Sergio Ferrer and Jack Perconte on Coaching Little League Post-MLB

Not every Little League manager is an amateurish hoping to fake it 'til they make it. Sometimes, the Guy managing youth baseball is actually a former pro. Two examples: Sergio Ferrer and Mariner Perconte. Ferrer played four seasons in the MLB with the Minnesota Twins (1974-75) and the New York Mets (1978-79). Perconte played seven old age with the Dodgers (1980-81), Grover Cleveland (1982-83), Seattle (1984-85), and the White Sox (1986). Both work force now passenger vehicle Smaller Conference. Both workforce find out many of the adults they receive in that context comically utmost.

After their single playacting careers all over, both Ferrer and Perconte opted to start coaching kids — a more piquant choice to advertising car dealerships Beaver State endorsing steak joints. Perconte has been managing for more than two decades and has authored 3 books near coaching youth baseball, including The Making of a Hitter: A Proved and Practical Step-by-Step out Baseball Guide. Ferrer is a longstanding coach for Roosevelt Young League in Puerto Rico. In some cases, experience as players has given them unique insight and, perhaps more importantly, perspective. And every bit early pros, both men trouble well-nig how competitory youth sports have become. Perconte, in detail, claims to have witnessed a noticeable change over the last decade.

"The pressure for kids has become tremendous," he says. "Sol any negative dustup can really affect a kid because they are already having to think about this game arsenic a career path, which is not how it should be."

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Ferrer agrees and that's something coming from a self-delineate "intense baseball player" who spent a decent glob of his professional career arguing with umpires. Ferrer says that seeing really intense parents and coaches have convinced him to mellow out. He's a hardass about baseball but thinks its more important to be a softie around kids.

"Any time I learn a coach yelling at their players, I finger for those kids," Ferrer explains. "I try to Thatch the kids to be aggressive but I never want to yell at a kid because I find like they aren't giving the tied of effort I wish. When a kid drops a clod or misses a grounder, information technology can be frustrating. But it doesn't help to be overaggressive or put to a fault more pressure on the players because they're just kids."

As youth sports own become more competitive, coaches have possessed over statistics as a measure of success. That seems cagey, but Perconte and Ferrer, World Health Organization can quotation mark their career statistics by heart, know that numbers have limits — especially when applied to children. Piece managers Crataegus oxycantha think they are doing their owing diligence by trailing batting average or fielding percentage, kids stats don't always make much sense. Short seasons intend that Numbers only regress sol far toward the mean; it is non uncommon for a high school baseball histrion to bat .800. Also, errors and past foreign factors can powerfully affect results.

Perconte says that the thing to track is improvement and the thing to remember is that these are kids.

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"So many kids are afraid to give out that additional effort because they fear failure," Perconte explains. "They're afraid of letting themselves or their parents or their teammates down. And the path managers behave doesn't help. So many an managers are difficult to control all aspect of the game for kids and yelling at players as they are walking busy the plane. It's not doing the kid whatsoever good and it certainly isn't helping the squad."

IT might seem surprising that previous players would not bring their naturally private-enterprise nature to their managing style but getting to play true a lone mettlesome in the MLB requires honourable arsenic much patience As passionateness. Baseball seasons are long and success doesn't happen in a single courageous operating room practice. While other little league coaches might succumb quickly to what appears to atomic number 4 a lack of success surgery exertion, Perconte and Ferrer have the experience as former players to understand that with baseball game, results take time.

For Perconte, seeing the ways the managers motivated himself and other players during his vocation helped him understand that immediately jumping to ira is not an effective way to get real results out of players. During his time with the Mariners, Perconte was coached away Vomit Cottier, who atomic number 2 described as "mild" who rarely helpless his temper, as he centralized on strategy and the medium-large picture instead of berating his players for natural mistakes.

Perconte also educated from Yankees manager Billy Martin despite having never played for him. He says that even from the opposite clubhouse, he loved the fact that St. Martin "always seemed like he was a step ahead of everyone else." Perconte's admiration of Mary Martin makes sense given his own approach As a manager, where helium focuses on motivation and scheme as an alternative of getting players to submit blindly to his will.

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"If you give the players the resources and opportunity while maintaining revolve about the diverting," says Perconte. "They'll fall in love with the game and happily put in the work."

Ferrer says that piece maintaining a competitive edge is essential for managers to get the most impossible of their players, it will often cause managers to lose sight of what their job is really all about. Managers volition suddenly focus more on winning than helping kids get better at a sport they love.

"It's easy to forget that at the end of the day, a manager is a teacher," Ferrer says. "I am teaching them how to play the game and how to improve their skills. Obviously, I lack to win but that's non what this is almost."

Ferrer is comfortable expression this because he's played in situations where information technology wasn't around fun. Growing dormy in Puerto Rico, Ferrer says that nearly every kid who played baseball had their sights set connected devising it to the pros and that desire often overshadowed everything other, including loving the stake. He felt the pressure from a three-year-old age and piece he was fortunate to sleep out his dreaming and play professional baseball game, most of the kids he played with didn't.

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Perconte seconds Ferrer's sentiments and thinks he's found the source of the trouble, an assumption that makes an ass out of much of coaches.

"They think the game should automatically fun or they sham that if a youngster is talented the gage is automatically playfulness," Perconte explains. "That's not true."

Of course, Perconte and Ferrer nates ne'er fully understand the troth of the average joe little conference managing director, as their time in Major League Baseball gives them their have incomparable opportunities and burdens. But at the end of the day, the relative fame and insight they have from their days in the pros wear't take inaccurate from the fact that just like almost youth baseball game managers, they'Re just trying their best to get their players to reach their full potential without taking away the sport.

Interested in Teeny-weeny League? Tick off out Fatherly's complete guide to entirely things Niggling Conference and youth baseball related. We've got great coaching tips, funny stories about life in the dugout, and features about the ancient and future of one of America's great gymnastic institutions.

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