A Parent's Guide to Coaching Baseball

Library Journal

A parent and an experienced Little League coach, McCarthy offers a direct and positive instructional manual for parents who wish to coach their own children on the fundamentals of baseball. Seven chapters cover hitting, fielding, base running, specific positions, and more. Photographs are used to illustrate these activities, with girls demonstrating a number of the examples. Throughout the text, McCarthy uses both ``he'' and ``she.'' He emphasizes development and mastery of skills over winning, and shows sensitivity to, as well as thorough knowledge of child psychology and physical development. McCarthy deplores the ignorance, excesses, and boorishness of some coaches, and urges parents to take swift and firm action against such abusive adults. For a sociological treatment of the topic, consult Gary A. Fine's With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture (Univ. of Chicago, 1987). A helpful and wholesome guide, recommended for public and academic libraries.-- Harry E. Whitmore, Univ. of Maine, Augusta