Most of my experience with youth baseball can probably be applied to other sports, but all my boys have ever played has been baseball or softball, so I'll just stick to that. Junior has expressed and a little talent in cross country and has even participated in a Running Club at school, but I wasn't involved in that, so I'll just stick to baseball and softball.

I would say, if you really want your child to succeed in baseball, start him or her young. Even before tee ball, throw a ball around with them. It's amazing how many kids I've seen as old as 7 or 8 that really don't know how to throw a ball. Once they are at that level, it is very hard to get them to use the proper mechanics.

We have been involved in youth baseball for quite a while now. Junior started when he was 6, and he will be 12 when the next Little League season starts. He was at a bit of a disadvantage to a lot of kids because he only had one season of tee ball before he started playing Farm, which, in our league, is when the kids start pitching. There are no walks. When a batter gets to four balls, he gets 1 to 3 pitches from his own coach to hit depending on how many strikes he had from the pitcher.

Junior's first season in Farm was one of his best experiences in that he had terrific coaches that really cared and knew how to teach kids his age and he was on a great team that ended up winning the league. The flip side of that, is that he always batted last in the lineup and played only two innings in right field. So, he didn't get as much experience batting and fielding as I would have liked.

Still, one of the greatest thrills of my life was when he got a big hit late in an "important" game. His team was playing the team that was expected to battle Junior's team for first place (and it was the team that they played in the championship game). His team was leading by just one run in the top of the fourth inning with the time limit nearly expired, so it was the last inning. With two outs and a runner in scoring position, he got to coaches pitch and got a line drive hit to the outfield to bring in the insurance run. I remember our side of the stands just exploding with noise with his hit. It ended up being the difference in the game.

His next season in Farm, he actually got to pitch. The first time he pitched was another thrill. He pitched well and struck out two or three batters. After that, he struggled to find the strike zone and ended up pitching just a handful of times.

My biggest regret as a baseball parent was not insisting on him staying in Farm for the next season. At the next level, Minors, there is no coaches pitch, and I think he would have greatly benefited from a boost in confidence playing against the younger players in Farm. When he didn't pitch his second season in Farm, he was still playing the outfield and batting at the bottom of the order. Socially, he's quite shy and he goes to a private school in another city, so he was never able to play with friends from school. So, it didn't help when he wasn't very good compared to his teammates and he didn't know them except for a few that he knew from previous seasons. I would have really liked for him to have gotten a third season in Farm where he could take a regular turn at pitching and then play somewhere in the infield when he wasn't pitching.

I had even bigger regrets when he got a manager that wasn't very good. He really didn't know how to lead or stand up to parents. Halfway through the season is own son had to quit as coach, so I agreed to be a coach. One day at practice, one of the kids told me to shut up. Not directly but I still could hear it. I went over to him to yell at him for being disrespectful when his dad charged on to the field and challenged me to a fight. When the manager stood there and did nothing, I announced I was quitting, took Junior and went home. I eventually was talked into returning by the Little League president and the manager. I was told the parent didn't want me to quit but just couldn't make it to the meeting that the rest of us were at, but that obviously wasn't the case because he kept asking the manager why I was back at the next game. I just ignored the parent and stayed away from his kid so at least the rest of the team could have a full complement of coaches.

Junior was able to pitch more regularly that season, but he still struggled to throw strikes and was in the outfield otherwise. He also was usually pretty far down in the order. Your position in the batting order does matter because the games are so short, only about the first half of the order or so is pretty much guaranteed two at-bats in a game.

After that season, Junior didn't have much interest in playing Little League. I think it had a lot to do with the incident. Because we couldn't afford much then, we gave him a choice of Little League or intramural coed softball at school, which was all coaches slow pitch. He chose softball. However, the man who coaches it was an actual PE teacher and former football coach, and I noticed how much Junior improved in his fielding after that. For two seasons of softball, he played third or shortstop and was one of the best hitters both years, which I think has really helped his confidence. He's now in sixth grade and practicing with the Junior High team, which plays in the winter. It sounds like he wants to play Little League in the spring as well, I think largely because of watching his little brother.

This is a switch, because Trey started out watching Junior. Trey's birthday is a month before the league's cutoff date, so he wasn't quite old enough for tee ball when Junior started. After Junior's season of tee ball, we enrolled Trey in a summer city tee ball league. He batted left, threw right and preferred to play catcher like his favorite baseball player.

The next spring, he played Little League tee ball in the Pee Wee division. We felt he was more advanced that most because it was his second tee ball season, so we asked for him to be moved up to the Tee Ball division the next season even though they usually don't move up until they are 6 (his 6th birthday was a month after the cutoff).

After his third season of tee ball, we thought it would be unfair to have him play a fourth, but the league wouldn't allow players to move up to Farm who hadn't met the age requirement. So we made the decision to put Trey in Pony League because they have kids pitch at an earlier age.

This may have been another mistake because Pony League does only kids pitching. They don't have any coaches pitch, which makes for a very difficult transition. We also felt like the coach he got wasn't very good and the league was not organized. Trey's team was terrible as well. The team was no-hit six or seven times and Trey didn't get a hit all season, although his on-base percentage was about .500 or better because of numerous walks and being hit by pitches three times. The hbps really hurt his confidence. However he did get to play the infield quite a bit.

This last season, we returned to Little League and he got to play Farm. He was one of the more advanced 7 year olds and played in the infield when he wasn't pitching, which he started to do about midseason for the first time. He didn't dominate but he was pretty consistent at throwing strikes and he had pretty good movement on his pitches, but that may be mostly due to gravity. He also worked his way up the lineup so that by the end of the season he was usually batting fourth. The best player usually bats first or second because there are so few at-bats, managers realize how they need to get their best players the most at-bats.

This fall, we decided to enroll Trey in Fall Ball just to get him more experience and confidence. I really think he can be one of the better players in the league and a leader on his team and I want him to have the confidence to do that. Fall Ball has only one game a week and they don't keep score, so it's pretty relaxed. Most of the kids in Farm were in Tee Ball in the spring. It is all coaches pitch, so just working on hitting and fielding. Our coach hasn't been able to find a field to practice on, so his team only practices an hour a week, which we aren't too happy about.

One of the main things I've learned is that there are no guarantees about the quality of the coaching that your child will get unless you manage the team yourself, which is what I'm considering in the spring to coach Trey's Farm team. I was a coach for his first Farm season.

Experience is the best teacher for kids. Practice is important to teach the kids, but they really don't learn it until they start doing what they learned in practice in a game. Also, the competitiveness of parents is a big issue. I've seen parents that want their teams to win too much, that don't care about the teams and just want their kid to play a position or at a level he's not ready for, and some that don't care at all and just drop the kid off at practices and games. My advice to parents would be just have fun and realize it is only a game. Managers have to balance a fine line between trying to win and developing players. Unfortunately, most managers I've seen lean too much toward winning, which can include berating or even intimidating umpires and league officials.

If your kid is having fun, that's the main issue. Developing skills should be the second priority with winning third. If parents aren't careful, those priorities can become reversed and then the kids aren't having much fun.