Making the Most of Fall Baseball
Now is a great time for your boy to have fun with baseball and improve, as well.
By Chris Snopek
School is in full swing. Mississippians are tailgating at football games or hitting the woods chasing that big buck.
Baseball has moved to the backburner.
Perfect! Now may be the best time to work on your boy’s baseball game.
A growing number of youth baseballers use this season to keep their boy’s baseball skills in sync while improving in a relaxed environment.
In fact, “fall ball”—as it is called—is a chance to sharpen both skills and attitudes away from the hot, bright lights of summer baseball.
Fall baseball leagues are increasingly available throughout our state.
Playing fall ball has great benefits, among them:
• A relaxed, low-pressure time to focus on your child’s pure love of baseball;
• A chance to strengthen a single skill your child tussled with last summer;
• An opportunity to build new, healthy baseball routines that will pay off later.
During these cooler months, you and your child’s enthusiasm level may revive after being drained during summer’s wickedly hot season. Take advantage of this to have fun throwing, fielding and batting.
If you join a fall ball team, I recommend finding one focused on improvement and fun versus merely winning.
Whether you join a fall team or simply make this a one-on-one season for you and your boy, remember these tips:
• During fall practices, your child’s love of baseball should grow; set positive, personal goals; let go of an all-or-nothing attitude.
• Spread out your practice sequences; for instance, you can benefit from a less-hurried weekly batting session over three to four fall/winter months versus two or three weekly sessions during the intense summer seasons.
• Now’s the time to find a skills instructor your child jibes with and to start building a friendship that will last into next summer. This permits the instructor to learn your boy’s strengths and weaknesses and to set reasonable goals for next spring.
Baseball is for the child in all of us. Fall brings out that great feeling. No rule exists that says you can’t pick up a baseball, bat and glove in November or December.
In today’s economy, a little “fall ball” might be the best investment you make this season. SS
Chris Snopek, a former All American baseball player at Ole Miss and second basemen for the MLB Chicago White Sox, owns and operates Performance Sports Academy in Flowood, Mississippi. Check out Chris and his instructors at www.performancesportsacademy.com or call Chris at 601-420-9467.
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