The Pros and Cons of Tee Ball

Ah, spring. Time to sign the kids up for baseball! Most parents have a good handle on Little League and its basic premise. However, I do get asked a lot about tee ball. I don't recall tee ball being offered when I was younger, so I'd be willing to guess that most parents never participated at that level.

Tee ball, for the uninitiated, is baseball for the very youngest kids. A safety ball is placed on a tee, and each child on the team takes an "at bat," while the other team all pounce on the ball at once. The idea, I believe, is to give the kids a sense of baseball without the high rate of failure (ie, strikeouts, dropped pop-ups) and without the competion. According to tee ball's official rules, each child gets to bat in each inning, and no score is kept.

Despite having equipment for every sport known to mankind in our house, we opted out of tee ball completely, not even buying a plastic tee for our back yard. For me, tee ball brought up some specific concerns:

- Does the set height of a tee teach poor swing technique? It's an unnatural swinging position. By the time kids are old enough to play tee ball, they are beginning to develop their style. My son, for example, handles a bat very well and has a fluid swing. The few times I've seen him use a tee, his swing has to be readjusted and is very awkward.

- If the kids are going to play a formal-league baseball game, why not teach them properly from the start? Do we give the kids too many chances to pick up bad habits and techniques by modifying the rules too much? I know in basketball, by not calling traveling and double dribbles from the start, the kids have a terrible time with the transition as they get older.

- What's the point of tee ball? Is it for the kids, or is it for the parents? It seems, sometimes, that youth sports organizations are thrown together because many parents believe that their children have to be involved in something.

On the other hand, based on conversations that I've had with parents of tee ball players - many of whom agree with my concerns - and after reading some of the web sites I've found, I'm not completely sure we did the right thing by my son.

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