What the ..... Youth Baseball?!!

Former MLBer shines a light on the ills of baseball and youth sports

Jul 15, 2025

Growing up circa 1980, I have vivid memories of playing a lot of pick-up (unstructured) neighborhood ball games. Here are a few:

Wall ball - this can be played with 1 person. I would throw a tennis ball against the side of our backyard shed or the schoolyard brick wall and field ground balls. It can also be played with 2 or 3 players rotating in-and-out, challenging each other on short hops, range, etc.
500 -At least 2 players but often times more. One person throws fly balls yelling out the number of points (“100” or “75”, etc.) while the outfielders try to catch it. With multiple players, this becomes a free-for-all! And probably enhanced my arithmetic abilities - no calculators back then.
Pickle. 3 players are needed. This is basically a game of run-down between bases. Can also be played with multiple players between multiple bases.
Pitcher-Catcher. Long before the days of pitch counts, two of us would get together on the Charlie Brown make-shift mound in one of our backyards. We would throw a complete 5-, 7-, or 9-inning game, alternating innings. Basically, this was a bullpen session. The catcher would call balls and strikes unless their was a third person who would jump in to umpire.
Wiffle ball. The classic backyard game that must be played with the “official” Wiffle bat and ball. We played all the variations. Two player - pitcher v hitter, 2 vs 2 with ghost runners, etc.
Home Run Derby. We played with the Big Red Bat. Serve it up and crush it. We were training launch angle pre-analytics era.
Sandlot. Similar to Wiffle ball but with a real bat and ball. Usually in a vacant lot using cardboard boxes as bases or on the Little League field. 2 vs 2 and up.

As for organized youth baseball, I played on the local Washburn, ND (population 1800) squad. A rag-tag group of ten or so 9-12 year olds. No tryouts. Some days we would play with 8 or borrow a kid from the other team. No team-issued bag, no eye black covering our faces, no batting or sliding gloves (unless you count wearing my dad’s leather work gloves), and not even a real uniform - just sweatpants and whatever t-shirt you wanted to wear. And P.S., we were a “travel team” … we all packed into a few parent’s cars and traveled 15 miles to either Underwood, Wilton or Turtle Lake to play those community teams.

And today? There is a near extinction of this sort of unstructured play and motivation to do so. And organized …. is much, much different.

Instead, (deep, really deep siiiggghhhhhh… and a head shake)….. Well, I’m just going to let former MLBer and current youth baseball instructor Zach Lutz tell you what’s going on in youth baseball.

The Current Youth Baseball Landscape

Let’s start with Zach’s recent report on watching “top-level” “elite” 16U teams play.

Nobody can throw a strike. And when someone does? The hitter tries to hit it 500 feet pullside.
Two-strike approach? LOL. Let’s just swing out of our cleats and strikeout looking cool.
Players strolling onto the field like it’s a red carpet.
Eye black like it’s war paint.
Coaches? No structure. No standards.
Parents losing their minds over ball/strike calls when their own pitcher couldn’t hit a beach ball.

…and the observations are similar at the younger ages…

6 games in 3 days — with 12 kids on the roster.
Coaches wearing cleats like they’re closing the game out.
More tents than a Bass Pro Shop Grand Opening.
Clipboards snapping like Slim Jims.
Coaches arguing over speaker volume at 7:45 AM. Not warm-ups. Not lineups. SPEAKER VOLUME.
Coaches yelling to their 9-YEAR-OLDS:
“Who’s gonna be the mother f’n one to shove it up their a** today?”
…Huh?
Kids WALKING on and off the field while coaches just sip coffee and scroll their phones. No standard. No urgency.
Parents dropping f-bombs on umpires like it’s UFC Fight Night.
Kids hit a routine ground ball, run halfway down the line, then stop. No correction. No accountability. Just vibes, I guess?

And honestly (and sadly), these antics are happening at the college and professional levels as well. Role models for youth players? And Zach is not afraid to call them out.

Over the last several months, Zach has been on fire on LinkedIn. Here are just a few of his posts addressing several of the issues in youth baseball.

On Fashion Shows, Social Media and Player Behavior

On Coaching Behavior ..we really need to talk

Coaching and LTAD: Zach shares his personal story …

On Parents 🧠 Youth Sports is Not About You. Seriously, It’s Not About You!

On College Scholarships and Going Pro

Youth Baseball. Just A Microcosm of Youth Sports

In Closing .. and Moving Forward

This is a good way to sum it up and close, Zach writes …

This isn’t hate, it’s a wake-up call.
We’re not anti-social. We’re just ballplayer (and quality coaches).
Come our way if you want to actually LEARN THE GAME.
Come our way if you want to be part of a TEAM.
Come our way if you’re ready to FITFO (Figure It The F&*# Out!).
Let’s raise the bar. Because right now… it’s embarrassing. 🤦‍♂️

Indeed, we do need to raise the bar. Zach is one of many raising issues, which many of us have been doing for the past decade(s). We know the best practices in youth sports. We know that coach education - and parent education - is vital.

Heck, the major physical education and sport science groups in America [SHAPE (physical education and health), the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the Physical Activity Alliance, the National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA), the United States Center for Coaching Excellence (USCCE), and the USOPC] have formed the Collective Impact group to address this very issue. And ESPN in partnership with the Positive Coaching Alliance have thrown millions at it via the Take Back Sports initiative. And Project Play continues to be a strong leader in the space.

BUT, as I have written and spoken about many times, changing the current youth sports ecosystem and culture is challenging and complex because human behaviour is complex and so is the socio-political culture of youth sports. And the major question remains:

How, what and who will address the complex socio-cultural and behavioral aspects and the behavioral economics of changing (hearts and) minds and the U.S. youth sports culture at the individual and local level?’”

Final Grade: Zach Lutz A+

As a professor and career-long coach and pediatric exercise scientists, Zach gets an A+ for content, strong emoji game and graphics (seriously, he has mad skills)… and more importantly, for being a steward of the game and advocate of best practices in youth sports.

📲 Give him a follow on social media | LinkedIn | Tiktok

🎙️ And listen to Zach on these Podcasts

The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe

Respect for the Game: A Conversation with Zach Lutz on Restoring Integrity to the Sport of Baseball

Parenting Athletic Kids