From Rec to Cal Ripken-need advice

Why does everyone assume that their team should have won more games than they did? Let me make it clear that your team won exactly as many games as it should have. Anyone can use hindsight and say "if only ...", but that moment has gone and can never be recovered.

As far as judging talent goes and assuming your team has more than the others, what makes you feel that way? Saying something like that is strictly subjective. Unless you know all of the players on the other teams as well as you know yours, there's no way in the world you can assume they have less talent. Playing 1 or 2 games against another team is not nearly enough to make that kind of judgement.

When I read or hear things implying that the rec leagues are low quality, the 1st thing I think of is the parochial attitude most HS coach have. Evidently there were enough good players to make this "select" team of yours, so where did they learn how to play?

The attitude of the typical HS coach is, "I have these players with talent and ability and no one but me can get the best out of them", and that's what it sounds like you're saying. They seem to forget, and perhaps you did too, that the players had to learn the game somewhere, so don't knock that training ground.

If you are getting beat by "teams that play together as a team", whose fault is that? That's more HS coach reasoning. "Gee, having them for 4 months isn't quite enough to build real camaraderie. if I could only have them for another couple of months, that would do it!" Although there are reasons team playing together for an extended period of time generally will play better, its not because of bonding!

Its because they get used to the way everyone else plays. They learn that Joey throws lots of strikes so they have to be ready on every pitch, while Billy throws BBs and the only one who really needs to pay attention all the time is the catcher. And who is it that's in control of the whole thing? The coach!

The coach is the person who decides on which player is best suited for which position, so if the coach does that properly, he will get the best out of every player and whatever will be, will be! A lot of coaches think they need to have these players "locked up" in order to make that happen. But in truth, if they were patient just learned more about their own players by the natural process of familiarity, the results would be exactly the same. As the coach got more and more familiar with his players, he would have a better chance of putting them in the proper positions to make the team function better.

But even that doesn't guarantee success! My guess is, a really good "instructor" coach could take a bunch of the rejects you left behind in the rec league and within a season be kickin' a lot of butts. Most 12U players aren't really that far apart as far as potential goes. The really outstanding players have more than likely had parents who worked a great deal with with them or been sent to PCs. Give that same opportunity to all of the kids and you'd be very surprised at what you'd see.

What I'm saying is the same thing that people on this board have repeatedly said, its hard work and coaching that makes winners. With some really productive practices and playing a few games together, there's no reason a team can't be molded into doing the best they're able. So why strip a rec league of the best talent it has?

I've seen that done and it can literally destroy a league. The league provides the initial learning ground, works with developing the players and then someone decides the grass is greener and pulls the best players away. It will take 2-3 years to replace that talent and then the same thing will likely happen again.

Then what happens is, with everyone going to the new league, Cal Ripkin in your case, that league soon turns into the rec league because now people are pulling the best players to move on to the next greener pasture.

It just so happens that's exactly what happened to our local LL. The competition wasn't good enough for the best players, so they made up a traveling team. They too met with some success, but never quite reached that pinnacle. So, the next season, all 13 of the traveling players moved to the BR system and all of the 13 and 14 YO's went to Cal Ripkin, stripping the league of the Jr program.

What was bad was, the next year there was also no Sr. program either and the Major Division was made so weak, for the last 2 years our All Stars can't beat regular season teams from other leagues! To make it even worse, the 2 teams in CR only won 1 game between them the 1st year and 3 the 2nd.

So what did the players gain? Not one thing! And why was that? Because they took the same coaches who had been with those players for 2-5 years! This year the CR league got so big and diluted, over 50 players were pulled out and made into 4 different traveling teams leaving CR in the exact same boat our LL was left in.

Now that our LL season's over, and our 9-10s look so good, it appears our LL major Division will be pretty decent next year. But there's already talk by some that there should be a traveling team for the summer to get the kids ready for next year with some strong competition. Sound familiar?

I know other will disagree with me, but I say make your tournament team, but leave those kids play rec ball too! Have some loyalty to the system that produced the players you want to pull out! Don't be like the HS coaches who make it a "job" that you have to go to, and remember that the more actual game experience they get, they better they will be!

You said, "it is hard to sit idle and wait for things to "get better"". Why not lend your expertise to the rec league to make it better, and then use the tournament team to show the other kids what they could get if they just worked a little harder?

Whatever you decide, remember, when you get to that HS level and that coach wants to do the same thing you're trying to do, its very possible you won't even have a chance to go on your own. If that happens, you won't have one complaint, because you did the same thing.