No all star?

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it sure sounds like your son is getting some very strong praise in being asked to show what he can do in fall ball.

If you are thinking that snubbing this guy's offer out of spite is going to do you or your son any good, you're sadly mistaken. All you'll do is succeed in planting the seed that you are a troublesome parent and your son isn't really interested in playing baseball.

He's 10 years old for Pete's sake! This is not the end of the world or the end of his baseball career. Unless its a hardship, if he wants to play fall ball, let him go! If he doesn't, let him do something else. But don't start doing things in baseball out of spite until he's so well established that you can get away with that kind of thing.

I'd like to make a suggestion. Get yourself a score book and learn how to keep score, but make sure you learn to do it correctly. Study Rule 10.0 in OBR. If you don't have it, go to ML Baseball and you'll be able to copy it.

Learn what hits and errors really are and how score them. Learn how to value hits, count RBIs and reconstruct innings to get earned runs. Then, learn how to compute on base %, slugging %, BA, ERA and anything else you feel is necessary. But, keep a mindset that no matter what happens, you will be objective, fair and treat both teams as though you have no interest in the outcome.

Try it for fall ball and see what happens. Generate some stats for the coach and find out what he thinks is important. My guess is, you'll find out that your "book" doesn't match either of the team books! Another guess is, the coach is not getting "real" stats and is just looking at the book to see how the players are doing, or is counting on someone to give him stats that isn't keeping score correctly.

I've found out that most coaches at the 10U level have sense enough not to look too closely at stats. At 12U, the stats mean a great deal more, but only if the book was kept correctly. I think you'll quickly find out that stats will take on a whole new meaning for you.

I believe you'll find out that a .739 batting average is just a bit shy of being unbelievable. Think about it. If a player gets 60 ABs, in order to bat that high he has to have gotten 44 clean hits! That's pretty amazing even in T-Ball.

I think you might find something out about HRs too. Unless there is no fence or you're 10 YO's are some real beasts, HR's are much more rare than you might think. In about 9 years of scoring, I have not seen more than a handful of inside the park HR's. I've seen a bunch of singles, doubles and triple that ended up with the batter scoring, but that certainly doesn't make them HR's. You'll also find out that just because a run scores after a batter hits the ball, that doesn't make it an RBI.

I'm only telling you to try this because I was in a similar position. Don't depend on stats unless you know for sure that the person generating them is doing it correctly. If you do them yourself and people feel they can trust you to be fair and honest, your arguments will carry a lot more weight.

But, the best thing is, you will be providing a much needed service to coaches and in turn to the players and other parents.