Pinto Division  

(A letter by John Carmody)

The Orland Youth Association Pinto Season was a roaring success.  The Pinto Level, for 7 & 8 year old boys and girls, had 31 teams and over 370 participants.  The league is attempting to keep the Pinto Level a developmental and instructional level for the youngsters.  So as they say in sports, when these teams get together you can throw out the record books.

The Pinto Level combines three different local “feeder” T-Ball Programs, the Orland Youth Shetland Level, the Nazarene T-Ball program and the Orland Park Dept.’s T-Ball program.  Some participants come from the surrounding villages and neighboring towns.  The logistics of this program are staggering.  I think all the parents and players would like to thank the OYA Board and all the volunteers involved in pulling a season together.  It is the love of the game that brings these adults to give of their time and the hope that they can pass this love to the next generation of players. 

A critical part of this enthusiasm is the opportunity to play multiple positions and feel like each player is contributing to the team.  We have toned down the win at all cost and force the action style of play.  If that were the case as a coach you couldn’t move a less developed player into a position where he or she could be taken advantage of by the other team.  It’s a cycle that all the other coaches accept and understand.  This approach may cause their teams to lose a few games but the enrichment of the experience for all their players is more important than a record that most will forget by the time the kids reach high school.

My youngest has finished Pinto and my oldest is a junior in High School.  I have a unique perspective when it comes to this level.  My oldest participated in an era, when it was “Just Win Baby”  You only pitched four or five kids all season and three pitchers had 95% of all the opportunities.  I have heard people complain that this will hurt their development and Mustang will be a lower level of baseball because of it.  I would disagree.  All the top pitchers in Pinto will be out of Mustang by their second year.  The top 24 pitchers will be on the two major Orland Travel Teams when they are ten years old.  With the old approach, these pitchers would have taken the lion’s share of the opportunity and the players left would have no real development.  At least now this opportunity can be better applied to more players and hopefully we can keep more young people playing and developing. These players will probably stay and play in the OYA system for many years to come.  Good Luck with Pinto next year.  OYA has it’s priorities straight -- because it is about the kids!