John T. Reed’s baseball-coaching blog

Copyright 2000, 2006, 2007, 2008 by John T. ReedBaseball is by far the most dangerous of the popular youth sports. Amazingly, hardly anyone seems aware of this. Millions of parents who refuse to let their child play youth football, one of the safest youth sports, blithely send them off to baseball without a thought about safety. What's worse is the injuries youth baseball players suffer are almost all easily preventable. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see my book, Youth Baseball Coaching.Sports that have a dangerous image, like youth football and youth hockey, have adopted virtually every safety...

Copyright 2014 by John T. ReedThe best coaching periodical in America has done it again. That would be the Wall Street Journal—really. Their 3/28/14 issue has several excellent articles about baseball coaching. You can probably read it online by Goggling “Deee-fense: Baseball’s Big Shift.”The main one is about the recent increase in extreme shifting on defense according to the pitcher, batter, and count.Manager Lou Boudreau of the Indians did that against dead-pull-hitter Ted Williams who batted left-handed. He left only the third baseman and left fielder to the left of second base and they were nearer to second than the...

I went to my first home opening day baseball game yesterday—Rockies @ Giants. Much extra ceremony beforehand celebrating last season’s World Series win. Rockies won 2-0. There was a passed ball where the Giants pitcher covered home and appeared to tag the runner from third out. But he was called safe. They showed the replay, and the umps confirmed the safe call. The home crowd howled at he call, howled again when the saw the replay, and howled again when the umps confirmed the call after looking at the replay. I said to the college classmate I went with, “The...

The Sports Illustrated I got today has on its last page an article about teenage baseball heart injuries from being hit by a ball in the neck or throat. I think my books on baseball coaching are the only ones that address the danger of boys suddenly dying from cardio commotis. My web article on baseball safety also addresses it. (http://www.johntreed.com/baseballsafety.html) Other than my writings, I think you have to go to the medical community to read about this. Here’s the deal. If a teenager or younger person is hit by a baseball in the thorax or neck, it sometimes causes...