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Exerpted with permission from "How To Coach Tee Ball Without Going INSANE" by Robert Doss © Bullhorn Media Group (INSANEbooks Division). Hitting tees have been used by professional baseball players for more than fifty years to help them develop their swings for use against "live" pitching -- the first hitting tees were made by Voit. The tee is great for practicing that "perfect swing" for players practicing alone and it's perfect for coaching hitting mechanics in a setting where the coach can pay close attention to every aspect of the swing. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that kids around the world have found ways to place baseballs or tennis balls atop some equipment resembling tees and making a game out of it for years. As you'll see in your experience in dealing with tee ball players, some of the neatest and most imaginative things come out of the minds of kids. However, when it comes to laying credit for inventing the game of tee ball -- that is, formulating rules, giving it organization and a name, and being the enabling force behind its development as a sport and not merely another backyard "hitting rocks with sticks" game, we go all the way back to 1960 and to Dayton Hobbs, then a thirty-eight year old elementary school principal from Bagdad, Florida near Pensacola. Dr. Hobbs had been coaching youth baseball since the '50's and took note over time of the little "fence grabbers" at the ballfield where his players worked out -- you know, the kids who clutch and press their noses into the chain link fence to watch the big kids play. These were kids who, like we did, made heroes of their neighborhood stars and talked like real philosophers about who it "it" and who didn't. They'd run home, gather up whatever equipment they could find and play a game in the back yard, in the street, or in the vacant lot down the street. Dr. Hobbs was coaching a group of 14 and 15 year old baseball players on their hitting when the co-mingling of baseball, hitting, tees, and the "let me try it" crowd of kids at the ballfield fertilized a creative seed in his mind and thus, he began work on creating Tee Ball Baseball -- it seemed like the perfect game for players who had all of the desire but little of the physical development to play "real baseball." Dr. Hobbs, who was also pastor of Grace Bible Church and President of the Santa Rosa Christian School in Milton, FL near the Naval Air Station at Whiting Field, went to work on developing rules for the game. A Navy chaplain from Whiting Field was one of Dr. Hobbs' first Tee Ball coaches (there were only two teams at first) and as they played, they refined the rules. Dr. Hobbs soon began work on promoting the game, announcing that the game boasted some great features worth considering: "1) Inexpensive to play 2) Plenty of help available 3) Excellent parent cooperation 4) Doesn't require a large area to play the game 5) Minimum equipment required 6) Teaches basic baseball skills; and most of all 7) Boys and girls have loads of fun playing." His promotion efforts paid off as interest in the game grew and he was soon writing the first Official Tee Ball Baseball Rule Book. His association with Navy people from Whiting and the growing popularity of the game in Pensacola, "The Cradle of Naval Aviation," led to a worldwide promotional forum he never anticipated. Soon, the game caught on at Navy bases in Japan and in Europe and across America until the success of the game led Dr. Hobbs to apply for a patent on the name and game of Tee Ball Baseball with the U. S. Patent Office in 1970, the same year the first annual Tee Ball World Series was held. His application met the stringent requirements for approval and won him recognition as the originator of the game of Tee Ball Baseball. He also won the patent on the four ounce bright orange official Tee Ball Baseball. In the Official Tee Ball Rule Book, amended and published annually, Dr. Hobbs reminds us what the children already know: "that this is nothing more than a game of children's baseball." He admonishes managers and coaches "not (to) put pressure on the children, but attempt to teach them to play the game to the best of their ability while they enjoy it." |