If you are a youth baseball fan, you’ve likely seen a Little League World Series Tournament game over the last few weeks. Maybe you’ve seen a local game in person, maybe you’ve seen some games on television. Even with competition from other sports and other youth baseball leagues, Little League is still the largest youth sports organization in the world.

In 2013, Little League International, as it is officially named, had over 2.4 million participants in over 7,000 leagues in more than 80 countries. Every July and August, each of the divisions begin a tournament which leads to a championship series at a different site in the United States. The oldest and most famous of these is the Little League Baseball World Series, which is held near the organization’s headquarters in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

According to the Little League Media Guide, about 6,500 of these teams are eliminated in the first three weeks of play. About 45,000 games are played in eight divisions leading up to the various World Series tournaments. More than 16,000 of those games are played in the Little League (a.k.a. Majors) division, for ballplayers 11 to 13 years of age. That’s the equivalent of more than six Major League baseball seasons.

The step before Williamsport is the Regional Tournaments. Last week, Coach Bill and I took a trip to Little League Baseball’s Eastern Regional Headquarter in Bristol, Connecticut. The Eastern Region is host to the New England and the Mid Atlantic Regional Tournaments. The six states of the New England Region (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island) and Mid Atlantic (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and District of Columbia) battled out for about ten days, before Westport, Connecticut and Newark, Delaware won their respective championships and punched their tickets to the Little League World Series.

Assistant Regional Director Patrick Holden was kind enough to give us a look behind the scenes and personally tell us (and you) some of what makes the Little League experience so special to the ballplayers, their families, the volunteers, and the spectators. Let’s take a look.

In the US, we have a deep love for sports. We like to play. We like to watch. We like to be fans. Although participation, activity, and camaraderie is enough for some athletes, most who compete have a drive to succeed. In fact, developing this drive to win is one of the great lessons that sports teach our youngsters.

The use of performance enhancing (aka ergogenic) drugs is at all time high in the United States today. It’s no wonder. According to Dr. Nicholas J. Honkamp, an orthopedic surgeon from Des Moines, nearly 60 percent of high school students play on formal sports teams, some school-affiliated and some not. And somewhere between one and three million US athletes of all different ages are taking some form of performance enhancing drugs. Many of these athletes are youths who use these substances without sufficient knowledge of both their risks and potential benefits. As of the summer of 2013, there has not been widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs among youth baseball players. That’s good. However, we can learn much from this week’s MLB suspensions stemming from the Biogenesis scandal.

1. If someone cheats, then it’s usually no problem for them to lie as well.

2. Every professional team and most players have “handlers” to help them sound as nice and as likable as possible. Even colleges have people to help with this. So don’t listen to what they say. Watch what they actually do. Especially before they know everyone is watching.

3. This was not “making a bad decision.” A bad decision is not taking an umbrella and getting caught in a rain shower. Seeking out, paying for, and taking PEDs, even before they were specifically banned, was always a bad choice because they harm your body in the long term. When balanced with the benefits of playing a sport professionally, some felt that this artificial enhancement was a personal choice, similar to cosmetic surgery for a Miss America contestant. But PEDs always violated the spirit of the game, and for several years now it’s specifically banned.

4. Taking PEDs is cheating. Those who cheat hurt their team, the competition, and the whole spirit of the game. Lying about it afterwards (or trying to cover it up) makes everything far, far worse.

5. You keep your reputation with your your whole life. Long after the advantages you got disappear, when people find out about your cheating, you will be defined by it. If you run with skunks, you will smell like one.

Although performance is youth baseball is more likely to be affected by PRDs (performance reducing donuts) than PEDs, there’s still lessons to be learned from the PED scandal in baseball.

“Slow and steady wins the race.” I’m sure you’ve heard that, and you’ve probably told that to people. But slow and steady only wins the race in childrens’ books, or if you’re competing in your life against a rabbit who is lazy and shortsighted. Probably won’t find any lazy rabbits playing ball on the fields where your players compete.

The fact of the matter is fast and steady wins in baseball. The slow and steady runner will not get an impressive time in the 60 yard dash, and will be thrown out on the base paths. Slow and steady will not help you hit the ball on a line drive into the outfield. And slow and steady will not control the opponents bats by promoting poorly timed and non-squared up barrel contact.

Of course, the coach and parents and the player wants to win today. Slow and steady might help you get a few more pitches over today, or hit a ground ball to the right side today. But to keep getting more opportunities, you need to be explosive and consistent. Develop them both.

As you climb the pyramid of baseball (youth league, middle school, high school, college, professional), there are fewer spots for players to earn. Coaches at those levels decide on whom they want to spend a roster spot (or scholarship money), and they will count things like your bat swing speed and the speed at which you throw a baseball, for both pitchers and position players.

The fact of the matter is that everyone is judged and rated their whole life. Tell your ballplayers that they are more than the sum of their numbers, but they will surely be given better opportunities to succeed if they measurably perform better than their peers.

Slow and steady wins the race in fables, but not on a ball field.

So how do you know if you’re getting faster and more consistent? Measure! We’ve tested many devices in our training at Ballplayers Academy to help us measure speed and performance. The Glove Radar gave us very accurate readings for measuring the speed of a thrown ball. It sits on the back of a baseball glove and uses very low power doppler radar. It’s well-built and assembled in the USA. And its less than 10% of the cost of professional radar guns. There’s a quick video below. And you can buy it here.

One more thought. Most winning pitchers do two things very well. They change speeds, and spot their fastball. With the swing Speed Radar, you can see just how much difference there is between the speeds of your pitches.