Little League Composite Ban Being Felt Everywhere

Roy Hobbs didn't need a composite to tear the cover off the ball...


When the vaunted Wall Street Journal deems it relevant to report on a sports story, you know that story has become mainstream. Today's WSJ has a column entitled "Ejected from Little League". This space reported on the ban back in January, but now that Little Leaguers everywhere are back on the field, the changes are being felt.

The WSJ article raises all sorts of safety issues and even some hysteria (pitchers wearing helmets?) around the topic, but let's break it down: this is really a response to control, testing validity and marketing. All bats that are approved in Little League must have a maximum BPF of 1.15, which approximates the performance of a wood bat. It has been an open secret for some time that composite bats are not "hot out of the wrapper", but rather have a break-in period, say 150 - 300 hits, after which they become "hot", or achieve maximum performance. Independent testing of several models of composites verified that many bats which are BPF 1.15 when new wind up exceeding the standard after break-in. The bat manufacturers know this, and now that Little League has had this verified to them, Williamsport has decided to exercise its authority and take control of the situation. Why? Because that's what Williamsport does best.

A few years back, my town LL went to wood bats for Minors (ages 9-10) and Majors (ages 11-12) during the Little League regular season. To be honest, I thought it was a bad idea at the time. I figured it would just make the pitchers even more dominant, particular in the Majors where an almost-6 footer throwing from 46' will usually set down 90% of the hitters he faces. But after 3 seasons of wood, I get it.  Balls don't rocket off the bat, which gives marginal kids a chance to play the infield or even pitch without the same risk they would be taking in a metal/composite league. Coaches really can't use the old "I was afraid he might get hurt" excuse for never allowing a kid to play the infield. And, for our travel kids who go back to metal and composite for the summer season, it is great training to use the wood.

Now a word on Pitchers Helmets: I am not a believer. Dawn Comstock, principal investigator for Ohio State University's Center for Injury Research and Policy. "The difference between ball speed coming off of different bats is not that great...You would be much more effective protecting pitchers if, instead of regulating the type of bats used, you simply required pitchers to wear a helmet, particularly a helmet with a face shield." I have no idea what the statistics are for young pitchers getting hit in the head and face with batted balls. I have coached more than 25 seasons of baseball between my sons, and while I have seen it in the MLB, honestly I don't think I've ever seen a kid take one off the face in that manner. Shins, elbows, knees, yes. But the natural reaction is to protect the face, and pitchers must be taught to be ready to field the position after their follow through. I have seen more unsuspecting fielders take a thrown ball to the face or chest because they weren't paying attention. Of course, Easton has ridden to the rescue with a new Pitchers Helmet prototype, which is no surprise given that it sees a market opportunity in all of the composite bat hue and cry. Either they need to make up for lost revenues from the composite ban, or they need to approach the ban from a different direction - let's keep composites, but we will protect the pitchers better!

Little League claims the ban is not about safety but fairness. Bat technology just keeps getting more advanced every year. I'm not sure where the fairness issue comes in when you are operating in a free market where everyone is able to purchase these bats, unless they feel that bat technology favors the affluent and kids from families and towns of lesser means aren't getting the same advantage because they can't afford a $300 bat.

Looking at what has happened since the ban was announced in January, I am beginning to wonder. First, Williamsport made a List of Approved Non-Wood/Non-Composite Bats which was last updated on March 22, 2011. But, after predictably intense lobbying from the bat companies, Williamsport has also released a list of Approved 2.25" Composite Bats; bats that received waivers from Little League HQ. And there are some old favorites on the list: Combat B3, DeMarini CF4, Easton Stealth...

All in all, I'm not sure much has changed for the kids, but good luck to the umpires in policing all of this!

Fairness or Winning? Definitions of Success can Vary

I was going to entitle this piece "Fairness or Success..." but I had to stop myself. Winning is one thing, but success can be many things and is not strictly defined as a particularly large gulf between wins and losses. Coaches at all levels struggle to define what the meaning of success is for them and their program. For instance, how would Mike Krzyzewski define "success" for his Duke basketball program? Is it 26 NCAA Tournament berths in 27 seasons? 12 ACC Championships? 11 Final Fours? Four NCAA National Championships? Or maybe it is the 92% graduation rate for his players - you know, the fact that he has had only two players in his 27 years at Duke stay for four years and not graduate? So, excellence, at least at the amateur level, can be defined in many ways.

How about excellence in the youth sports arena? The genteel thing to say when we first become involved is that it's all about experience and having fun for the kids, but after 10 years of coaching my own kids I feel qualified to say that I wish it were that simple! I have spent the last 6 months or so living out an unscientific experiment in that regard with my local travel soccer program.

I coach an "A" travel soccer team for local 12-year olds. We are far from "elite", although we do have some terrific athletes on the team who can hold their own with most kids. This past weekend, we kicked off our spring season by winning a five team tournament. Along the way, we were able to get past two very good teams from our division who we had not been able to beat lately.  We started the tournament with two solid victories, taking care of business by winning the games that we should indeed win. So, we are half way there, and the stakes get a little higher with the chance to face two teams that had "owned" us and exact a measure of revenge. Let's pause there...


Many team philosophies can lead to success.

I held a tryout for this team last week, auditioning 7 kids from the age group's "B" team for three spots on my team. While my team was no juggernaut, these kids (and their parents!) had the misfortune of being part of a team that in its most recent season lost all 10 games on its schedule and was outscored by (gulp) 52 goals - 2 goals for and 54 against. One of my coaching friends said he had never seen such a "devastating" line in the soccer program. Needless to say, that would be a very difficult situation in which to define "success", but that's a different column altogether. Anyway, these seven kids were literally aching to get out of such a demoralizing situation. In the end, I took 3 kids, none of whom will be impact players, but they will definitely give us some fresh legs to fill in when necessary. I am a coach who likes to keep his teams fairly lean, with a good amount of playing time for all. I realized that I made a mistake and cut it too close last fall, as injuries and other commitments left our team with one or zero available substitutes on many weekends. I realized I had to rethink that philosophy a bit to ensure that we would be able to get everyone a rest when they needed one.

So, back to the tournament...

The team is 2-0 and about to face the squad that went undefeated and won our division last fall, beating us 6-1 in the process. The three "new guys" played sparingly in the first two games, and now I had two games left to get them some work. Or did I. Good old "Coach Fairness" started to think about other things, like "hey, we have a legitimate shot to win this tournament", and "boy would it feel good to avenge that 6-1 loss from the fall". And then I start to think about what is fair. You see, I was a kid who played sports all my life, and I played on some pretty good teams. I was never the star, and most likely would have been in the category of the three new kids. How did I feel when I was 12? Was it enough to be part of a winner, even if my own contribution was hard to define? What would winning a tournament do for my veteran players who hadn't had much to really hang their hat on lately? And what about fairness to the new guys in another light? Is it fair to put new player and backup goalkeeper Joe into a tight game where he could have the entire tournament in his hands? Was it fair to give Axel a chance to play defense on the back line when I wasn't really comfortable with his ability yet? Or to have Adam play striker when I wasn't certain he would be able to "finish" if given a golden opportunity?

As the great internal debate raged before game 3, I made the decision that trying our damnedest to win this thing was the right approach. Had the boys been younger, I may have decided on a different approach, but in the case, I believe that 12 year old boys and their parents understand competition and generally want to try their hardest to be victorious.

As for the new guys and their parents, I freely admit to leveraging what I viewed as "their situation". I thought to myself:

"They must be so thankful to have been released from that Hell they were consigned to last year, right? When was the last time these kids actually experienced victory? They got plenty of playing time on that team. This is their first time playing with us, so surely a honeymoon period with these parents is in full effect right now and they can't be too upset if their kids don't play too much...right?"

And then I thought about it in the context of what's really fair for all the kids:

"Our goalie is playing really well right now. If I put Joe-the-backup in there just so he can get some time is that fair to anyone? If the first stringer lets one by and we lose, that's ok because they beat our proven guy. If Joe-the-backup gets beat, the kids, the parents, Joe and yes, I, will always second guess that move.  This team could really benefit immeasurably from a win here and I am going to everything within my power to give it our best shot..."

So we went with our best lineup. Happily, the result was positive and we won the tournament coming out on top with two very close games. Yeah, winning felt great. If we lost in the last game playing with our best how would it have felt? Would everyone have felt so great if there had been equal playing time for all and we finished in the middle of the pack? Tough questions.

In these kinds of dilemmas, it is imperative to look at the composition of your team. So, me thinking a lot about the "veteran" kids/parents and leveraging the mindset of the "newbies" is not just a self-serving approach in this case. The core of my team is a group of athletic kids who play multiple sports. They are generally overtaxed and over scheduled and really want to see some sort of a return on the investment of their time. They see the trophies and they know what that hardware means. They know that it is fun to play, but guess what? it's even more fun to be competitive, and it's most fun to win.

So back to the original question, what feels better, fairness or winning? And the answer lies in the makeup of your own team and how you define what is important. I will coach a new U9 team in a tournament this weekend and the message will be drastically different because our definition of "success" will be different. But on this group of 12 year olds, we define success as being a competitive TEAM. The kids are keenly aware that there are differences in skill and ability among them. Sure they want playing time, but they know that the goal of team success will dictate, in most cases, who plays and how much. By sticking to my own guns in that tournament, it also sent a message to the new folks. It let them know right from the start what we are about and helped to set some expectations for them from the outset. Had I balanced the playing time and just used the weekend as a participatory tune-up for the season, I might have been sending a very different message, and the expectations going forward would be different as well. The essential ingredients in all of this are consistency and communication. Once you start to mix your messages or stop communicating effectively things get sticky. It's not to say that you can't manipulate or modify your message, or that the team's definition of success won't change over time, but part of being a good coach is managing that change by communicating.

Mike Krzyzewski has figured out what defines success for his Duke program, and more importantly, his stakeholders have bought into that, which is why he has been Duke's coach for 27 years. Obviously, he must put a premium on something besides just W's, because it ain't easy to maintain that kind of graduation rate. His definition of the successful Duke student-athlete must give some serious weight to the "student" part, no? It's a clear message with 27 years worth of consistency behind it.

Management Lessons for Coaching Kids

Management Guru Sean O'Neill writes an excellent blog entitled "Bare Knuckle Management Movement", where he seeks to challenge the conventional wisdom on management and leadership. In a recent post, Sean writes about coaching boys' basketball and what he has gleaned from a few years in the pressure cooker of CYO and other kids' hoop leagues. He offers three key tenets that have served him well in this role:

1. "Tell them what you plan to do...and do it"
2. "Teach them how to operate on their own"
3. "Be yourself (unless you are Bobby Knight)"

Amen, Brother!

Now, basketball is one sport that I have not had the pleasure of coaching, but from my observation (dragged to a ton of siblings games at all levels growing up, alum of a perennial NCAA contender and my own kids play recreationally) hoop allows the coach more opportunity to be part of the "show" than most other sports. Consider that in hockey, the coach is usually separated from action by the glass. In baseball it's the dugout. In football there is a lot of real estate between the sideline and the huddle. And in soccer the coach has little to do from the sidelines besides yell until halftime (no timeouts either!). And then there is basketball. First off, games are usually played indoors where conversations and invective can be heard throughout the building - Duke's Coach K is notorious for his sideline rants. In youth and high school games, most of the gyms are small, so fans can be right on top of the action. An animated coach may find himself unable to resist the magnetic pull of the action on the floor, in spite of the referees best attempts to keep him or her confined to the bench area. And basketball is one game where a coach can exert a high degree of control of the action, beyond simply substituting players. There are frequent timeouts and play calling in the midst of the action, and "interaction" between coach and players, refs and even fans sometimes becomes part of the spectacle.

It all adds up to a not-so-great environment for a coach with a hot temper, a dramatic streak or a control issue. There is nowhere to hide on that 74' x 42' slab of hardwood; no dugout, no glass, no big guys with pads between you and the fans. And believe me, when a coach gets a technical foul, everybody sees it.

So Sean's advice to be clear with expectations, give the kids a little independence, and be yourself makes great sense on a lot of levels. If more coaches tried to work those simple tenets into their own coaching philosophy, everyone involved would benefit. Sports is a prelude to life for a lot of kids. Not life in the NBA, NFL, MLB or NHL; but real life. They will have plenty of time to find out what the experience of working for a poor manager or leader is like. Why not give them a positive experience to benchmark against.

"Be yourself...unless you are Bobby Knight!"

Baseball!

Little League Bans Composite Bats

It certainly couldn't have been a happy New Year for the likes of DeMarini, ComBat and Easton, and their hangover is likely to last right through the beginning of the 2011 youth baseball season. Shortly after Christmas, Williamsport came down with an edict that extended a moratorium on the use of composite bats into the bread and butter Majors division. This extended the ban that Williamsport had enacted in higher age brackets last summer. This is the proverbial "Big One" however, and is likely to have a significant impact on Little League World Series play.

The issue of bat performance has been at the heart of discussions concerning high school and college baseball safety for several years. As young players get bigger and stronger, the ferocious bat speed - and consequent ball speed - they sometimes generate can be frightening. Titanium bats were banned long ago for precisely that reason. Many high schools and teen travel leagues have adopted wood bats to ensure safer play. The Major Leagues have never seriously entertained using non-wood bats, and the number of pitchers getting smoked by line drives in any given year tells you why.

Twelve and under play had appeared to be somewhat immune from the debate. Many local Little Leagues had adopted wood bats in the last few years for Minors (9 & 10) and Majors (11 & 12), with the rationale that it allowed many of the less accomplished players more of an opportunity to play infield or pitch, as they could do so without the fear of a rifle-shot line drive taking their head off. Yet, when summer tournament play resumed, the metal and composite bats were back, yielding to the conventional wisdom that the players were more accomplished overall.

Well, it's all gonna change. Let's examine the annual Williamsport tournament for a clue why. Typically, players are introduced to the tournament as 9 or 10 year olds. Most of the pitchers throw with reasonable velocity, but there seems to be more hitting at this age group as the young batters are fairly evenly matched with their pitching counterparts who stand 46' away. Gradually, the balance of power swings overwhelmingly to the hurlers, as they grow bigger and stronger. By the time the 12 year old Little League World Series Tournament begins (what you see on TV in the summer) things are dramatically different. Many of those 12 year olds are actually 13, having a birthday that falls after the Little League May 1 deadline. The pitchers throw hard. Very hard. Many have off-speed pitches. And they are still standing 46 feet away from home plate. While hitters are also bigger and stronger, I've watched enough youth baseball to know that this matchup clearly favors the pitcher. What's a hitter to do?

Well, enter the composite bat. Technology has taken that good old piece of lumber and transformed it into a $300 wonder of modern science. weighing up to 13.5 ounces less than the length of the bat. For some perspective on that, picture the standard youth wood Louisville Slugger. A 30" model, ash bat would probably weigh between 25 and 27 ounces. Now consider the DeMarini Vexxum 30". At 16.5 ounces with a generous sweet spot it helps close the gap on those big hurlers. Make solid contact? It's gone. Defensive swing? Maybe you'll hit a flare into right field. It definitely increases the chances that a good hitter will make something happen.

Now organized youth baseball has adopted certain standards over the years. And one of these is the BESR, or "Ball Exit Speed Ratio" rating. Bat manufacturers test samples of their product, and certify that the BESR is 1.15, which is similar to that of the best wood bats. Here is where the problem begins. It is well known that composite bats have a break-in period before they reach peak performance. The composite bats tested in the laboratory - yes, the ones with the 1.15 BESR certification - have not been broken in. The latest study from U Mass-Lowell must have scared the heck out of the Little League hierarchy. The research concluded that "composite bats, while they may meet this standard when new, can exceed that standard after a break-in process".

So, on December 30, just 5 days after many young sluggers woke up to find new ComBat B3 or ExoGrid under the Christmas tree, Little League International handed down the moratorium. There's no doubt that Williamsport, PA will look like Capitol Hill, Washington D.C. over the next few months as Wilson, Rawlings, Easton, et. al. lobby hard for exceptions to the rule. Make no mistake, there is big money at stake here, which always has an impact in organized sports.

Little League International's position has been, effectively, "stay tuned". They have referred folks to their facebook page for real time updates and discussion. They have also circulated a list of approved non-wood bats which has been updated several times since the announcement.

The fallout from this decision should be apparent this summer when Williamsport Tournament play begins. Just how dominant will the pitchers be? Will we see a measurable decrease in offense? Will anyone get caught cheating? Which non-composite high tech marvel will become this year's "hot bat"? Only time will tell how much impact this decision will have on the actual state of play on the diamond.

Girls Gone Wild!

I'm still trying to figure out if life has really changed that much in the past few years or if it is simply that technology has changed the way we view life. A few years back, celebrities had paparazzi making their lives miserable: stalking them, photographing them in compromising positions and selling the photos to the National Enquirer. Nowadays, anybody can be stalked because everybody else is a potential paparazzo! All it takes is a camera phone and a facebook account and bang! One's momentary lapse of reason lives forever on the internet for all to see. So, what once may have been a word-of-mouth story that lost steam and went away, is now a living, breathing testament to bad behavior. In that vein, let's take a look at two recent incidents, one a girls high school soccer match and the other a women's college soccer match. In the first, the Rhode Island Division 4 State Championship game erupts into a melee when one girl starts pushing an opponent and the benches clear. In the other, a college woman athlete from New Mexico takes a page from the Conrad Dobler playbook as she uses every dirty trick in the book to get an advantage. Ouch!

New stuff? Or is it just better documented these days? As for the first incident, it's great theater and certainly bad sportsmanship, but new? Nope. Turn back the clock 27 years ago. Thanksgiving Day. Traditional football game between my high school and our traditional rival. We are getting beaten pretty soundly, frustration boils over and there are punches thrown. Benches clear, because that's what kids do. Fans of each side scream and yell at each other and maybe a few punches get thrown there as well. Yes, it was embarrassing back then, but it was largely left to word of mouth, and it damn sure wouldn't have made the 11:00 news because that wasn't something they wanted to promote! Nowadays, where we are on that 24-hour news cycle and you've got local cable news fighting with the web and traditional media for eyeballs, this stuff is exhibit A, front and center. A guarantee that viewers will come in droves unfortunately.

As for the college game...brutal! But unprecedented? Nope. I guess the question with this one is, did the girl just snap? Or has she done some of this throughout her soccer career and this time it just happened to get caught on tape. I know I only have a one-game sample, but given the material I think I can solidly conclude that Lambert is a dirty player. And judging from the fact that she only got a yellow card and continued to play dirty, she is sneaky as well.

Rain, rain, go AWAY!

I'm not entirely sure about the impact of global warming, but it sure seems like 2009 has seen more than its share of baseball and soccer games affected by mother nature. We don't live in Seattle, but rather in a close-in suburb of a major east coast city. Our playing field space is precious and probably not sufficient for a town of about 12,000 and all the baseball, softball, soccer, football, lacrosse, rugby, ultimate frisbee, etc. that is played. The "nice" fields must be nursed through the season because of all the traffic, and sometimes this leads to controversial decisions about when to close them. It seems the "Field Czar" is probably one of the most powerful people in town, given his absolute power over usage (and lighting!) issues. We should probably be considered an upper middle class town, not exceedingly wealthy, not terribly working class overall, but somewhat diverse economically, and highly taxed from a real estate standpoint. So, what do we do when it rains? We struggle. Fields are closed at the drop of a hat. Games are cancelled. Attempts to move indoors on the fly are sometimes successful, sometimes not. So, you would think we are a great candidate for artificial turf, no? Well, that one was put up for a referendum a couple of years ago, and despite the shifting demographic toward a younger population with school-age kids, it was soundly defeated. Some were concerned about health issues. Most were concerned about money. As I said, taxes are high and people are fairly fed up with the increases. Sure, they will swallow hard and vote in favor of things like improving the schools from an academic standpoint, but dumping more money into sports wasn't going to fly. So, here we are with our over-taxed natural grass. A little bit of rain (which we've had a lot of this year) stops us in our tracks and we are consigned to playing wii indoors. I guess we'll just pray for a drought next year.