Author name: stadmin

With Little League practices underway, I thought it would be a good time to talk about getting back into the “swing” of things during BP and cage time. (See what I did there?!?!  I’m so hilarious; just ask me.) While the pre-season is a great opportunity to tune up our player’s swings from a mechanical […]

I absolutely love coaching basketball and am lucky to get to coach both Maddux’s (6th grade) and Sloane’s (3rd grade) hoops teams.   In Maddux’s game on Sunday, an interesting situation came up that, of course, made me think of larger implications in today’s youth sports world.   Let me set the stage…   The

Most local Little Leagues have “Tryouts” this weekend (I love that almost all leagues have changed the name to “Evaluations”) and here’s some advice for parents and coaches to make the day fun, instead of stressful. For Players: For Parents: PLAY HARD, HAVE FUN!

With the new year on the horizon, here’s a brief list of the best advice I can give parents and players to make sure your baseball family has the most enjoyable and rewarding season possible in 2026! FOR PARENTS: FOR PLAYERS:

A family that I’m good friends with and whose son just finished his Little League career this past season recently joined a very well-known 13U club baseball team in the area. Being new to the organization, the Dad stuck around the few first official team practices earlier this Fall and was immediately struck by how

My buddy Chase d’Arnaud played in the Big Leagues for 8 seasons and now runs a world-class training facility in Long Beach; he’s got a lot of truly elite High School and college players who workout with him on a regular basis. I’m talking about older teenagers who will play definitely D1 ball and college

We have a 10-year old camper with us this week in Palos Verdes who had literally never played a minute of baseball in his life until he stepped on the field on Monday morning. I absolutely LOVE getting to introduce the greatest sport ever invented to new players, no matter what age they are, and

If you follow baseball, you know that Mariners’ Catcher Cal Raleigh had an historic first half of the season. He has 38 Homeruns already, which is just 1 shy of the all-time record for most homeruns before the All-Star break set by Barry Bonds, and he has a shot to break Mickey Mantle’s single season

I’m coaching Maddux’s 10U All-Star team again this season and we had our 1st game on Saturday. The team played great and won 4-1 but the point of this blog has nothing to do with that win. Maddux, after absolutely crushing the ball in our 3 All-Star scrimmages leading up to our 1st real game

Over the past several years, the focus of youth sports has sadly shifted toward focusing on chasing plastic rings and preparing for the “next level,” and away from the real wins of sports participation for kids: learning life lessons, creating lifelong memories, and spending quality time with friends. Despite this trend, I’ve witnessed some incredible