Fundamental Flaw: Youth Don't Watch Enough Baseball

[Seth Stohs]

http://www.baseballessential.com/news/2016/10/07/fundamental-flaws-youth-players-theyre-not-watching-enough-baseball/

 

Baseball Essentials has a very interesting article on youth baseball. Takes a bit to get there, but the theme is basically that kids today don't sit around and watch enough baseball.Watching MLB games on TV can help a young player better understand strategy and encourage preparedness. 

 

Baseball is a thinking man's game. Whether we like things like bunting or hit-and-runs and such, the game is full of strategy, and seeing it in action. 

 

As the writer says of himself, I used to sit and organize baseball cards while watching the Braves or Cubs and sometimes even the Twins on Midwest Sports Channel back then. It was a god way to understand the game at a young age. 

 

What do you think? 

[mickeymental]

agreed. it probably is a god way.

[TheLeviathan]

Seems like a bit of a stretch to conclude people are watching baseball less on TV and that's the break down of fundamentals.  Hell, it wasn't until the 80s that the World Series was played at night when kids could watch it.   We went decades with baseball only rarely on TV for people to watch and only in relatively recent history is baseball readily available for all.  

 

So...not buying it.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Seems like a bit of a stretch to conclude people are watching baseball less on TV and that's the break down of fundamentals.  Hell, it wasn't until the 80s that the World Series was played at night when kids could watch it.   We went decades with baseball only rarely on TV for people to watch and only in relatively recent history is baseball readily available for all.  

 

So...not buying it.

Agreed.  Most of baseball history involves zero or limited TV broadcasts, or present-day media saturation.

 

Unless the theory is that children of the 1990s possess a special knowledge of baseball preparation and strategy, it's probably bunk.  (Indeed, the author of the article and Seth seem to projecting from their own youth experience.  I am sure some older folks have written screeds about too *much* televised baseball causing children not to properly learn the nuances of the game...)

[Vanimal46]

Throw me in the consensus that watching baseball does not correlate with baseball fundamentals. I don't know, maybe that break down is because of unqualified coaches in little league? 

[TheLeviathan]

 

Throw me in the consensus that watching baseball does not correlate with baseball fundamentals. I don't know, maybe that break down is because of unqualified coaches in little league? 

 

No one wants to coach or ref anything these days.  And for good reason.

 

I'd look there first if I were trying to explain it.

[HitInAPinch]

I assure you, my baseball skills had nothing to do with watching baseball on TV.  But sure would have made for a convenient excuse.

 

I would say screaming, belligerent parents are the main cause. 

 

 

[wsnydes]

I'd say that kids not watching baseball says more about the longterm health of the game than the state of fundamentals.  I don't think there is a correlation between kids watching on TV and a lack of fundamentals.  You learn those from playing the game.

[Vanimal46]

 

No one wants to coach or ref anything these days.  And for good reason.

 

I'd look there first if I were trying to explain it.

Absolutely. Too many crazy sports parents out there that think their little Sammy is going to be a pro baseball player. If only their kid had a better coach or the umps wouldn't screw over their kid's chances for the big time. 

I remember being an umpire as a summer job when I was 17. Umped 10 and 11 year old little league. Told both coaches the strike zone is going to be large, so tell your players to swing the bat. Even though the message was clear, both coaches and parents were yelling profanities and calling me blind... The goal at that age is to learn how to make contact, not hope for a walk. Needless to say that was my last summer umping little league baseball. 

[Mike Sixel]

I coached for a year or so.....awful. And that was tball.....

 

And, i saw how parents and coaches acted when my son was in football for 2-3 years. Worse.

[Mr. Brooks]

No one wants to coach or ref anything these days. And for good reason.

 

I'd look there first if I were trying to explain it.

This.

 

My daughter is in 7th grade volleyball, and it's downright embarrassing, some of the behavior I've witnessed from parents.

I've heard parents, extremely loudly, heckle the ref for several minutes after a call. Sometimes it's not even a bad call. ( Oh, now you make that call in the last game of the match!)

2 weeks ago, at an invitational tournament, our team knocked off one of the heavy favorites, in a thrilling match. All 5 games went to extra points.

After the match we left the gym to go get refreshments, and the other teams coach was surrounded by angry parents, at least 5 or 6 of them, demanding an explanation.

This is 7th grade, I was in utter disbelief.

Why anyone would volunteer to coach or ref youth sports under these circumstances, well most of them have my respect for that.

[TheLeviathan]

I coach high school football and I love it.  But the parents are awful.  And I calculated my pay as working out to about $2.50 an hour.

 

So...I thank my wife every day for allowing me to waste so much time investing in kids for rewards that don't add up.  

[Mike Sixel]

 

I coach high school football and I love it.  But the parents are awful.  And I calculated my pay as working out to about $2.50 an hour.

 

So...I thank my wife every day for allowing me to waste so much time investing in kids for rewards that don't add up.  

thank you. 

[biggentleben]

I will say that I was a pitcher growing up, and I did use television to learn a lot of my pitching mechanics. I'd tape games and watch mechanics over and over and over.

 

I did the same thing with offensive line play as well.

 

That said, I was nowhere near the average bear in learning the game, so I'd wager that even when I was a child, it was not common to learn from watching the game on television.

[Seth Stohs]

Is it possible that the fundamentals aren't actually worse in today's game than they were when there wasn't TV, streaming, internet and so much more coverage?

 

Is it possible that the things called "fundamentals" 20 years ago are now not as important to the game? Things like stealing bases, sacrifice bunting, getting a runner in from third base with less than two outs, and the all-too-popular productive outs. 

 

And, yes, I do agree that it starts with fundamentals in youth leagues... Right at the t-ball level. For so many parents, it's daycare, a place to send the kid. It's not meant to be a learning baseball environment.

 

For me, I do think there was value in watching baseball at the highest level. I had a high school coach once tell the team after a particularly poor performance to go home and watch the Twins and see how things are supposed to be done.  (Note - this was around the time of the World Series titles, so it made sense then)

[biggentleben]

Completely agree with the posts on coaching. I'm constantly thankful for those who are willing to put up with the crap that coaches put up with every day.

[Mike Sixel]

Hell, I had a parent teaching kids to throw....striding with their wrong foot forward.....

[Vanimal46]

 

Completely agree with the posts on coaching. I'm constantly thankful for those who are willing to put up with the crap that coaches put up with every day.

No doubt. There are good coaches out there who teach the game the right way, and teach valuable life lessons win or lose. There are other coaches out there who want the responsibility in order for their kid to be the star on the team, and couldn't care less about teaching valuable life/baseball lessons. The latter coach is reason #1 why I quit traveling competitive baseball as a 15 year old. 

[Jerr]

Maybe not learning the fundamentals, but does contribute to lack of interest in baseball.

If, you don't have cable, good luck finding a game to watch.

[Willihammer]

Man that image of the kids sitting around scoring a game is depressing. I would have soured on the game a long time ago if my coaches had made me do that.

[Loosey]

When I was a kid in the 90's I loved watching baseball.  Does anyone remember in the early 90's when you had to watch a lot of Twins Games on Pay Per view for some reason?

 

But another thing I loved to do with other kids in my neighborhood was play baseball.  We would get a group of us and head down to the cul-de-sac in my neighborhood and played in the street.  One retaining wall was a home run, over another driveway was a home run and the telephone lines that hung over the road were the Center Field home run.  One year my friend even spray painted bases on the road.  If a kid spray painted a road today I'm sure people would freak out and call the police or the city.  

I think kids were allowed to be kids more 20+ years ago.  Now they are sheltered usually at a young age, then as they grow older are doing things inside like flipping 3/4 empty water bottles onto weird landing spots so they can post them on snapchat.

[theBOMisthebomb]

There is some value to watching baseball on TV and in person. Especially when a parent or coach is there to talk about the strategy. I have had that experience wuth my son - watch how Mauer and the Twins do something and then bring that visual to practice the next day.

[nicksaviking]

My profession is not televised so I was not able to learn the fundamentals and intricacies of my job growing up either.

 

Of course I'm terrible at my job....

 

I agree with the other posters though. Sure, you can mimic Fernando Valenzuela's windup or Kirby Puckett's leg kick, but I don't think you learn the fundamentals. And if a professional coach can't get the players to learn them sans TV, he's probably not a very good teacher.

 

Perhaps fundamentals have deteriorated but it's probably just as likely we are viewing history with rose colored glasses. Let's not forget half of sports highlight shows in the 80's and 90's were actually of bloopers.

 

 

[Eris]

I live in New Jersey in a blue collar town.  To me, the biggest differences between my children's and my own youth in rural Minnesota are that there was a lot more unstructured play time, which some of us used to play baseball. Youth baseball (and other youth sports) are also more competitive with a win mentality (as opposed to a learning opportunity) which tends to take the fun out of the game.  My daughter is 10 years old and loves softball (probably because I love baseball).  If she wants to play high school softball she will need private pitching lessons and to play on club / travel teams.  This represents a huge commitment of time and money (about $4000 - 6000 / year).  Our parents just needed to buy a glove and some shoes.  Baseball has become a rich persons sport in this country because of the decline in rec. leagues, Sunday morning leagues, etc., and opportunities are most afforded to children whose parents can spend lots time and money having them trained when they are young.

[Shane Wahl]

Uh, kids learn the fundamentals from coaching. Unless one is actually watching instructional videos, I see almost no value in watching games to learn basics like that. These players are ELITE and that is not the place from which excellent teaching comes.