Somewhere along the way, we stopped teaching the game.
Maybe you’ve seen it. Maybe you’ve felt it — watching your kid’s Little League team score 11 runs without hitting a ball out of the infield. Maybe you’ve sat there wondering why your second baseman is chasing a runner all the way to third while the shortstop watches from Mars.
Maybe, like me, you’ve looked at a group of 9-year-olds being told to “be aggressive” and thought:
What game are we actually playing here?
We’re not developing baseball players anymore. We’re developing chaos agents. We’re not building instincts — we’re building baserunners who treat nearly every pitch like it’s a green light on the Jersey Turnpike.
Somewhere, Earl Weaver is throwing his clipboard.
This is the state of youth baseball in 2025: volume over value. Games over growth. Results over reps. It’s a system wired to win today’s district game at the cost of tomorrow’s baseball brain.
You want to know what we’re really teaching?
Steal, because no one can reach the base or apply a tag.
Take the extra base, because the catcher can’t block it.
Score on six passed balls, and call it “good offense.”
That’s not strategy. That’s opportunism dressed up in eye black.
And it’s not just the basepaths. It’s the balls that end with outfielders throwing to first base — because somewhere along the line, someone said, “Let’s teach our 10-year-old outfielder to nail runners at first.”
Except he’s not Shohei. He’s 4-foot-9 and still learning how to use a glove that fits.
How is the throw to first from the outfield a smart baseball IQ play? Is that taught at the high school level, legion level, and beyond? No, it's the rare play, yet coaches demand it at the Little League level.
And look — I’m not anti-aggression. I love a well-timed steal. I love putting pressure on a defense. But if that’s all we’re doing, if our entire offensive philosophy is: Run until the wheels fall off, we’re not teaching. We’re just pressing turbo and hoping the other team hits pause.
Meanwhile, we’ve got one 12-year-old who’s played 25 travel games before Memorial Day and another who just learned where the batter’s box is last Tuesday.
Same field. Same inning. Different planets.
And we wonder why the drop-off is so steep by the time they hit 13? Why so many kids vanish from the game before middle school?
It’s not a coaching problem. It’s a system problem.
Because what we’ve built isn’t baseball.
It’s fast-forward baseball. Microwave baseball.
One-minute-reel baseball.
And here’s the part that really gets me: even the kids who won’t play beyond age 12? They still deserve better. Maybe especially them.
Because this game — this beautiful, maddening, poetic game — was built on thinking. On timing. On teamwork. On nuance.
It’s a future-of-the-game issue.
And the longer we ignore that, the harder it’s going to be to bring the game back to where it belongs — in the minds and hearts of kids who deserve to fall in love with it the right way.
Not just run wild while the adults keep score.
Meanwhile, we’ve got one 12-year-old who’s played 25 travel games before Memorial Day and another who just learned where the batter’s box is last Tuesday.
Same field. Same inning. Different planets.
And we wonder why the drop-off is so steep by the time they hit 13? Why so many kids vanish from the game before middle school?
It’s not a coaching problem. It’s a system problem.
Because what we’ve built isn’t baseball.
It’s fast-forward baseball. Microwave baseball.
One-minute-reel baseball.
And here’s the part that really gets me: even the kids who won’t play beyond age 12? They still deserve better. Maybe especially them.
Because this game — this beautiful, maddening, poetic game — was built on thinking. On timing. On teamwork. On nuance.
It’s a chess match with grass stains. And we’re turning it into Hungry Hungry Hippos.
So yeah, I’ve got one more year left of Little League. But my mind is already somewhere else — trying to sketch out a version of youth baseball that values development over double-elimination brackets. That prioritizes teaching over trophies. That slows the game down long enough to explain why we don’t throw from center field to first.
You can call me a purist. You can call me old school. But if we don’t build that foundation now, then when?
Because this isn’t just a youth baseball issue.
So yeah, I’ve got one more year left of Little League. But my mind is already somewhere else — trying to sketch out a version of youth baseball that values development over double-elimination brackets. That prioritizes teaching over trophies. That slows the game down long enough to explain why we don’t throw from center field to first.
You can call me a purist. You can call me old school. But if we don’t build that foundation now, then when?
Because this isn’t just a youth baseball issue.
It’s a future-of-the-game issue.
And the longer we ignore that, the harder it’s going to be to bring the game back to where it belongs — in the minds and hearts of kids who deserve to fall in love with it the right way.
Not just run wild while the adults keep score.
