To your point on Pony, one of it's other values is that they move to 70ft bases at 11/12 and 80 ft at 13/14, in line with USSSA along with leading and stealing starting at 11, dropped 3rd strike running at 13. It helps the transition a lot. I agree the jump from 60ft bases with no leads to 90 ft big boy ball is a lot to handle and would turn kids off.

I absolutely agree with your point about the best athletes struggling with baseball. It is emotionally a tough game and a lot of your bigger more athletic kids have never failed before and are able to get by without great fundamentals and constant repetition. For the committed player, the drive to do the work can make a kid who is not the best athlete a better player than the gifted athlete, and those kids hate that and often take their ball and go home.

My son is the model of that, he decided he was all in. He does the work on his own. Shadow work in his room at night, hits the gym after school, watches video of great players to see how they do it. As an 11 year old he was OK, as a 12 year old he dominated the league and I was amazed at his transition to travel. He struggled with the pitching early, but once he got it down he really excelled. This off-season he worked his butt off and he is now the best overall player on his team, which yes....really POs that amazing athlete who won't do the work because he's never had to. And the amazing thing is, I don't push him, it's all him.

We have two levels of club here. The AAA/Major clubs that are year round, hard core, that's about all you can do. They often do have better coaches. But there are a lot of A/AA teams like my son's where the coaching not much different than LL/Pony. We are fortunate in that one of our player's dads is helping out and he's a former minor league player. A lot of teams are just dads who know a little more than most dads because we love the game.