Some of the best baseball players I ever coached spent their falls in shoulder pads or on a pitch. They arrived in the spring as competitors, not just players. The scoreboard pressure, the different locker room, the coach with a different voice. You cannot buy that at a showcase.

Your ten-year-old does not need a hitting coach, a pitching coach, a strength coach, or a development plan. He needs a wall to throw against, a game he is allowed to love, and a ride home that is about lunch. Every college player I have ever coached had a stretch of childhood where baseball belonged entirely to him. The most expensive plan at ten is usually the one that steals it.

Somewhere today a twelve-year-old is playing his fortieth game since March, and everyone around him is calling it development. Forty years in this game, and here is what I have never seen: a college career built by a twelve-year-old's fifth summer tournament. I have seen plenty end in a surgeon's office because nobody in the boy's life was brave enough to schedule rest. Be the brave one. He will thank you at twenty.

Sunday morning, the bag is by the door again. Before you load the car, ask yourself one quiet question. Are we doing this because he loves it, or because we are afraid to stop.