Posted by: Mark H. () on Tue Apr 30 00:11:45 2002

This season i am in the 14-15 Babe Ruth League. I'm still 13 and will not be 14 till July, but my father keeps telling me i should be fortunate for where i am because i was born 3 months ahead of time, and shouldn't even be in the league. When i got drafted to my team, no one was gonna draft me until my coach from last year finally spoke up and started telling what i could do. Righ now we're in the the 7th game of the season. I start in centerfield and i'm probably the best outfielder, and i'm probably the fastest player on the team (11 stolen bases in 11 attempts). I bat 5th in the line-up and am now hitting .500, 7 for 14. Plus 3 of the 4 players that bat ahead of me are sophmores in high school and the other is a freshman, they all play on the high school team. My dad just keeps telling me to go to every game, play hard, play for the team, and don't complain, and good things should happen. I would just like to know if i should consider myself as a average player who is right now doing what i'm supposed to be doing, or am i above average player who is playing better then expected.
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> You sound like an average kid exept that you like to bragg more than most, so you probably have a big head and are not very much fun to be around and you probably don't count errors against your average and other stuff that kids who think they are "all that" do and you should quit fishing for complements because if you were as good as you say you would be getting them in every game.
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Or maybe he is small for his baseball age group since he has a bad baseball birthday and thus keeps having to prove he really can play and was just looking for an honest reading from some "adults" since the coaches in his league tend to overlook him. He's a kid, lighten up the self righteous judgmentalism.

Mike, playing up against older kids will help you in the long run. It will all even out when you are older. Especially if you are playing against kids who start school a year earlier than you.

Mark H.