It's supposed to fun, right?

Jonathan, my 9-year old, plays Little League baseball. Last weekend he had tryouts, and I went down there with him to watch. Now, I helped coach Jon's team last year, and I was intending to do the same this season. One of these days, I'd get a team of my own, but I wasn't ready for that this season. Well, as I'm sitting in the bleachers Sunday afternoon, the player agent for the 9-11 year olds comes out and starts asking for a volunteer. Apparently, they had a team in my son's division that was without a manager. I hid from her at first, but when no one else said yes, I just said fuck it and told her I'd do it. So, here's how it's going so far:

Sunday, March 2: I'm asked and agree to manage the Minor A Mariners. It's about 5:00 p.m. and tryouts are over for the day.

Saturday, March 8: The third day of tryouts, but the first time I'd be seeing the 10 and 11-year-old players. Everything is rained out as we experience heavy showers and gale force winds. No big deal, one more day to go.

Sunday, March 9: Last day of tryouts. Rained out again.

Tomorrow night is the draft, and I have no idea who these kids are and what they can do. Now, this isn't that important to me as a coach. I have a lot of knowledge and what I feel is a pretty good plan for teaching these boys. It doesn't matter the skill level of the players I get, because by the end of the season they will all have had a great time playing ball, they'll gain more respect and knowledge about the game, and they will all be better ball-players heading into next year.

It does raise and interesting dilemma, however. The problem lies in the fact that most Little League coaches only do it because (1) they want to guarantee their kids playing time, or (2) winning as a Little League coach makes them feel good about being a shitty player when they were young. This leads to lots and lots of cheating. You have no idea how much cheating goes on in Little League baseball. Managers will round up the fathers of all the best players and have them as coaches, so they can coach the most talented kids. If that doesn't work, they identify some of the best players and have them skip tryouts or play at half-speed so they won't be identified as good players. Like I said, it doesn't much matter to me, except that the first and foremost goal is for the boys to learn and have fun. Losing is not fun, though, and if I get taken advantage of by coaches who only care about their win-loss records, the kids on my team will suffer for it. They may not win at first, and that can be discouraging.

I'm not too worried about it. I definitely feel like I have a lot to teach, and my experience in the restaurant business over all these years has led me to believe that I'm a fairly effective teacher. No matter what, my main goal is to provide a fun and structured environment for the kids to learn how to play and learn to really love the game. I'm hoping to be the kind of coach most Little League players never encounter. We'll see how it goes. My first practice is next Saturday.


**Update: I'm no longer coaching this team, and Jonathan is no longer playing in this league. Long story; maybe I'll get into it later, but we're looking for a new place for the boy to play.