EP88 Parents Giving Their Kid a Gatorade in the Dugout? Is It a Big Deal?

In this episode, we discuss the separation between parents and their players in the dugout. Some coaches recently were arguing on twitter about handing off drinks during a game, so Dan weighs in. Also discuss how much extra work to do following a bad outing, and should 11 year olds learn sliders?

To submit a question for the Q&A segment, email a voice recording to Dan at hello@danblewett.com.Want to support the show? Buy a copy of Dear Baseball Gods on Kindle or Paperback, or listen on audiobook. Or, pick up Pitching Isn’t Complicated, his advanced-but-understandable pitching manual.Enroll in one of Coach Dan’s online pitching courses or his mental skills course. Use code BASEBALL GODS to save 20% on any course, just for being a listener.Sign up for Dan’s Email list and get a free pitching checklist, and follow up with him on the interwebs: YouTube Channel | Twitter | Danblewett.com

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EP88 – Parents Giving Their Kid a Gatorade in the Dugout? Is It a Big Deal?

You’re listening to the deer baseball gods podcast. I’m Dan Blewett. And on this show, you’ll learn advanced concepts in baseball. Explain simply I’m here to guide you on your baseball journey and help you paddle through. What’s now an ocean of misinformation, guru wisdom, an overly technical diamond babble.

Hey, welcome back to dear baseball gods. This is Dan Blewett. And in today’s show, we’re gonna start a little bit about parenting and coaching and I guess, general rules as far as, uh, the separation between. Parent and coach goes, so this is spurned by a tweet that I was a little bit tuned in. I resisted the urge to comment.

Um, but it was one that I was actually surprised a bunch of my, either friends or coaches that I know were commenting on this. And so the basic of the tweet was, uh, that a, it was either a tournament company or someone else said, Hey, you know, parents bringing drinks to their kids during the game, you know, handing Gatorades into the dugout out is a bad look and, uh, I generally agree with that now, you know, as Twitter is people just love to get angry about stuff.

And a couple of coaches, again, a couple who I either know very well or just know and respect in general. Also some coaches that I know and don’t respect, but, um, They the comments vary, but they’re all like, yeah. Like imagine us as college coaches not recruiting a kid, who’s really good because his mom handed a Gatorade, you know, into the dugout.

Now that wasn’t certainly what the tweet was about. The tweet was just in general that, Hey, this is something that doesn’t need to happen. You know, this is not a great look and I tend to agree. And here’s why, so number one, I’m not defending this just because this was my Academy’s policy, but this was our policy.

We said, Hey, and we explained this very early on. We said, look. There’s going to be a separation between parents and the team during the game. That means parents, you have no business in the dugout. You don’t need to come into the dugout for any circumstances, interact with your kids did during the game, unless there’s an injury or something like that.

And of course, obviously you’re welcome to come in and help us take care of them. So that was our policy where we were just completely separating the dugout. As if it was college or pro baseball. And so that is my overarching point here is that I think that separation is an overwhelmingly good thing. I don’t think parents need to be bringing snacks or, or, or water or Gatorade into the dugout.

And because it’s, it can be, become somewhat of a slippery slope there now. I agree with the coaches who were kind of against this on Twitter, who said, look, this is not something that we’re going to cross it off our list with four, which I completely understand. And I wouldn’t expect a kid to get crossed off the list cause his dad hands him a Gatorade during the game.

But when you start to look down the list of stuff that’s necessary or not necessary, and this is what we told our players was look. Plan ahead. Planning ahead is part of being an adult, which means how many drinks do you need to get through the game? What other stuff do you need to get through the game?

It’s part of being an adult to plan ahead and have your own cooler, which yeah. At some of these tournament, places don’t allow coolers. They always allow players to have whatever they need. So that’s not a, I saw that as a couple people commented. Yeah. You know, you can’t like, you know, parents need to, they need to have a big cooler because players can’t bring them and it’s like, no, Players can always have whatever water they need.

So that’s not an issue, but we just told players, look, it’s up to you. You’re, you’re expected to be adults pack. Yeah. Yourself, the stuff that you need to get through a game and mom and dad don’t need to be involved. They can just sit in the stands and we can have that separation between coaches and parents.

Because again, many of you listening to this who have kids or who are coaches, you are aware that there is not a great boundary at times, between. Players and their parents during games where players was when I was wander out of the dugout, uh, sometimes there’ll be like staring over and dad will be tripping out.

Him or mom will be given advice from the bleachers or dad will come over right next to the dugout. Fans will be talking through the fence during the game. That’s the kind of stuff. That’s a really big problem. And Scouts do see that stuff where they’re looking, they’re looking at a player and they’re looking at the player, looking at his dad in the stands, after he swings and misses or his dad’s giving him advice while he’s in the, on deck circle.

And, you know, everyone notices that stuff and that’s the stuff we’re trying to get rid of. So is the Gatorade thing, not a big deal. Oh, that was a weird way of phrasing it. But the Gatorade handing your kids water is not a big deal. However, I think it still makes sense as a policy for it organization.

Again, I had this policy and I’ll defend it. I think it makes sense as a policy to just look, we’re just going to make the dugout off limits and just like blanket off limits. And I think that’s fine as parents. I think all of you out there are hoping that your kids become good citizens who can, you know, be independent and take care of themselves and make intelligent decisions.

And this is just one step in the right direction for that, where it’s like, Hey. Your kid needs a pack, the stuff that he needs for the game, that means it’s cleats, his glove, you know, all of his stuff is sunscreen has water, his snack, whatever he’s going to need. He needs to learn to pack that stuff. And I think that’s a part of growing up.

Right. And so there’s this thing on Twitter. I think it was misconstrued a bunch of different ways. We’re again, I agree with all the coaches who said. This is not going to get someone crossed off the list and that’s fine. That’s fair. This is not like anything, a big deal, but again, having that separation between parents and the dugout is something that’s going to be beneficial for everyone.

In the long term

in today’s 92nd mindset. I want you to consider players what you do the next day after you don’t play well. So there’s a couple things to think about and let’s go through them real quick. So number one, for me as a reliever back when I was still playing. Um, everyone tends to do a little more work the day after they don’t play well.

Right. So if I went in and pitched and I gave around or gave two rounds or something or whatever, didn’t pitch, well, a lot of players, when they handle that scenario, they’ll go out and they’ll throw more sliders the next day. Or there’ll be like doing some mechanical stuff. They’ll be trying to like, fix what was wrong.

Um, it was kind of a policy for me personally, that I didn’t really do that so much. I kind of took the road of like, look, this is a long season. And cause I had a bad outing yesterday. Doesn’t mean I need to actually fix anything. You know, you’re working day on your feel and, and throwing all your stuff and, and maintaining your mechanics.

And just because you don’t be a good results today doesn’t mean something was wrong or broken, like baseball. Just one of those sports that kind of sucks when it comes to. You know, having ups and downs and having bad luck really come back to bite you. So that’s one, one of the things I’d like you to consider when you have a bad game, don’t get too anxious about it, where you feel like you have to go fix or change yourself to be ready for the next game.

Putting in more work is great. So if you boot a couple ground balls, Sure go take a bunch more ground balls this week, whatever. But at the same time, if you feel like you’re has been good, don’t freak out, get anxious. Don’t be like, I got to go change this or my swing, my swing needs work. Cause I went over for.

No. Like if you’re swinging, if you’ve been putting in the work and you feel like your swing has been good, just ride with it. The other thing is on the other hand, you should sometimes learn from your failure while you should always learn from failure, but you should take a good look at why you played poorly.

So was it a mental thing? Was it a physical thing? Was it something that maybe you’re working on that hasn’t stuck quite yet? And that’s obviously more of a younger player thing. So if you’ve been maybe working on something that. Man, you went out there like, Oh, that just like, wasn’t right. Like, I, I worked on my stride and my stride was just way off and I felt uncomfortable in the batter’s box or, you know, whatever it is, then those are things like, okay, we gotta maybe go back to the drawing long board.

And I got to work a little harder to get that fixed for next time. So that’s. The case for putting it a little extra or different work between the next game. Um, but you know, again, I think one of the things that can haunt a lot of young players is that when they don’t play well, they tend to get really anxious and they feel like they have to always fix themselves.

And, you know, just like with your car, If your car is like running kind of rough one day, it doesn’t necessarily mean it needs, uh, to go to the mechanic every time it makes a funny noise or every time it makes a weird smell or just like, it just feels a little rough. You know, cars are pretty resilient, actually, even though they’re all made of tons of tons of, uh, of different parts.

So even when the parts aren’t perfect, there’s still the car will still get you where it needs to go. So it’s the same thing with athletes with ballplayers, you know, baseball’s along season, no matter what level you play at. And just because you didn’t perform well today doesn’t mean you always have to overhaul yourself before the next game.

So I think there’s just finding a happy balance and a happy medium about trusting yourself and that you’re not always going to play your best, even when you’re really well-prepared. And then there are also times that you do need to look and say, okay, maybe I do need to fix something this week and really work harder.

Or maybe seek out a different method of doing something so that I can beat my best next time.

Alright. Now it’s time for our listener Q and a portion of the show questions from the pious pious means to be devoutly faithful. And if you’re devout to the game of baseball, then you’re exactly the kind of person I want to hear from. If you have a question you’d like answered on the show, please email a voice recording to hello@danblewett.com.

All right. Today’s question was asked actually of me on a Twitter and a private message. And this coach said, Hey is 11 you, is it too young to start teaching kids sliders? So my general thing, and I’ve talked about this before. My general thing is that I like pitchers to learn how to pitch, throwing a fast ball and a change up until they’re about 14 years old.

And then in their 14 use summer, which is the year before they’ll start high school, they can start to learn a breaking ball, the, whether it’s a curve ball or slider, so they can start perfecting it. So that it’s a decent pitch when they’re a freshmen and they’re still not gonna rely on it. And then, uh, until they’re 16 or 17, and by the time they’re 16 or 17, they can rely on it and will, and it will be a good.

Reasonably well developed pitch because they spent a couple years when they were 14, 15, just practicing it and throwing it a lot in pregame, throwing in bullpens, all that stuff. So when someone asked me like, Hey, should an 11 year team, you know, is it okay if we throw, we teach them sliders. The answer is always going to be to twofold.

Number one, like what are your longterm goals for them? Is it really just to win 11 year tournament’s or 12 year tournament’s? Or is it really for them to be excellent pitchers longterm? Because I think if the goal is excellent longterm, then handicapping them a little bit when they’re younger, which is not allowing them to throw a breaking ball.

It’s going to force them to rely on their mechanics and allow on their command and really focus on learning a good change up cause bad changes at young ages. Get here pretty hard. Sergio has to be pretty good to be effective. Uh, I think, I think, you know, kind of taking that approach where you’re putting one hand behind their back a little bit, because we can all agree.

I think that if you taught an 11 year old, a good slider, even if it was an average slider, an average curve ball, They’re going to probably be more effective as a pitcher than if they don’t have it, but you can be as active as you need to be throwing a fast ball that you can command and throwing a really good change up.

So I think planning, capping kids by not letting them throw a breaking ball early and forcing them to really learn the chain and the fast ball and their command. I think those are good longterm outcomes. And when you add that extra pitch in when they’re 1415, now they’re just like, man, I already know how to command the ball.

I have a good change up. I have good mechanics. Those are the things I focused on for my youth. Now I get to throw a slider or curve ball to it just like adding another weapon when you’re already pretty deadly. So I think that’s a really good way to think about it. So, you know, if a coach teaches his 11 year team a slider and they’re throwing it 10, 15% of the time, which means that they throw 60 pitches, they’re throwing.

You know, eight, 10 sliders in a game. That’s not going to ruin them. Right. But it’s just that we get to the scenario where, uh, you see these youth pitchers throwing 30 curve balls in a 60 pitch outing. And that’s, what’s really problematic. So, you know, if you’re a young coach out there or not, not young, but if you’re a coach of young players and you’re unsure what you should be teaching them.

And when you should be introducing breaking balls air on the side of it being older, closer to high school, I think it’s the best thing developmentally. And if your heart’s in the right place, winning games, isn’t the biggest thing. The biggest thing is that they have fun, that they learn the game, that they enjoy their peers and that they develop the athleticism and the baseball seal.

That’s going to carry them farther on in life. It’ll be baseball players. It might be basketball players. It might be football players, and they’re probably playing baseball at a young age because it’s something they liked doing among other sports. So keeping the focus on that while helping to keep them healthy.

And again, it helped them achieve the longterm. They also want, I think those are the big longterm goals that use a coach want. So I think just getting your priorities straight and asking what’s best for the group, not just today, but five years from now is one of the thing that’s going to really. I think guide your coaching decisions, no matter if it’s pitch calling or what you’re teaching them or just your overall attitude towards coaching.

I think the longterm view is almost always going to be the best thing for young players.

Well, that’s it for today’s episode of dear baseball gods. If you enjoy the show and would like to support me while improving your baseball IQ. By one of my books were enrolled today in an online pitching course, sign up for any of my courses, do the links in the show notes and save 20% with code baseball gods, just for being a listener.

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