My boy played 75+ last year at age 13. He played less than 50, the year before and no more than 25 this year. For a kids that loooooves to play baseball, he was miserable the last 1/4 of the season last year.

When putting on the uniform is a chore and not exciting, it's too much. When you have to yell at the kid to get ready, he's probably burnt out. When they all hoped they lost the Saturay night game, one September night last year, so they wouldn't have to play Sunday, it's too much... These are all kids that really love playing baseball and had a balst the first 50-60 games.

This past year was more practices and less games. The kids actually progressed faster and learned more. How many balls do you get to field and at-bats do you get in a game? Now, how many in a 1 1/2 hour practice with four coaches helping? To even make it more fun for them, we showed them how to play pepper and indian ball. We ended almost every practice with 10-20 minutes of one of those two games. At the end of practice, their parents had to yell at them to get in the car. They wanted to stay and play...