Youth Baseball Podcast

In this episode, I explore the differences between youth baseball in Canada and in the United States with Bryan Howcroft of Baseball Oshawa.  Everything from player eligibility, to educating coaches through the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP), to baseball bat specifications are covered in this episode.

In this episode of the Youth Baseball Podcast, I sit down with Head Coach Buzz McNish to discuss the West High Rebels baseball program, the importance of academics, and some of the major pain points of youth baseball that permeate into the high school game today.

Coach Jimmy Filingeri brings over 30 years of coaching experience to the Cadets Player Development Academy [https://cadetsbaseballacademy.com/staff/cpda/], from T-ball to high school Varsity level baseball.  Jimmy now coaches for the Cadets Baseball Academy in Dutchess County, New York, while also serving as the head coach for the Junior Varsity baseball team at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, NY. Coach Filingeri is a certified "C" Level coach with USA Baseball and is a scout for USA Baseball Northeast NTIS.  He is also a member of the American Baseball Coaches Association, or ABCA, and a frequent contributor to the official ABCA publication, Inside Pitch Magazine.

In this mini episode, I am going to be talking about the reality of playing Major League Baseball for youth athletes.  I do not do this to crush anybody's dreams, as we all need things in our lives to strive for.  However, I do want to spend a few minutes breaking down the probabilities as to reinforce the need for student athletes to focus on their schooling and not rely on a dream of playing baseball professionally as an adult.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to today's show!  This is Episode 4, and in this episode we will be talking about the Lost Art of Baserunning.  Too often, we take for granted the importance of good, fundamental baserunning.  In practices, we dedicate so little time to improving our baserunning.  However, good baserunning can make a tremendous difference to the youth athlete's ability to contribute to the team's success. We are measuring success in relatively small terms….  Tenths of a second in many cases as being the difference between being safe and being out.  So while being fast does reduce the time needed to go from base to base, there are plenty of other techniques that can shave tenths of a second without the need for blazing speed. In addition to speaking about baserunning, I will be reviewing the SKLZ Reaction, Reflex and Agility Trainer ball located at https://www.amazon.com/SKLZ-Reaction-Baseball-Softball-Agility/dp/B0042XALSC/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8