Playing Multiple Sports: The Chicken or the Egg?

The best baseball players in the World also happen to be tremendous athletes.

Did they develop this athleticism because they played multiple sports as kids... Or, did they play multiple sports as kids because they were terrific all-around athletes?

There are two broad schools of thought on this topic.

There is the idea that when kids are young they should be exposed to and sample as many different activities/sports as possible. The theory is that with this broad exposure they will develop a wide and diverse base of movement skills. With this broad foundation in place it can now support more specific and highly specialized skills. If you were to start with a specific skill, say pitching, you would ultimately be capped because you're foundation is to narrow to optimize the development of that skill. This would be a kin to trying to fire a canon from a canoe in the middle of a lake... Abandon ship!

On the flip side if you first develop a foundation under that canon with building blocks such as coordination, speed, strength, power, bracing, and spatial awareness now when you go to fire the foundation is strong enough for the canon to display it's full potential.

The other element of early sampling/multi-sport participation is actually finding a sport you like and usually that's one you're really good at. If all you did was play baseball and never tried anything else you may miss out on being the next great TEAM USA soccer goal keeper or the next great American male tennis star (America hasn't had one of the latter since Andy Roddick!?!).

Then there is the school of thought that you're just born with IT! Out of the womb you are destined to be the next Mike Trout blessed with both elite athleticism and baseball skills to boot. Great athletes play multiple sports simply because they are great athletes and those opportunities present themselves. Maybe that's true but do you really want to take the risk of finding out for yourself? Because here's the thing if you guess wrong you can't go back and make up for it!

What's the reality?

The reality is that in order to be a great baseball player you first need to be a great athlete! The canon analogy from above is extremely important to understand. A broad base of athleticism gives you a higher ceiling. And the way the game is trending a high ceiling is an absolute prerequisite to compete at the highest level.

So do you have to play multiple sports as a kid to develop that athleticism?

In my opinion it is the BEST strategy for a few reasons.

1. It's the best way to ensure you are developing the athletic foundation and fundamental movement skills you'll need to develop a higher ceiling. The chances that you join a very progressive baseball organization that offers a complete athletic development experience is rare. In over 3 decades of athletic experiences as a player and coach I have never witnessed such an organization. If you find such an organization congratulations you have found the lost city of gold!
2. It's protective! This builds off point one from above. By playing sports seasonally (more on this soon) and trying many different sports you are less likely to develop "poor" motor (movement patterns) skills. I've had conversations with Division 1 coaches and when they ask me what I do they tell me- "what you do is WAY more important than what we do!" They say this because once they get an athlete in their program at 18/19 years of age if that athletic foundation is not in place it makes their job very difficult to squeeze improvement from that player. You are way better off developing athleticism and playing off of that than being plugged into a "system" and learning a style. Hitting, throwing, catching a baseball and running the bases are all propped up by athleticism. The best coaches in the World are at the Collegiate and Professional level and yet they get these athletes after the foundation has been set. It's very hard to break bad habits... Best not to develop them in the first place.
3. There is nothing like playing in a packed football stadium or basketball court on Friday nights! If you want to learn to be a "clutch" performer you need to put yourself in environments like that. It won't happen in Fall Ball or even the most competitive Travel tournament. 

Are playing multiple sports ever detrimental?

It can be IF you don't take seasonal breaks! Play baseball in the Spring/Summer stop in the Fall and play soccer or tennis. In the Winter play basketball or hockey don't just add these on top of your baseball skill work. You need an off-season from baseball to ultimately deepen your skill acquisition pool. If you absolutely don't want to play another sport or it's not an option dedicate time to upgrade your athletic capacities such as flexibility, strength, speed, power, mindset...

I could leave you with a hoard of examples of the baseball players in the World that played multiple-sports as kids but better to give you the one Elite player that did not... At least I couldn't find any evidence that he did. 

Cody Bellinger is the lone great baseball player that I could not find with a multi-sport background. That said, all you have to do is watch this guy play the game and you'll quickly come to understand he is clearly one of the best athletes in the sport. So maybe Cody can get away with it but unless you move like Cody I wouldn't recommend it!

What the two coaches who meet in the 2019 College World Series have to say about multi-sport athletes:

Tim Corbin, Vandebilt - 

"Our mission as a staff is to find multi-sport athletes that play other things besides baseball... I'm dead set against it (early specialization)."

Erik Bakich, University of Michigan - 

"It is, in my opinion, 100% the best decision a parent of a young player can do."