Once again sharing the current status of the vintage rack after moving a few bats around. Most are 34"s.

Any suggestions on what to keep an eye out for next? I like finding new examples in good shape. Also still need to put a grip on the TPX Platinum, but my usual source for 1mm red Vulcans is out at the moment.

Just joined the board for our town's little league which has waned like others due to travel ball, other sports, etc.

In a lot of ways we're starting from scratch... what are some things you really appreciate about how your kids' leagues are run?

could be from an admin perspective, gameday experiences, etc.

Whats up all!

I am 41 years old and looking to get back into catching and eventually playing in an adult league, one of my good friends used to be a catcher and was drafted by the Phillies is going to work with me as far as training for catcher specific drills and what not about 2 to 3 times a week, outside of that though I want to hit the gym and workout but I want to workout so that I get better for the catcher position, is there any workouts that you guys can recommend to do at the gym that will help on the field?

I don’t mean custom bats that pros get. What would you say is just the absolute best bat that I could go on line right now and order.

Obviously people will have different preferences for size, sweet spot etc but curious about peoples’ take on this.

A little vent here:

My son is a freshman and loves baseball- when he’s not playing, he’s practicing it, watching YouTube videos analyzing pro swings and pitching, training with personal coaches, and playing MLB: The Show almost entirely without our (parents) pushing him to do so. He will be playing for an “elite” team coached by a Varsity high school coach in the summer, hopes to make JV+ as a freshman, and has dreams of playing beyond high school.

He has also been the victim of constant bullying. I did my best to stave it off when he was playing for me 9u-14u but he certainly faced his fair share of bullying in school.

He decided to play fall ball with the high school team that was coached by the “advanced” coach in the same organization he had played for (and I had coached in) up until this year. Throughout the fall ball season, he faced constant negative comments and bullying directed towards him. The players critique him, criticize him, badger him and bully him, and are generally shitty teammates towards him. I was there for the last half hour of the final practice yesterday and witnessed it myself- the only name I heard from others was his criticizing only him. He lets it roll off his back thankfully and the (IMO) awful coaches ignore it despite me bringing it to the coach’s attention earlier in the season, mostly because the coaches’ kids are involved. My son is, objectively, one of the better players on the team and the loudest voices are the kids who objectively produce the least.

It hurts us as parents to see him deal with this but that brings me to my point: before skills and drills, we must teach these young kids to be good teammates and good people.

If you listen to interviews with pros, so many of them stress having good character and to be good people first and baseball players second. Poor attitudes and poor teammates thankfully don’t last long in the game as they get older so if you are coaching, prepare the kids for this.

The best teams have players that genuinely care for each other, support each other, and push each other in a positive way to get better at the game. Look at the dugouts during the playoffs- everyone is on the rail cheering and supporting. They aren’t focused on winning, they are focused on each other.

So, just a reminder to teach attitude, effort and being a good teammate at every practice and every game. Don’t allow the bullying to continue. It’s bad for teams and bad for baseball.

There's always someone who comes in here and is baffled by why there is travel/select/tournament baseball when the kids should play rec. But let's just completely remove the usual from the discussion (level of play, better coaching, kids who what to be there), and discuss the not-so-obvious reasons. If anyone else has any, I'd love to hear them!

Population and Financial Reasons:

I live in Houston, TX. We have a metro area of over 8 million people. Here, there are thousands of select teams under 14. I am not exaggerating. It is also a part of the country that is a hotspot for baseball. There are not enough city parks, with fields, to accommodate that many kids. Some LL's have private facilities. with the exception of the massively wealthy neighborhoods, the only other ones are on the outskirts of the city, where land is cheap. The 5,500sq/ft lot my house sits on in one of the more affluent parts of the city, The Heights, is worth about $400k. buying land in the city is not an option.

Under a "just play rec" philosophy, tens of thousands of kids would be waitlisted on LL's because there aren't enough fields for them to play. The city has given our LL 1 big field, 2 minor fields and 1 tee ball field to use. The minor fields have to serve 40 teams from 7-12 each season. Our boys are starting games at 8:45 on a school night. We asked for more, as the league has grown and they said, no. We asked to help refurbish an older field. They said no. What are we to do to grow our league if we are limited by bureaucracy?

Socioeconomic Equality:

Given this, what would you like kids in a low income neighborhoods to do? We're always talking about baseball as a "pay to play" and having a high barrier or entry. That is true, but starting a team also has an advantage for low income communities. It is much cheaper to find 11 kids and parents, who really want to play, to get the money together for a team to compete, than to get a whole community to buy in and have the funds to maintain a high quality LL.

There are TONS of teams in minority populations that are able to play a bunch of rich areas because they play travel. Just that alone helps some of those kids make it on to "fully funded" teams with private facilities. I know because my nephew's good friend was one of those kids. He now pays ball in college.

Btw, we do have some small LL's that can only field 1 team, and they have to travel around the city playing other LL's.

11u rec player with good pop will be doing a round of travel ball tryouts for the spring season. I'd rather wait until the spring and he is actually on a team to get a USSA bat. Pretty competitive area for baseball.

I also don't want to be the dad that goes up to the coach afterwards, saying "Ashually, he's a stronger hitter. It's just that he's using a USA bat."

I reckon their will be lots of kids so not as if the coaches are going to be taking a close look at their gear.

Overthinking it? Or find a USSA bat?

edit - yes, mechanics and barreling the ball will be the main drivers in getting selected, but 15 feet is 15 feet. If he's on the edge​...you never know.

Do you not have Little League or Ripken league in your area? Simply seems like a moneygrab to me, there is no need for kids this young to play so much and for parents to pay so much to play. Their bodies aren't even fully developed and nothing can be learned more than what Little League provides. Too much risk of burnout for baseball and injury risk once their older in my eyes. I keep my sons far away as possible from this scene but I can't help but notice the number of posts on this page asking questions about travel teams at theses young ages, it's really taken me by surprise and is a bit shocking.

For more context of me..I am a former pro infielder and current coach in the Blue Jays system with two sons that are now 13 and 11.

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I've spent more than 20 years evaluating amateur baseball players for MLB organizations, and one thing I've learned is that there's often a big difference between what parents and players think scouts value and what actually matters.

Velocity, exit velo, batting average, and showcase numbers are all pieces of the puzzle, but they rarely tell the entire story.

I thought it might be interesting to answer some questions from this community about how professional scouts actually evaluate players.

Whether you're a parent, player, or coach, feel free to ask about tools, projection, recruiting, or what separates legitimate prospects from good high school players.

Happy to share some insight from the scouting side of the game.

Any good tips/drills for reading ground balls for 8 year old infielder? Needs to charge ball on softer grounders and cut angles on hard balls in hole. Fields well right at him, glove side and backhand, but needs to move better based on how hard ball is hit. Thank you!

11u

Fall tournaments here are Sunday only to accommodate football. Our roster has five who can pitch decently with one ace, and several we’ve been getting in because they want to.

My question is whether it’s better to let kids go multiple innings if they’re managing alright, or whether it’s better to rotate arms more frequently knowing they may need to throw again later in the day.

Some of these days are four or even five (possible - hasn’t happened yet) games. They’re shorter - 75 minutes. But still a lot of innings to fill and debating shortening outings with the idea of them coming back later, but don’t want to do it at the expense of health.

I'm looking at helmets for my youth players--one age group 12+, and the other 8U.

I know pretty much any helmet you can buy from any of the major comapnies meets NOCSAE standards. Those are rated up to 68 mph. That's more than good enough for younger kids, but it feels a little inadequate for older kids throwing heat.

Rawlings has a near -pro level line of helmet that they rate up to 90 MPH for impact safety. But those are heavy and not a great option for 12U players.

There seems to be nothing in between the NOCSAE standard of 68 mph and the Rawlings Pro Level helmets? Anyone know of options for younger players that face occasional heat in the 70+ MPH range?

Thanks in advance to the knowledgeable Redditors on this sub.

Our son currently has a mizuno powerclose. What would be a good next step glove for him? His powerclose still has some life left in it and we plan on him using it for the upcoming spring season. But it will probably be done for after that.

Looking for something he could get as a Xmas gift and we can take our time breaking it in and working on getting his hand stronger and hopefully use it for fall ball next year and it will last him for several years. His powerclose has the I web and he’s not a fan of that style. He’s had his fingers slip in the openings and get jammed up catching a fly ball.

Something I noticed from my last post is how many parents brought up playing catch as one of the most important things kids can practice at home.

It got me thinking — when you play catch with your kid, do you mostly just throw back and forth, or do you work on things like footwork, accuracy, glove work, and getting rid of the ball quickly?

Curious how other baseball families approach it, especially with younger players.

12u. We moved to a city about 2 years ago and my son started playing on a rec team with his friends at his new school. He's played all his life and is decent but not great. Okay pitcher, decent fielder and has power at the plate. This spring and fall his hitting has fallen off a lot, and with that, playing time. Which is fine, I get it. There's 12 kids on the team, games usually have 11-12 show up, so he'll spend an inning or two on the bench.

This fall, the coach decided to bump the team up a division. Most of these kids lack basic skills. There's some talent but it's very much dad ball and they aren't being taught how to hit and pitch at the level this higher division is. Regular season has been a blowout every game. 20-2. 18-1. Etc.

We're playing a bunch of tournaments (also blowouts) now. This last tournament, the coach had four new kids join the team. They play travel ball and are friends with one of the kids on the team. So basically for the tournament, they have four of the regular kids sitting while these new kids are playing every inning during the tournament.

My questions are: is this normal? They had great results this weekend but... of course they did. Almost half the lineup are "better" kids that were imported to get results. Meanwhile there's kids on this team getting zero experience.

The other part of this that rubbed me the wrong way is my son did not play at all in the first game. Zero playing time. The second game he started and was smashing the ball. Hard hit every at bat, 3 RBIs. The next game he played and again was raking. He was slumping pretty hard but looked like he got out of it. Looked great, hitting balls to the wall, etc.

Fourth game he again played zero seconds. Just sat on the bench despite batting 1.000 for the tournament while the new kids never sat an inning. My son was extremely upset and doesn't understand while he can't play even when he's doing well.

Any advice on how to navigate this? Maybe this is normal, but at 12u, especially at their level, I thought experience and growth was the purpose, but now it seems like the coach is hell bent on winning, even if that means replacing half the time to do so. I'm considering a different team next year (we wants to play, I have no delusions he is going to be a major leaguer) yet all his friends play for this team, so I don't know if he'll enjoy it.

I’m working on PitchTracker, an open-source Windows app that uses two cameras to track baseball and softball pitches and estimate speed and plate location. It’s early, and real-world accuracy still needs validation.

For field testing, you’ll need a Windows PC running Python, two matching global-shutter USB cameras capable of 60+ FPS, rigid mounts, a calibration target, and access to a pitching lane.

I’m looking for help testing setup reliability, missed/false detections, and comparing measurements against independent radar and plate-location references over real pitching sessions.

Developers are welcome too—Python, OpenCV, PySide6, documentation, or usability testing. The simulator works without cameras.

Project⁠� · Testing guide⁠�

If you’re interested, comment with your equipment or how you’d like to help.

PitchTracker on Github https://github.com/berginj/PitchTracker

Hey guys!

Does anyone know good wholesale sites for baseball water bottles? We need around 50-100 units forr our local team. If you know any suppliers that offer good quality and reasonable prices without a crazy minimum order, please let me know!!!!

Drop recomendations! Thanks 😄

I’ve worn the Jordan 1 cleats for about 2 years and I absolutely love them. Now I am starting high school and am wanting metal cleats and I know they don’t have all colors or models in metal. So I was wondering what cleats would look best with knickers. I was looking at possibly choosing the Jordan 1 low metal cleats but let me know. Thank you!

I’ve been getting these ads non-stop lately and wondering what the consensus opinion is. Does it build swing speed over time like a training tool, or is it only meant for warming up in the on deck circle like using a donut?

Already have a CamWood for training so I’m not sure it’s worth adding this for my 10 year old. But curious to hear anyone’s thoughts!

Faced with a harsh reality of life I remind everyone to love this game for what it is. I've watched my son play baseball since he was 4 years old. I've been the overbearing dad, the frustrated dad, the proud dad. Now I have to be the present and supportive dad while my 12 year old son fights leukemia. 2 weeks ago on September 27th he hit a 300 foot bomb into the trees for his first 13U big field HR, he could barely finish the game because of body aches and cramps. He's a catcher that caught almost every single inning all the way through regionals for his 12u babe ruth all star team, and he could barely finish one game. Then the fatigue came, a week of naps all day and going to bed before bed time. Took him to his pediatrician on monday expecting to hear he has Mono, 24 awful long hours of blood work and waiting and the word came, Leukemia. A whole week of using words you never dream of using, leukemia, chemotherapy, hematology/oncology. The next phase of our lives will be treatment, bloodwork, praying for no fever or anything that will delay the timeline. The prognosis right now is good, still early but he is responding well to initial treatment. We aren't blind to the fact that because he's been healthy and strong his whole life they can be aggressive with his treatment, not every kid is that "lucky." Nothing to do but trust the science and #99 will be out there again swinging for the fences. Love every minute of this GAME, real life hits hard.

This term should honestly be banned from this sub. People just say this for no reason without understanding pitching mechanics at all. If you post a video for feedback, or you see someone critiquing by saying “use your legs/not using you legs” just ignore it. It’s on the same level of advice as “just throw strike”. Using your legs can mean so many different things and look different depending on the pitcher. Rant over