Thank you for coaching! Providing an enjoyable and engaging baseball experience to younger players can be a challenging, but highly rewarding endeavor. In order to provide you all with the best path to success, we have modified traditional baseball practice routines and game rules. These have been designed to ensure our youngest players remain engaged in the game, while learning the necessary skills for their development in the game of baseball. Regardless of your level of baseball experience, we ask that all coaches follow these guidelines. We will intend to follow this structure for the duration of the season.
COACH EXPECTATION
- Maintain a positive attitude and cultivate one on your team! We want kids to have fun and learn to enjoy the game. The focus is always on development first.
- Pre-season
- Read and understand the rules
- Pick up uniforms from commissioner (communication on timing/location forthcoming)
- Pick up equipment from the WYBS shed (communication on timing/location forthcoming)
- Send welcome email to team
- In-season
- Communicate clearly with team about scheduling and any other team issues
- Follow gameplay rules
- Show up on time (at least 15 min. early for games)
- Run a weekly practice; the vast majority of reps will happen in practice, not in games, so these are crucial for development
- Report any concerns (rules violations, safety concerns or incidents, etc.) to league commissioner
- Post-season
- Return equipment to WYBS shed
- Fill out player evaluations; these are crucial for building balanced teams in future seasons
- Fill out coaches’ evaluations; coaches know best what is working and what isn’t, so these are crucial for continuous improvement of the league
- Schedule
- Each team will have a Saturday game, scheduled by the league; there are no games Memorial Day weekend
- Each Saturday session will be approximately 90 minutes long, comprising a 30-45 min. warmup/practice session followed by a 45-60 min. game; you have the field for 2 hours but a good rule of thumb is to not start a new inning after the 90 min. mark
- Each team should schedule an additional one-hour, weekly practice; these practices are crucial for skill development; each head coach will receive an invite to a shared practice calendar that will allow for scheduling flexibility while minimizing field conflicts
- In addition to regularly scheduled games and practices, a weekly, optional skills clinic will be made available to all league participants for a supplemental fee. The dates, times and locations of these clinics will be communicated to the coaches and players in the coming weeks.
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