Scouting Little League Baseball Talent

•  Little League Baseball Tryouts
•  Before Little League Baseball Season Begins
•  Skull sessions before first game and throughout the season

Youth baseball, like all youth sports, only survives and thrives through volunteers’ genuine, abiding interest in teaching and mentoring young people.

The bottom line - if you’re interested in the most sincere, selfless love of the game to be found anywhere, you should head out for a Little League field. While you are there, shake the hand of one of the more than one million volunteers who make the whole thing happen. Get acquainted with a coach, or two.

The funny thing is, you don’t really have to know about the in-game strategy to win in Little League.

To me, much of coaching is about drills and fundamentals. As long as you care enough to make the drills fun, by varying them a bit and making them into games in themselves, you’ll have kids who know the game and put up a competitive effort.

Youth baseball’s all about talent. A coach’s job is to evaluate, develop, nurture, channeling the talent with discipline and enjoyment.

That being said, I’ve come across all kinds of kids with all kinds of talent. You’d look at a 10-year-old and guess that they don’t know first base from third base, but when they get out on the diamond, they work hard, they learn, and, at the end of the day, they develop.

Almost any young man can become a nifty player if he really wants to be. At least that has been my experience. A 10 year-old can come a long way by the time he is twelve.

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Little League Baseball Tryouts

Every prospective player has a number pinned to his back when they register for the tryout. The number of each player is called out during each of the following drills. This is where managers and coaches can see, and score, each prospective player perform five skills:

1. Hitting

2. fielding a ground-ball

3. throwing to first base

4. catching the ball at first base

5. catching fly-balls

 In some tryouts, the league uses two pitching machines

1. One is set to deliver the ball at the same speed to each hitter.

2. The other is tilted upward and tosses fly-balls

Fielding Grounders and Throwing to First Base

Usually the manager drills the prospects on fielding grounders and throwing to first base by hitting a grounder to each player standing in a line waiting their turn. Once the player completes his specified number of times fielding the ball and completing his throws to first base, he takes his place at the back of a line waiting to become the fielding first baseman. Prospects rotate counter-clockwise. Drill continues until each player is given an equal opportunity at each position.

How each registration and try-out varies depends upon the league's management; however, Little League Baseball, Inc., issues their recommendations via their Operating Manual.

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Immediately after your players determined call a meeting with all your players and their parents. This gives you the opportunity to do the following:

1. Meet players and their parents.
2. Get both parent's and player's cooperation.
3. Recruit parent's help: coaches and/or team mothers.
4. Let them know your philosophy such as make the game fun and simple. Kids do not object to lots of practices, as long as those practices are fun.
5. Outline ways to guarantee a winning season. Let them know it takes lots of practice and a lot of the teams success depends upon the dedication of the parents to see that their children attend practice.
6. If there are any transportation problems, ask their cooperation in working out car pools.
7. Let them know to expect daily practices until the season's schedule begins. Most particularly for skills like hitting and catching fly balls that always improves with repetition.
8. Remind the parents, that if their child is chosen on the All-Star team, at the end of the season, their child will be expected to attend daily practice sessions.

Obtaining a field on which to practice may be a problem, depending upon how many fields and number of teams the league. One solution is the availability of batting cages. Whenever you schedule hitting practice, for example, use the cages instead of a field where no field is available.

1. In this case, schedule the players for different times and have one coach supervising players hitting into a net or fence while they wait their turn at the batting cage.
2. If its practice catching fly balls, you really don't need a baseball diamond. All you need is a piece of level ground, such as football, soccer, or school playgrounds.
3. Skull sessions can be held in any room, perhaps at home or in a school.

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Parents, as well as the children, in both roles as fan and player will better enjoy the season if they understand the rules and game strategies. Therefore, this part of your responsibility in helping them better understand and can be accomplished by holding skull sessions early in the season.

These skull sessions should be fun and consist of games and quizzes. Most leagues allow eligible aged players to stay with the same team they played for during the previous season. If you are serious enough, you cold even hold these meetings when snow is on the ground, starting with the heart of the new season's team.

Getting them back into the game of baseball, mentally, after nearly a year of other sports, pays rewards. Then, after your new players are drafted, the older players will better understand their importance as role models.

A few typical questions Little League managers might use during such skull sessions are:

1. With no outs and base runners on second and third, the batter hits a fly ball to left.
   1. What do the base-runners do?
   2. Where does the outfielder throw the ball after catching it?
   3. Who backs up the catcher?
2. What is the location of the strike zone?
3. With the count three balls and no strikes, should you take, or swing at the next pitch?
4. When you are walked, should you run and round first, or walk to first.

Let the players interact during these skull sessions, not like school. Remember, keep this simple and make each session fun. Ask players to suggest questions on things they have experienced in games. Make such skull sessions part of your coaching philosophy throughout the entire season, not just preseason.

Things that happen in games throughout the season will reinforce points made in skull sessions. A rained out practice, or game, is a perfect opportunity for such an makeshift skull session during the season. I hope this helps you and your team have a more enjoyable and successful season.

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