Friday, April 6, 2012

Dropped Third Strike Rule in Effect...Oh Boy.

A week has gone by at my local Little League in the Majors division, and wow is the dropped third strike rule taking over. It's not unexpected, especially in the beginning, but last night I opened my coaching career with a 13-3 victory. We had three hits.

I think the rule will be excellent as soon as tournament time rolls around, but in-house is going to be tough across the country. My league is very young this year, so there's a lot of kids who don't even know about the rule, let alone practice it, but I'm worried about the quality of baseball in Little League.

The gradual changes towards deeper fences, dropped third strike, and eventually 50-70 will hopefully bring players back to the best youth baseball program in the world, but it's going to take some time.

How does the dropped third strike rule look in your league? Are you happy it has been instituted? What changes need to be made to be a successful team now? When do you concentrate on developing young catchers? Let me know in the comments.