I just hit the half way mark to my 6 weeks of recovery from my New Year's Day appendectomy and I feel like a kid counting down the days until Christmas.  Physically it's definitely been tough, but mentally it's been excruciating!  As someone who loves to be physical, especially when it comes to playing & training for baseball, it has been a real challenge taking it easy.

To add insult to injury, a week ago out of the blue, I was contacted by a scout from an MLB team expressing interest in seeing me pitch this week.  He had seen me throw several times & another scout within that same organization saw me pitch this past Fall in the mid-upper 90's during a workout.  It was the call I had been wanting to receive for the past 6 years. Unfortunately,

It’s the end of November and most teams/players have finished up their Fall seasons by now, at least here in the northeast.   So now parents are asking, "how long should my child take off?”

My answer is the same for all my students: take 1-2 weeks completely off from any kind of training.  That means no baseball activities, no weightlifting, no running (for training purposes), no drills etc. There are various reasons which affect players both mentally and emotionally.

Now this is Perseverance…Matt Harvey giving up a leadoff inside the park home run & settling down after that to throw 4 scoreless. Salvador Perez, feeling beat up physically from the entire post season, and still taking yet another foul ball off his hand early in the game, only to grind it out and keep playing. Juan Lagares battling against 98-100mph fastballs (with a few breaking balls & changeups mixed in) & fighting enough to get himself on, steal a base & score what could have been the winning run for the Mets. Then Alex Gordon keeping his head in the game to then get a home run in the bottom of 9th to tie it up off a closer who hasn't blown a save in forever, sending the game into extra innings & ultimately the record books. The Royals fighting their way back this season after losing a devastating 7 game World Series to the San Francisco Giants last year. An organization despite being labeled "the same old Mets" grinding it out to become the NL Champs to then compete against the Royals. These are 2 Major League franchises that have not won a World Series since Reagan was in office.

My point to all this is, it’s no coincidence that these 2 mentally tough teams are the last 2 standing this postseason. Julie Andrews said it best “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th”

Should you be telling your child to choose ONE sport? Clearly, we have seen athletes compete in two different sports at major levels over the past century…Deion Sanders, Jim Brown, Bo Jackson, Jim Thorpe, to name a few.  Given those exceptional athletes, we'd be lucky if we could name a dozen more like them.  Over 100+ years that is not a lot!

So here lies the question…Should you be telling your child to focus on one sport so he/she can compete at a high level - potentially the Major League level? Will playing multiple sports make a better “all-round” athlete; therefore, making them the best ball player he can be?

If your child is athletic you are most likely asking the same question half the parents of my students do, “At what age should I tell Johnny to just focus on one sport? He’s in 8th grade, does he need to make that decision now? Can he wait till high school?” OR are you like the other half saying “I encourage playing as many sports as possible because it creates a better all-round athlete.”

Baseball is competitive! It is today just as much as it always has been. But, why are players showcasing at such a young age and so much more than before?  Well, I’ll answer that in just a minute.  

Let’s first recap what a “showcase” is.  A showcase can be a team, a tournament or even a clinic where college scouts go and look for talented players. And often times these showcase teams aren’t spending enough time on fine tuning the talent a player has.

Are college scouts really interested in 8th & 9th graders? Should your child be spending the time going to these showcases?