Fall Ball Progress Report: Batting Skills
This past spring my son entered his 2nd year of little league and 1st year of "Coach Pitch." My expectations of him being able to even hit a ball being pitched to him, were rather low as he didn't do so well hitting off a tee. Over the course of the season, I filmed his batting practice and games just to document and use if I found a use for it. To my surprise, the kiddo started connecting so I put the following video together to show how fast he developed and how comfortable he started to look, at the plate. His second season and new team weren't as exciting as the first but that didn't matter to him. The kiddo wanted to play.. he wanted to keep playing so much that we looked into Fall Ball. What is Fall Ball? Fall Ball is like a off season practice league for kids to stay fresh as they continue developing skills and allow the coaches/parents to scout for the next spring season. Here's the funny thing about fall ball.. despite the games being less competitive and more fun, when you start playing fall ball it means either you or your kiddo is getting serious about the game of baseball. I remember playing fall ball but I never questioned why I was being forced to play more baseball, I just played. Never realized or even considered how it helped keep me in shape and game ready as a kid.. until my son grabbed a bat and started to warm up. Now I tried to not develop high expectations for my son and allow him to have fun. My dad was my coach and was very competitive but I still enjoyed playing the game so regardless of the conditions.. I still had fun. As for my son, he never originally wanted to play baseball and I wasn't going to force that on him. My question is now... how serious about this game is he and to follow that up.. is he seriously playing better then I did at his age?