Passing Down a Love of the Game

Here's a good article from Moms Team about "Passing the Baseball Torch" from generation to generation. It's a selection from a book by Dan Clemens, called The Perfect Season.

Making the big leagues is one-in-a-million, so one of the best things we can do for our own kids and other baseball players we coach is to simply instill a love of the game, so they can enjoy it as much as we have for so many years.

How does one come to love baseball? According to Clemens, it comes from two sources:

1. From our experiences on the field. I will never have a true appreciation for ice hockey because I never played - I can't even skate (on blades or wheels). But I know what it's like to play baseball - to make solid contact, steal a base, rob a hit, strike out a batter, or just kill time in the dugout. I loved it and thrived on it. And....

2. From the people around us - the stories they tell, the lessons they've learned, the players and teams they follow, the experiences we share with them. This is not about instructing our sons to swing correctly or driving them to succeed. It's about creating good memories and being a fan of the game.

Albert Pujols Diamond Demo

Here's a good MLB Network Diamond Demo with Albert Pujols, where he and Harold Reynolds discuss such things as tee work, staying inside the ball and taking the knob of the bat to the ball. When this guy talks hitting, we all should listen.