Getting Back in the Saddle

[AndyB1969]

My son is 11 and plays on both a rec league team and a travel/tournament team. He's one of the smallest and youngest kids on both teams, but is generally a really tough kid and aggressive player.

That said, he has had a rough go of things lately. First, a couple of weeks ago, while playing second base on the travel team, he had a hot-shot grounder take a funny hop on him and crack him in the ribs. He hung on to the ball and made the out, but had to leave the game with a perfect baseball-stitching tattoo on his ribs. He was bruised and sore for days. Then yesterday, while catching for the rec league team, was hit not once, but twice by thrown bats. In the first inning, a kid tossed his bat and it funny off the ground and hit my son on the side of the knee just to the side of his shin guards. Ump gave the team a warning, and my son was able to shake it off and continue playing. Then in the second inning a kid dribbled a foul ball down the first-baseline and, as my son ran to pick up the ball in foul territory, the kid full-on flung the bat, nailing my son in his left elbow. Batter was called out, but my son had to come out of the game as he couldn't open and close his glove hand. Tools of ignorance, indeed.

My son is doing fine now - he was able to come back into the game and pitch in the last inning - but my concern is that he's becoming a little gun-shy. Before these things happened, he was utterly fearless, but now I sense that he is starting to play grounders off to his side. Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to deal with this early so he doesn't develop bad habits?

[dmac]

I don't have the answer for you but we had a hard hit ball take a bad hop and hit our 2nd baseman in the eye and it took him about 4 weeks to get completely over it mentally.

[tigerdan]

take him out to a field a few times just you and him and hit him bunches of easy grounders making sure his form is good ... reinforce the good habits with easy plays before falling into bad habits on tough plays ... Don't rush it ... Do some strictly fun field work.
As for catching, what's more important, playing Rec ball or travel ball. If the kids in rec ball make the game dangerous, I wouldn't have my kid play catcher and jeapordize his travel ball playing time.

[tom2p]

Agree with tigerdan - don't rush it and do some (fun) field work ..... can take some time ... be patient .....
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and yes - make sure form is proper .....
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make sure kid is not fielding infield ground balls with just/only the glove hand ..... should have throwing hand up - somewhere between glove and chin/mouth area ..... I especially stress this to kid that has great teeth ! ..... seriously, the throwing hand in this position will not stop every bad hop from hitting kid on the face - but it can help ......
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another thing ... kid has to be agressive to make (quality) plays on the infield - can not be moving back or retreating - or kid will be a sitting duck for bad hops, etc ...... when you retreat you tend to get the bigger/nastier part of the hop .........
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I basically tell my kids - you play the ball - don't let the ball play you ......

the agressive play required on the infield is much easier to observe if/when you attend a MLB game ... HS game ... etc ..... infield play very agressive .....
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[tigerdan]

A couple nights ago during all-star practice, my kid (11) took a bad hop during infield practice. Straight to the eye. Sucker puffed and swelled shut almost instantly. No broken cheekbone thankfully... but it's a good shiner, eyeball pretty much full of blood and a perfect line below his eye where the seams hit.

He was mostly scared it would keep him from playing...But bad eye and all he got back on the field next night when we scrimmaged the 12 year old star team. He was more worried about facing one pitcher who throws in the 70's than with fielding ... but he stayed in (did get rung up on a couple bad strike calls but that's a whole other story).

One thing that really helped so far is that we went and took some grounders on a field turf (astro turf field). No bad hops. He's a 1st baseman so he has to be ready for some hot shots. Just keep them in the game and eventually the fear and trepidation will subside.

[dsore1218]

First, I agree that he needs to take some fun grounders, etc. Good advice.

The only thing I can add is that he will remember the bumps and the bruises. Just let him remember them as heroic bumps not tragic scars. Honorable battle wounds. Big man on campus because he is right where the action is, not accident prone.

Have a fun summer season.