How Much Is Too Much!!!?

TIPS FROM THE COACH

How much is too much? I have a friend with twin 12 year old, ball player sons. These kids, this spring, played in two leagues and on a “select” team on weekends! By the end of May they had played about 70 games! They would go to a practice for one team and then go immediately to a game for another. Mixed in were private lessons.

I recently received a call from a Dad desiring information about an off season strength program for his 11 year old son! He felt the boy had worn down toward the end of the season and wanted to build him up for next year. The boy had played over 100 games this year. My 23 year old son between college and pro ball this year played about 130 games, lost 25 lbs and was exhausted at the end of the season but that is his profession.

When my sons were that age in the late 80’s and early 90’s, they were considered abnormal because they played 50 games a year in a spring league, a summer league and a fall league. Their High School coach cautioned me that I was going to ”burn them out” because they worked so hard and played so much.

Kids today as young as 9 are playing year round over 100 games! Here in Texas, you can play almost year round. If a 9 year old pitcher is protected and ONLY throws 3 innings a week, and plays only 8 months, that’s 32 weeks and 96 innings. This is insane!!!

In the South, I guarantee, there will be a Christmas Baseball Camp at every almost every college.

There is more to life than baseball. I made a hard and fast rule that my sons could not touch a baseball or bat from Thanksgiving until the New Year and seldom played past Halloween. We went hunting. August was for a family vacation, on a beach, in the Caribbean. Kids need to have time to climb trees, to catch crawfish in the bayou , to just be kids.

I don’t have the answer to how much is too much. I know it is wrong and too much to play on three teams at the same time as the twins did. There is no valid baseball developmental reason for a 9 year old to play 100 games in a season. I know that a prepubescent boy will not benefit from a strength program. I know that many young players practice too little because they play too many games. I know that not playing 50 extra games at age 10 will not have any effect on whether a player develops the skills necessary to make his High School team let alone college or the pros. And I know a system has developed whereby the pressure to compete on the best “select teams” has forced players to commit to play a ridiculous number of games because if they don’t they will be left behind in the “rec” leagues. But don’t think that playing 100+ games and not having the time to work on perfecting mechanical elements of the game is going to make you anything but a less skilled player and certainly a less rounded person.

Yours in Baseball
THE COACH

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