Can Youth Baseball Players Learn from the Pros?

While watching Little League games this summer I came to the conclusion that the adults know a lot more about how to play baseball. I see their knowledge when they are yelling to (or at) the players and letting the kids know what they need to do. Hearing all of these comments one could assume that adults know the game better than kids. Right?

Watching Game 2 of the American League Divisional Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim I saw at least three mistakes that all players and coaches should learn from. It showed that even professionals getting paid millions of dollars a year make mistakes.

The first mistake wasn't as costly as the others could have been. Manny Ramirez, not known for his outfield play, charged a base hit from Chone Figgins in the second inning. Figgins does have some speed but this was just a routine hit between the infield and outfield. Youth players are always told to square up, receive the ball in front of you and make the play. Ramirez instead tries to take the ball off to the side of his body; of course, the ball goes off his glove and gets behind him. Figgins turns this into a double and later scores.

Mistake number two, could have been a very big mistake for the Angels. Garret Anderson hits a double to right field with no outs. At this point it is a 3-2 game in favor of the Angels, and they are looking for another run for insurance. The next batter, Maicer Izturis, hits a ground ball to short stop Julio Lugo. Instead of holding up for the throw and seeing what happens at first, Anderson takes off on the hit and is thrown out at third. All youth players are taught that if you are on second with no one else on and the ball is hit behind you, you advance to third; if it is hit in front of you then you make sure the ball goes through before advancing.

The last mistake was by Coco Crisp of the Red Sox. It's the sixth inning of a 3-3 game and relievers for both sides are pitching well. Crisp walks with one out, and the next hitter is Julio Lugo. The Red Sox, trying to make something happen put on the hit and run. On the pitch Crisp takes off for second and Lugo hits a fly ball to deep center field. Crisp hits second base and takes a couple of steps towards third before he realizes the out. At this point he takes off back to first base so he won't get doubled up. The problem with this is that Crisp touched second base on his way to third, and when he was heading back to first he didn't retouch second base. The base running rule states that if a player has to return to a base then they need to touch the bases in reverse order. This was costly for the Red Sox at the time because it ended the inning and kept the game at 3-3.

After watching the game and seeing Manny Ramirez end it with a walk off three run homerun I realize that these mistakes didn't lose the game for either side. Kids playing the game need to realize that even though the adults yell and scream at the games and tell everyone what they did wrong, when it comes down to the being in that pressure situation, there is a chance that any of us could make a mistake. How we handle that mistake and how we recover from it is what makes the difference.