passel of papers to Don at work next week and we’ll chat there.
January 31
I checked a bunch of baseball books out of the library.
February 4
I biked over to Don Miguel’s business for a baseball chat. We agree on darn near everything. Every idea I brought up, he likes. We evaluated several kids virtually identically. He likes my idea of playing poor-fielding outfielders way back, so they’re running forward to virtually every ball. We’ll concede the single, but with the fielders running forward, they’ll throw the ball more easily to second, and we’ll hold those to just singles. He likes my emphasis on throwing the most catchable ball, not the fastest, to teammates. Because very few plays are ultra-close, an uncaught throw can turn into a double or triple instead of a single or an out. And he likes my suggestions for ways parents, etc., can enhance the team’s fun, while promoting good baseball sense and camaraderie.
February 7
Don phones several times because tomorrow’s the draft. I’ll be there with him. He has his overall rankings set, so he thinks it’s just a matter of going straight down the list. We discuss a high skills/low skills brother pair, and several other situations. We agree on the top 3 players, and we get third pick overall, so we’ll end up with one of those, and we’re happy about that. We need a catcher – but 2 of our 3 top picks are catchers – and of course we need 11-year-olds and 10s to pitch, perhaps even a 9 pitcher. And we need to keep our duds people of good character, at least, who won’t detract from the team. We’ll have to see how it goes on the spot. I should arrive by 6:15 to order pizza and get settled. Though Don and I have “time off” for the third and fourth rounds, where managers’ and coaches’ kids are automatically inserted, we still have to keep track of who’s taken in those rounds.
Tradeoffs, Tradeoffs, Tradeoffs
We need players for 9 fielding positions. We need strong hitting. We need players who are smart, agile, strong, experienced, cooperative, ... But the available kids aren’t dream-kids like that; instead, they’re real humans. All of them meet our wants by differing amounts, and all of them come saddled with differing amounts of problems and shortcomings.
We already knew what some priorities had to be, and pitching was high on the list. Unfortunately, the tryouts don’t actually test pitching.
So we had to make do with imperfect knowledge, relying on our tidbits and hunches.
When we drafted for strength, we seemed to yield on agility. When we went for spirit, we yielded on cooperation. No kid has everything.
The same tradeoffs apply to coaching: We could train for any characteristic, but then that segment of our limited time couldn’t be used for any other characteristic.
In Little League, the tradeoffs become so blatant that the players notice them. This is the first time of a lifetime full of tradeoffs. Talk to the players about their alternatives, whenever appropriate. And draw it as a life-lesson, not just a this-team-this-season lesson.