Youth baseball: Develop or profit? Toxicity from innocence

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7th May 1930: A megaphone helps the coach to catch the players’ attention at the start of a baseball season in Stamford Bridge, London. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images) /

When you mix billions of dollars with the hearts of parents, you are brewing a toxic concoction that can explode at any moment buried deep within the youth sports culture.

I took on this project with a bias to the blatant harm the toxic culture that surrounds youth baseball, and youth sports as a whole, but ended coming out of it with a heightened sense of awareness to the passive-aggressive harm we can inflict on our children.

As I laid out this story, I was ready to blast the bullhorn blaring, top-of-the-lungs screaming abusive parent. However, I ended up with introspection.

The angle that was approached with this project was from a father and a coach. I have dealt with “that parent” and I have had to be cognizant of not being “that parent.” All parents of young athletes have to toe the line of supportive and smothering. It’s amplified when you are coaching that athlete, especially in a sport you played and loved.

Two names came to mind as the best options to start this conversation with. The first was Jason Hirsh, the ex-Colorado Rockies pitcher and current founder of FAST Baseball Development and Arm Care, but most importantly father of an athlete. The other was Andy Lindahl, a long-time coach and lacrosse player, and currently one half of Kreckman and Lindahl on Altitude 92.5 in Denver, also an athlete’s father.

DENVER – MAY 15: Starting pitcher Jason Hirsh #48 of the Colorado Rockies delivers against the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 15, 2007 at Coors Field in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images) /

Anyone that has supported a child, nephew, niece, grandchild, etc. has been there and admonished the parent that lives vicariously through their child. These are the ones that have changed the Youth Sports landscape from a fun way to exercise and grow into adulthood with a plethora of good habits.

Into a $15 billion a year behemoth that has parents getting a second or third job to get their kids into competition for the sport of choice. This atmosphere and financial commitment are what has spurned this toxic culture we all have to wade through.

When I spoke with former Colorado Rockies pitcher and current Rockies broadcaster Jason Hirsh about this topic, I got a nuanced response:

“The toxicity is based around the parents, the coaches, and the money,” said the former Rockies pitcher. “Those three things are a terrible combination because you have expectations, because there’s a lot of money in play, you have play time expectations.” He added, “[i]f I’m going to pay $5,000 a year for my kid to play in this league, they better play $5,000 worth of games.”

He went on to expand on the toxic coaching contribution. He stated that even though, “there are great coaches out there. Grossly misinformed, or ill-informed coaches” can be a detriment to the player.

He expanded on how with a story about a player who hid an injury because of the fear he had of disappointing his father. He then reached out to his coach because of the pain in his elbow, and was promptly and erroneously told to “throw through it”. As Hirsh noted, this was the wrong answer.

PHILADELPHIA, PA – AUGUST 27: Pitcher Mo’ne Davis #3 of Philadelphia Little League baseball team Taney Dragons (2nd L), Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (C) and Mo’ne’s mother Lakeisha McLean (2nd R) attends a parade celebrating the team’s championship on August 27, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images). /

This falls right in line with what Andy Lindahl responded within a separate interview to the same question. He contends that it all runs back to what we will call “The Unhappy Trilogy.”

Over-the-top invested parents
Mis-/ill-informed coaching
Money

They both agreed that the quickest way was removing the money, but how do you knock this deep-rooted structure over when there are so many wallets invested? There is no easy answer. As was stated, this is a $15 billion a year business, meaning the stakes are unfathomably high so the most impactful will be changing the other two.

Lindahl also expanded on how this culture can be destructive even when we don’t mean it to be. He told the story of the reason he chose lacrosse over baseball.

Baseball was his father’s favorite sport, and when he started playing, his father became so overbearing he burned out and went the way of 70% of all youths in today’s game and dropped out of baseball. It broke his father’s heart when Andy told him that he was not going to play baseball and give lacrosse a go.

But the lesson of this story is the way his father reacted, he didn’t explode and try to force young Andy to play a sport he lost his love for no matter how badly he wanted to share the love of the game with his son. Mr. Lindahl went out and bought Andy his first lacrosse stick and made sure to show up to every game he could and support him in every way he could throughout the rest of his athletic career which expanded into college at Metro State of Denver.

This brings up the six most important words we as parents can tell our young athletes: “I love to watch you play.” That’s all it takes to make your child’s day and keep stoking their fire for the game.

TAINAN, TAIWAN – AUGUST 06: USA players celebrate their 7-2 Gold Medal victoty during the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup Gold Medal match between United States and Chinese Taipei on August 6, 2017 in Tainan, Taiwan. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images) /

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This also lends to the harm this culture has to the future generations of baseball. Unlike some of their international counterparts, such as the Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan that laud their stars.

Baseball has done an extremely poor job of promoting their stars. Nolan Arenado and Mike Trout are two of the best players on the planet and very few children outside of their home markets can tell you who they are. Now, mix this anonymity of success with the real-world effect of the burnout this culture causes as we just saw in young Andy.

I’m not going to sit here and say Andy would have been the next coming of Nolan Ryan. But we will never know, as we will never know about the above mentioned 70 percent, of young athletes that burnout and quit sports completely before the age of 13.

They both also echoed the need for informed coaching. This should be a non-negotiable starter, but in this day and age where every day a new league is popping up to grab a slice of that enormous pie. There almost seems an acceptance of negligence, because parents are so invested in their children and their sport(s) of choice, they are sometimes too willing to jump at any opportunity to give their child a leg-up on the next kid.

So now, we circle back to the one pillar that can truly rock the other two things: parents. It has long switched from a young athlete-driven league, it’s parents. Just make sure you know the pros and cons of your involvement.

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Also, please make sure you are researching the league you are putting your children in. Make sure they are arming their coaches with the information and training necessary to properly develop your child, not just the most efficient one in making a profit.

If you would like to hear the interviews in their entirety, including these interesting and informative stories, you can listen to them here.

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When you mix billions of dollars with the hearts of parents, you are brewing a toxic concoction that can explode at any moment buried deep within the youth sports culture.

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