2019 Little League Thread

[Homercles 10206]

Don’t push shit he’s 5. I did that, you’re years ahead of yourself. He’s 3-4 years away from having the maturation to handle catching and throwing with any reliability. Take a page from the moms, sip your own Tito’s and laugh your ass off (and clap) at the 4 error almost out 3 times homeruns.

Thanks Tropheus...that’s what I expected the answer to be but needed to hear it elsewhere. The thing is that I can’t just sit there watching and laughing as my boy gets zero coaching, the ‘practice’ part has our coach standing there and during the games I give her a good 30s waiting for her to take action..so at some point I feel the need to step in and help (elbows up, watch the ball, etc) as otherwise he has zero guidance.

I think we will try again but I’ll do more research next time and get him on the right team. I have no delusions of stardom, it’s just hard as I have to get involved unless I want him to just totally wander off for lack of instruction.

[troph 24929]

That coach needs some assistance, so by all means jump in and help but teaching baseball fundamentals to tee ballers is like telling a toddler to say please and thank you, they won’t but maybe when they are 9-10 they will.

 

 

 

[F250 28991]

7 hours ago, Homercles said:

I just want him to find something team oriented he enjoys that let him burn off energy and it doesn’t even have to be baseball...but I’m dying to play catch with him someday. 

I wouldn't worry about all that other stuff regarding coaches and teams at this age. The best thing any parent can for a young player to take the time to play catch. That skill needs to be developed at home through a lot of repetition, its difficult to make up for it in practice only. Start off with a tennis ball and throwing barehanded until the kid is comfortable with catching a flying object.

Based on your desire to play catch with your son someday, I don't need to tell you about the bonding experience that occurs from regular sessions of playing catch. But I will.

I started playing catch with my sons on a regular basis about the time they were your son's age. No drills, just explaining the fundamentals. By the time they 6 we could stand 25 feet apart and throw back and forth until we fell into a rhythm and would just BS. Occasionally we would make up games, who is going to drop the ball first or make a bad throw. How many times can we throw it back and forth without dropping, 376 times was the record set by my youngest when he was 7. He still remembers that count, he will be 15 next month. To this day they still ask me to play catch outside, oldest is 19 years old.

Recently, my daughter left my glove outside and it started to rain. My 17 year old son ran outside and retrieved it and then got after my daughter for leaving it outside. I told him that glove is ancient and it's not a big deal. He said, "This is the glove you always played catch with since we were kids.. it needs conditioner because it's drying out. I'll go work on it."

He walks off with my glove, stops and turns around and says, "I'm officially letting everyone know that this is my glove when dad dies. It's mine."

I replied with "Dying??? I got another 40 plus years." Then walked off to the other room because it got dusty really fast.

 

[Homercles 10206]

That’s precisely why I want to play catch, nothing in the world makes it easier to start talking than tossing a ball around.

[JimmyHoffa 1188]

11 hours ago, Homercles said:

Thanks Tropheus...that’s what I expected the answer to be but needed to hear it elsewhere. The thing is that I can’t just sit there watching and laughing as my boy gets zero coaching, the ‘practice’ part has our coach standing there and during the games I give her a good 30s waiting for her to take action..so at some point I feel the need to step in and help (elbows up, watch the ball, etc) as otherwise he has zero guidance.

I think we will try again but I’ll do more research next time and get him on the right team. I have no delusions of stardom, it’s just hard as I have to get involved unless I want him to just totally wander off for lack of instruction.

 

 

If a 5 year old is even holding a bat it's a win. 

If a 5 year old is even standing in the outfield (and not laying on the ground or chasing a butterfly) it's a win. 

Take a deep breath, smile, laugh, and enjoy watching kids be kids.

But by all means if you want to help babysi.... I mean coach have at it! 

[Homesickhorn 2213]

How did I miss this thread? Here’s little Homesick’s first place trophy for his division.

 

 

So much good stuff being spoken on here as I’ve tried to catch up. Baseball was crammed down my throat as a kid, and I refuse to do that to my son. He’s 8, and he’s just now starting to have fun with it. I truly hope he loves it like I did, and still do, but I skate a very delicate line.

 

Hopefully this vid comes through. This is how his last game ended (Co-division championship game). The bitch of it is, the short stop who robs little homesick and then doubles off the runner on first was a kid I coached last year.

 

I was surprised I was able to keep my commentary as G-Rated as I did.

 

 https://www.instagram.com/p/BxnpZoahz7-sQh1Bl1SPoP3Gde1Q2vs9M8Yz8U0/?igshid=1irlo1s4nn6ln

 

[Surly Bevo 25542]

Tell little Homesick to let the ball travel a bit longer and not get out in his front foot and that’s a liner to the gap

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

Homesick might remember my guy. He can’t hit for shit yet, but looks good swinging and missing.



Been raining for 2 weeks but got tonight’s game in. Caught a humpback liner at third and then checked the runner at second, too.

[Homercles 10206]

[troph 24929]

So I’ve got my boys for 6 weeks in the summer (we are one week on one week off). Next week is a nothing week, but then they will have 2 separate weeks of vacay, 1 week of tennis and 2 weeks of baseball camp. And a bunch of time on the lake. Pretty stoked about the baseball camps. 10-3pm, 4 days a week. Opposite 6 weeks, 1 week at grandmothers and 5 weeks of video games I suspect. At least I’m doing my part.

 

 

[Jshep34 2386]

Lilshep starts all stars today. Kid has a unconditional love for playing baseball. Typical day he gets home feom school, we play catch for hour or so. Eat dinner. He either throws a tennis ball against wall or play catch again for another hour or so. He probably averages 3 hours a day playing baseball. Times we have to take gloves and bats away so he will go to sleep. I wouldnt trade a second of it for anything in the world though.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

I’ve got some bitching to do. Game yesterday the umpire wasn’t expanding the zone high and low, but was inside and outside. 

The plate is 17 inches wide, and he’s giving about 3 inches on either side. So a 9-10 year old with a 29 inch bat needs to be able to cover 23” of strike zone?  I’d rather keep the corners tight and expand vertically and maybe a little inside.

Otherwise I’ll have to start asking my kid to stand on top of the plate just to be able to physically reach these outside strikes, and then he’ll have no chance at anything that happens to be on the inner half. 

[Surly Bevo 25542]

That's called an ump that wants to move shit along.  It sucks but once you go through and know what he is calling you gotta adjust.  Besides at 9 or 10 no kid is going to locate three strikes in a row 3 inches off the plate over and over.  Maybe during one at bat but that is just shitty dumb luck at that age.

[F250 28991]

2 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

That's called an ump that wants to move shit along.  It sucks but once you go through and know what he is calling you gotta adjust. 

This. At that age I've had a number of umps tell me before the game starts that they will widen the strike zone to keep the game going if both team's pitchers struggle to find the strike zone.

[F250 28991]

2 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Otherwise I’ll have to start asking my kid to stand on top of the plate just to be able to physically reach these outside strikes, and then he’ll have no chance at anything that happens to be on the inner half.  

The worst part of this is when a kid falls into a groove and hits that outside spot consistently and strikes everyone out because no one can reach the ball.

[F250 28991]

On 5/9/2019 at 11:34 PM, F250 said:

My kid's High School team was recently eliminated from the HS playoffs. Lost 1-0 to Lake Travis in game 3. He is already over it, besides he has another year of high school left. Lake Travis has some serious talent. That Baty kid is a Texas commit and a potential 1st rounder in the MLB draft. Really would love to see him make it to campus in the Fall.

Brett Baty was the 12th overall pick in the MLB draft and looking at a 4.7 million dollar contract with the Mets. I don't think he will be playing for us next season. Lake Travis also had Jimmy Lewis picked up at #78 in the second round by the Dodgers.

Lake Travis will be playing in the State tournament this Friday at Dell Diamond against Southlake Carroll. They will be entering the tournament with two MLB draft picks taking the mound plus a TCU commit.

What the hell are you guys in Lake Travis putting in the water?

 

[BrazilHorn 6668]

PSA. Round Rock Express have a Father/Son camp. 

Spans a Friday night from 6-8 and Sat morning from 9-12. 

Is kids i think 9-14. 

I signed my boys and i up. 

 

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

Early game means bright sunshine!


75 and sunny sure beats the 30s for practice last month.

[F250 28991]

Where are you, Alaska or something?

 

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

Any pet goats at y’alls games?

[wood 11642]

On 5/20/2019 at 10:10 PM, troph said:

I don’t like it when the grown men coaches pull antics on the kid umps. Umping actually seems like a pretty tough gig.

I've umped just enough to know I don't ever wanna do it again.

And btw, earlier you mentioned getting the heavy balls for your kid to hit. Other than a tee & probably lessons, there's nothing out there you can buy that will help the kid's swing more, imho. The balls are really great because they teach the kid the need to square up the ball, the need to drive through it, and they give instant feedback on whether they have done those things.

[Hanrahan 1306]

In my experience, here's how tournament ball plays out from 7-11 years old. 
"We're just looking for some good families and good kids.  We had the time of our life last year in rec, but just don't want to deal with rec league anymore and end up on random teams.  If I'm going spend that much time with someone, I'd like it to be people I know and like.  Don't worry, we're going to do it laid back and focus on development more that winning."
Oh shit, turns out everyone else we play isn't laid back and we're getting our shit pushed in.
time to stop letting the kids play different positions and have them focus on one and field the best lineup we can right now.
Start practicing 2 times a week instead of once.
Turns out Billy and Bobby aren't as good at 8 as they were at 7.  We need to find a way to get them off the team.  Here's what we'll do - we'll have open tryouts with the wink-wink understanding that the other 8 players will make the team and Billy and Bobby won't.  Billy and Bobby don't make the team.  Their parents kind of know what just happened, but not completely.  We feel bad about backstabbing their 2nd grader, but that's life, cuts happen.  We won't be friends for the next 10 years.
Tim and Tom replaced Billy and Bobby.  Tim drives an hour in for practices and games.  His dad is a dick and thinks his son is incredible, and you can tell Tim thinks the same.  They have no interest in making friends and relish the role of the hired gun.  Tom goes to different school than ours.  He has two older brothers and ever since he got on the team, the other kids have started saying Fuck and Shit after they strike out.  None of this really matters because these boys can mash and we are starting to win a lot more.
We just won 3 A tournaments in a month and got promoted to AA!!
Turns out these guys in AA are pretty good.  We need to practice more.
As we move into kid pitch, its really time for these boys to play for a real coach.  We'll sign up at an organization and play under their umbrella.  They have a guy who was drafted in the 35th round and gives batting lessons.  He coaches U11 and U13 team as well, so he obviously knows how to coach kids.
Coach immediately identifies 3 kids who aren't going make a successful transition from coach pitch to kid pitch.  I was already thinking it, but sure am glad I have this guy to do the dirty work this time around. He already has three kids in mind.  They aren't bad kids, but we don't have much in common with them or their parents.  So much for doing this with good friends and families.  But, they, things changed.  If we are investing this much time and money, we expect to win.
And win we do.  We just ran through a couple of AA tournaments.  Promoted to AAA!!
I've bragged to a few of my buddies about my son being on a AAA team.  They don't get it.  Fuck, that's because they have girls.  They don't realize how big of a deal this is.
We are leaving town pretty much every weekend now.  Turns out there aren't as many local AAA tournaments as there are for A and AA.  Also, we are practicing 3 times a week, plus taking batting lessons from our coach.  Its worth it.  That's the life of a stud 9 year old baseball player.
I admit I did have a weak moment and start to question whether all this time was worth it, but we just won our first AAA tournament.  Sure, it was a holiday weekend and the field was slimmer than normal, but nothing will top that car ride home.  Feels great when you work hard and earn something like me and my son just did.
Well...that was short lived.  We just got knocked out in the first round of the next tournament.  Coach is PISSED at the kids.  And he should be.  They must've thought they were incredible after last weeks win.  In 6 days we went from top of the world to bottom of the barrel.  
There's 5 of us still left from the original team.  The best of the best at our school.  Some of the other kids who were on our team two years ago don't even play baseball anymore.  Hell, we did them a favor culling them from the team.   Some play soccer.  Others go to summer camp with dorks.  My kid is getting to travel and see a lot of the region.  We are going to play in a tournament in Florida soon.  Kid probably won't be allowed to swim because it will tire him out, but he'll still enjoy it.  See, we vacation too.
But of the 5 still left, its not that they aren't good players, they just aren't on the level of my kid.  When my kid pitches, the other guys make errors.  When the other guy's pitch, they just aren't nearly good enough.  They're kind of making my kid look bad and I feel like he's wasting some of his prime years on a team that can't keep up with him.
I was approached by a dad of a player on a Major team.  This is what its all about.  A whole team of players as good as mine.  I don't see my kid being friends with any of the other players.  Hell, half of them are from out of town.  but he has friends at school and can talk to them at lunch period.  Friends with their parents?  Heck, no, I don't have time for that.  I don't like to talk to anyone when the game is being played anyway.  That is a stressful time.  And the kids aren't allowed to be silly or cut up in the dugout or the coach will tear their asses up.  Good.  This ain't rec ball or some fun little tournament team with a bunch of losers.
What a great decision.  We just won a ton of tournaments.  My kid has more USSSA rings than you can keep up with.  Bought a couple of special trophy cases to hold them and made part of my office the trophy room.  I'm so proud of him.  Unlike his little brother who still plays in the local rec league. Sure i don't have time to teach him how to do anything, but its the freaking rec league and he can't even dominate that?  Not really worth my time.  Maybe we should sign him up for soccer?
We are a week away from the 11U season starting and my son just told me he doesn't want to play baseball any more.  WTF?  Does he know how much time and money we've spent just in this offseason?  Its because I let him hang out with that loser kid from school.  The one who plays some sports but his parents won't even let him play on the All Star team because they visit their grandparents every June in Georgia.
i can't believe what an ungrateful fuck he's being about this.  I know lots of parents think this, but he honestly could've been a great college player and have a good chance at getting drafted.  I am always going to let him know how much of a quitter he became.

Haha. This is great. As I leave to coach the 2nd grade team I formed from the neighborhood in their first tournament. Lots to look forward to.

[troph 24929]

7 hours ago, wood said:

I've umped just enough to know I don't ever wanna do it again.

And btw, earlier you mentioned getting the heavy balls for your kid to hit. Other than a tee & probably lessons, there's nothing out there you can buy that will help the kid's swing more, imho. The balls are really great because they teach the kid the need to square up the ball, the need to drive through it, and they give instant feedback on whether they have done those things.

This is awesome to hear.  Summer is getting away from us but I’m getting these this weekend. 

[pepper brooks 580]

District tournaments have started. Good luck everyone. 

[BrazilHorn 6668]

The Express Father/Son camp was fun. Was cool seeing the behind the scenes at the facility and getting out on their field/using their batting cages etc.

Was a little disorganized but still cool to be out there with the boys.

The post by Don Johnson about the Select team process seems to be spot on. We were approached with the same lines about playing with people we know vs rec league and have seen the team that was pulled together splinter over the last three seasons as some parents take it more seriously etc than others.

We are holding out as long as we can. My younger son is pushing to play (will be 10 in Sept) so we will see. Not ready for him to give up other sports.

[Jshep34 2386]

District tournaments have started. Good luck everyone. 

We won ours. Pretty awesome experience for my son

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[pepper brooks 580]

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 11:18 AM, F250 said:

I would say that you don't really see who is cut out for more competitive ball until 14 years old.

12/13 is an extremely awkward age group due to the big variety of growth patterns. There are too many physical mismatches with this age group. This really stands out with 7th grade football where there are huge differences in weight.

By age 14, most kids have hit puberty and the physical size differences are not as extreme. Plus the difference between the speed of 14U baseball and the early age groups is night and day despite the fact that 14U has fully transitioned to full size 60/90 fields. By the end of Spring a 14U Majors team can easily go toe to toe with a high school JV team. This is apparent when the 14-16 year olds all play 16U together in Summer ball.

I think kids should continue to play Little League at age 12 and enjoy it as much as possible. A majority of the 12U select kids will not be playing baseball by the time they get to high school. There is no reason to give up community based baseball which is awesome at the age of 12 years old.

 

 

 

I feel like we have found a way to combine the best of little league and play tournament ball with the best players from our little league who want to face better competition.  Every kid on our tournament team plays in our neighborhood little league.  12 of the 13 play multiple sports.  You're totally right about not knowing a ton until they're 14/15.  Some kids are going to grow into beasts.  Some will stall out.  some will decided it's not worth the sacrifice to continue.  Some won't have the vision to track the ball once guys start throwing 75+, etc.  We play a lot, but we do not subscribe to the kind of rigor Don Johnson has described, and his post is absolutely accurate for most of these teams that are select ball only type programs.  We have found a way to be highly competitive and win at multiple classification levels of USSSA without multiple practices per week, and without running kids off who haven't developed the way we wished, or have stalled a bit.  We did heavily recruit family's, and this fall will be our 5th year together and we have not lost a single player in 5 years.  e had one family last year who's kid was by far our weakest player.  They reached out at one point and talked about possibly quitting because their kid was behind and really struggling to keep up with better pitching.  PAart of it was, for whatever reason, they switched hitting coaches.  That plan did not work. Anyway, my question to them was, "does he still love playing on the team, is he having fun despite struggling a bit, does he look forward to the tournaments"?  The answer was yes to all of them.  I explained we do not care if he is struggling.  The point is to have a team where he can struggle but still enjoy the game and not feel a ton of pressure that he is going to not get to bat, or not play the field at least 3 innings per game.  that just isn't what we do.  We frankly win more with pitching and defense so struggling at the plate isn't the end of the world.  

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

In a 4 team league, the “playoffs” are pretty simple. Our 4th seeded team lost 8-7 in extra innings to the 1 seed that run ruled them 2 or 3 times during the season. If the rule was still 5 innings or 90 minutes they would have won, but it got tied in b6 and lost in b7. 

My kid caught the last 4 innings. After being relegated to outfield for most of last season (his first season playing) he improved so much in one year.  Catching, playing all over the infield. Last year he put one ball in play. This year he hit the ball almost every time up. 

Jump to u12 for next year. 

[MAROON 445]

Quote

Some kids are going to grow into beasts.  Some will stall out.

absolutely.  I've seen it for years.  The kid who is the beast at 12 years of age because he has already hit puberty gets passed in high school. The kid you are looking for is the one who is undersized but you can still see the skills. He will eventually be the stud while the bigger kid will quit the game when everyone grows to his size (or gets bigger than him).

[F250 28991]

6 hours ago, MAROON said:

absolutely.  I've seen it for years.  The kid who is the beast at 12 years of age because he has already hit puberty gets passed in high school. The kid you are looking for is the one who is undersized but you can still see the skills. He will eventually be the stud while the bigger kid will quit the game when everyone grows to his size (or gets bigger than him).

Something a lot of parents fail to do is look at themselves for an honest projection. If mom and dad are short and squaty with flat feet, the odds of Jr. not scaling up are pretty good.

My son played with a man child that hit bombs over the fence. Now in high school that kid still hits bombs over the fence because he is a big ass man that scaled to the big field. This was an obvious outcome because dad is a 6'5 former college basketball player.

On the other side, there was another kid who was undersized but highly skilled. The kid was under 5 feet at 12 years old but Dad was a 6'3 and mom was 5'10. Sure enough, kid sprouts at 15 years old and catches up with dad.

 

 

[El Diablo 4232]

Any idea what time games might start on a Saturday? I'm looking for something to shoot (camera) outdoors today. 

[F250 28991]

13 hours ago, El Diablo said:

Any idea what time games might start on a Saturday? I'm looking for something to shoot (camera) outdoors today. 

Season is over. With that said...

 

[El Diablo 4232]

Yeah, I figured that out. Went by the ballparks and the place was a ghost town. And Chris Hansen is welcome to look thru my photos, he's just going to find a bunch of creeper pics of baseball moms. 'Cause Surly. 

[F250 28991]

Anyone still playing in All Stars?

I stopped for lunch at Chuey's the other day and was sitting next to a couple families with McAllister Park All Star players. They won their district and begin Sectionals next week, which they are also hosting. I think Boerne representing the District that I used to coach in is the only team that might challenge them.

 

 

[pepper brooks 580]

the intermediate, junior and seniors from our league are all still in, and expected to go pretty far.  Once we are allowed to go to one team vs two all-star teams we pretty much dominate district, state and sectionals.  We regularly send teams to the world series in Bango, Maine in the 13-16 age group.  We have a kid in seniors throwing mid 80's.  

[Huckleberry 33694]

Looks like Western Hills is in a good position to advance to the Texas East tournament out of Section 1. It also looks like they're now down to one all-star team so that has to make a difference after years of Western Hills Blue and Western Hills Red, like pepper alluded to above.

http://unpage.org/texas/txe-dir2019.htm

[chitwood 155]

Incorrect, Huck (unless you are talking about more than 10-15 years ago.  They only used Blue and Red for the D11 city tourney, not all stars.  WH and Northwest had the same issue with two charters.  They used to be able to split up the majors and minors into two "separate" leagues, a higher and lower level, but can't do that anymore.

Related note, the Northwest 11 YOs play Washington County tonight for Texas East Section 1 title.  Northwest is hosting, so that is a benefit.

[Huckleberry 33694]

I remember seeing Western Hills Blue and Red in the actual tournament but you're right it may have been longer ago than I was thinking.

[MAROON 445]

On 7/7/2019 at 1:05 PM, F250 said:

Anyone still playing in All Stars?

I stopped for lunch at Chuey's the other day and was sitting next to a couple families with McAllister Park All Star players. They won their district and begin Sectionals next week, which they are also hosting. I think Boerne representing the District that I used to coach in is the only team that might challenge them.

 

 

pretty much a forgone conclusion that McAllister wins that sectional and Texas West every year. Texas East is pretty much either Pearland, Lamar, or Post Oak these days.  The big leagues dominate.

[MAROON 445]

5 hours ago, pepper brooks said:

the intermediate, junior and seniors from our league are all still in, and expected to go pretty far.  Once we are allowed to go to one team vs two all-star teams we pretty much dominate district, state and sectionals.  We regularly send teams to the world series in Bango, Maine in the 13-16 age group.  We have a kid in seniors throwing mid 80's.  

unfortunately LL screwed the pooch and moved the Senior LL World Series from Bangor to Easley SC a few years ago.

I know a Dad who went to Bangor twice with his oldest and Easley with his youngest.  Bangor - great facility, great beer, and great weather.  Everyone stayed extra days for vacation after the tourney was finished.  Easley - hot as hell, crappy facility, and you left as soon as the tourney was over.

Edited July 9, 2019 by MAROON

[F250 28991]

8 hours ago, MAROON said:

pretty much a forgone conclusion that McAllister wins that sectional and Texas West every year. Texas East is pretty much either Pearland, Lamar, or Post Oak these days.  The big leagues dominate.

How big is Pearland? McAllister Park has a huge talent pool to pull from and does the two charter thing and sends an MP American and MP National all star team every year. I believe both have made it all the way to the LLWS.

 

[F250 28991]

13 hours ago, pepper brooks said:

the intermediate, junior and seniors from our league are all still in, and expected to go pretty far.  Once we are allowed to go to one team vs two all-star teams we pretty much dominate district, state and sectionals.  We regularly send teams to the world series in Bango, Maine in the 13-16 age group.  We have a kid in seniors throwing mid 80's.  

Our league never had Seniors and the Juniors were usually pretty crappy, most of the talent exited after Majors. They implemented intermediate too but that hasn't been very successful due to the talent drain after Majors. Plus our Middle Schools have baseball teams so LL at 13/14 is usually made up of kids cut from the middle school teams.

 

[pepper brooks 580]

Yeah. Most of our kids keep playing and we go from having to field two equal teams in majors down to being able to have one team. We pretty much own the 13-15 space in Texas east section.  Most of the teams are completely terrible. 

[MAROON 445]

1 hour ago, pepper brooks said:

Yeah. Most of our kids keep playing and we go from having to field two equal teams in majors down to being able to have one team. We pretty much own the 13-15 space in Texas east section.  Most of the teams are completely terrible. 

WU is sort of a machine at that level.  Because they have had so much success in the past even the high school players sign up for Seniors in hopes of making a run.  It can be a logistical headache for the players and especially the coaches (who sometimes don't know  who can make games).  I know one kid who was playing for his select team in a big tourney in Missouri or Arkansas and then after the game had to fly private to Seguin to make the State Final game.The last WU  team to win the World Series had two kids who just got drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays in this years draft, another kid who pitches for Baylor and another who pitches for Texas State now, plus at least a few more I'm not recalling.

The team a few years before them that won the World Series played a team from Aruba.  All kinds of scouts there to watch the game.  Kid on the Aruba team named Xander Bogaerts was getting all kinds of attention. Good competition

[pepper brooks 580]

2 hours ago, MAROON said:

WU is sort of a machine at that level.  Because they have had so much success in the past even the high school players sign up for Seniors in hopes of making a run.  It can be a logistical headache for the players and especially the coaches (who sometimes don't know  who can make games).  I know one kid who was playing for his select team in a big tourney in Missouri or Arkansas and then after the game had to fly private to Seguin to make the State Final game.The last WU  team to win the World Series had two kids who just got drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays in this years draft, another kid who pitches for Baylor and another who pitches for Texas State now, plus at least a few more I'm not recalling.

The team a few years before them that won the World Series played a team from Aruba.  All kinds of scouts there to watch the game.  Kid on the Aruba team named Xander Bogaerts was getting all kinds of attention. Good competition

my son pitches with the dad of one of the tampa bay kids.  his other son has signed with baylor.  great guy.  You probably know the woodcox boys who are just dominate type kids.  one is in seniors this year.  The older one has signed with tech. 

We simply do not have enough top tier talent to split it and compete with the other bigger leagues who have one team in the 9-12 age groups.  we never have enough quality pitching depth to make a serious run in district due to that set up.  If we did one team we could do it.  post oak as roughly the same registration, but they do not have tee ball so they stay just under the cut line for being required to do two teams.  they have a great program over there.  won district in majors again this year.  beat what many thought was our slightly weaker team in the finals.  turned out our alleged weaker team was better, but again, ran out of quality pitching in the finals.  if we had one team we would have had 3 more arms available.    Our group of 11 year olds is probably the deepest and most talented group we have had in a vey long time.  If we could do one team with them in majors we'd be heavy favorites, and would have a legitimate shot at Williamsport.  

Edited July 10, 2019 by pepper brooks

[pepper brooks 580]

14 hours ago, F250 said:

How big is Pearland? McAllister Park has a huge talent pool to pull from and does the two charter thing and sends an MP American and MP National all star team every year. I believe both have made it all the way to the LLWS.

 

pearland is big enough they are "two leagues" like WULL.  I think more of their better kids are not really playing little league anymore.  theyre just not as strong now as they used to be.  not sure if it is an overall talent deficit, or more of them are simply going the tourney ball route.  We play some damn good Pearland teams in USSSA ball, and those guys have mentioned most kids are playing tourney ball.  no idea if that is fact.  The teams they send out to BBUSA in our age group are damn solid so maybe there is some validity to it.  

[MAROON 445]

13 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

my son pitches with the dad of one of the tampa bay kids.  his other son has signed with baylor.  great guy.  You probably know the woodcox boys who are just dominate type kids.  one is in seniors this year.  The older one has signed with tech. 

We simply do not have enough top tier talent to split it and compete with the other bigger leagues who have one team in the 9-12 age groups.  we never have enough quality pitching depth to make a serious run in district due to that set up.  If we did one team we could do it.  post oak as roughly the same registration, but they do not have tee ball so they stay just under the cut line for being required to do two teams.  they have a great program over there.  won district in majors again this year.  beat what many thought was our slightly weaker team in the finals.  turned out our alleged weaker team was better, but again, ran out of quality pitching in the finals.  if we had one team we would have had 3 more arms available.    Our group of 11 year olds is probably the deepest and most talented group we have had in a very long time.  If we could do one team with them in majors we'd be heavy favorites, and would have a legitimate shot at Williamsport.  

My son was part of the last group of 12s to win district for WU.  We also won state as 11s and lost in the state finals as 10s.  That class was loaded with really good players - two of which as I said are now with the Rays organization. Actually we probably had the two best teams in district that year, but the other squad lost a key part (their best pitcher- now pitching at Baylor) who broke his wrist right before the district tournament started. It easily could have been an all west u final like it was when were 11's.

 

I watched the Woodcox boys grow up, as they lived next door to us when they were toddlers.  Never seen a better skateboarder than Drew - kid was taking his board off jumps while still in diapers - not kidding.

[pepper brooks 580]

1 hour ago, MAROON said:

My son was part of the last group of 12s to win district for WU.  We also won state as 11s and lost in the state finals as 10s.  That class was loaded with really good players - two of which as I said are now with the Rays organization. Actually we probably had the two best teams in district that year, but the other squad lost a key part (their best pitcher- now pitching at Baylor) who broke his wrist right before the district tournament started. It easily could have been an all west u final like it was when were 11's.

 

I watched the Woodcox boys grow up, as they lived next door to us when they were toddlers.  Never seen a better skateboarder than Drew - kid was taking his board off jumps while still in diapers - not kidding.

we won district two summers ago too (the will ryals team).  This would have been summer 2017.  That was a really good team, but lost out to pearland who then lost to the great Lufkin team at state (which we hosted at south campus that year). 

[MAROON 445]

WU won the 12s two years ago?  Really? - I had no idea.  I was out at that state tournament.  Thought for sure PO represented district 16.  That Lufkin team was great.

 

We lost in sectionals our 12 year old year to a Pearland team.  As 11s we run ruled Pearland in sectionals.  The team they fielded that 12 year old year did not play Little League as 11s.  It was an entirely different team of kids. They were one out away from going to Williamsport when a little kid from Lafayette La hit is only home run of the season to beat them.  Interestingly none of those kids off that Pearland team played in college (that I'm aware of).  It was full of kids who hit their peak as 12 year olds.

Edited July 10, 2019 by MAROON