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Little League has changed their age cutoff from April 30 to December 31. This essentially means that your child's league age is determined by his age on Dec 31, rather than April 30.

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See this link from Little League International for additional details: http://www.littleleague.org/learn/rules/rulechanges/age-determination-date.htm

I have a 3 year old who will be 4 Dec 27th, 2015. According to this, he can play this year? Does this mean he will always be the youngest kid in his teams?

Any advice here? My boy would obviously be one if the youngest kids ever to play Tball. He can hit off a "toy" tee with a plastic bat very well. However, he can't catch and throw right now...just turned 3 last week.

I don't want to put him in something he won't like.

My advice would be hold off on starting him in t-ball if you're not sure.




What is the motivation behind this change? I think it works well to generally keeps kids in their school cohorts, and that's the kind of schedule they will be on once they're done with little league.

Our select baseball club coach has his son in soccer at 4. He thinks T-Ball doesn't help at 4. It was still fun, however we didn't see or care to see much baseball benefit in our 4 year old from that season.

You will not be seeing as many 6' LL players throwing in the 70 mph range after this change. That is rediculous at the distance between the mound and home plate in LL.

In ninth grade, it's 60' 6" (MLB size fields) and drop three BBcore or wood bats. The age change should give most kids two years to make that transition.

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Dec 27th

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Yes, he'll most likely be the youngest in his LL, half of the time. The other half of the time, he'll be in the middle.
Our LL had 9/10 and 11/12 year old kids playing together. He'll be older in high school, where it first starts to matter though.

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You will not be seeing as many 6' LL players throwing in the 70 mph range after this change. That is ridiculous at the distance between the mound and home plate in LL.

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If I understand this rule change correctly, they are moving the age cut-off "back" from 4/31 to 12/31. Is that correct?

So the oldest kid in the league would be 4 months younger than the oldest kid could have been under the previous rule.

Doubt that 4 months will make much difference, but it is a tiny step in the right direction. Bottom line, LL is going to have to move to bigger fields if they want their games to continue to resemble baseball.

My son was the youngest kid on his LL all star team with a July birthday. It will make a big difference. All those kids with birthdays after April 30th would have been out of LL.

That's eight months of kids they lose a year. Anyone who turns 13 before 12/31 is too old to play LL, used to be 4/30.

I'm confused (easily done) on the 8 month thing. Just to clarify:

Previously, a kid could not turn 13 prior to April 31, 2015 to be eligible.

With the rule change, a kid can't turn 13 prior to December 13, 2014. Correct? Wouldn't that just be a four month difference.

Forgive my ignorance if I am misunderstanding.

I thought it was dec 31 2015.

Moving the cutoff date the other direction would put even older kids in.

Just read (skimmed) it again and I still think that is what it says. In 2018, a ten year old with a birthday prior to December 31 is an eleven year old in LL for the 2018 seasons.

There's more stuff in the link about when it starts for what age, but mine is thirteen and I don't have to know.

Yep you're right. I get what you are saying now. Thanks for the clarification.

That will make a difference for sure.

I still think the long term solution is that LL has to change the field dimensions but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

When my son first started playing in 2001 the league age was by July 31. My son's birthday is July 11 so he was always one of the youngest players on the team.

In the mid 2000's the league age date changed to April 30, and he became one of the oldest players on his team.

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When my son first started playing in 2001 the league age was by July 31. My son's birthday is July 11 so he was always one of the youngest players on the team.

In the mid 2000's the league age date changed to April 30, and he became one of the oldest players on his team.

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same for my son. It helped him a lot. Made all stars every year fro 9-12.

The new date change as I understand just moves the needle back to December 31. You will still have kids in the age group that are potentially 12 mos apart in age.

It just shifts the age eight months younger.

LL will now be over after elementary school for most. Not only was our's the youngest on his last team, he was the only 7th grader, all the rest were 6th.

It's weird how many kids are held back a grade these days. A July birthday is not that young, I'm September and the wife is October, so we never considered holding our's back.

There's currently nothing after LL where we are. You have to go expensive select baseball for an extra year before high school. The good news is that professional coaches are >>> us volunteer dads and moms.

I find it very odd to hold your child back for sports. In my case, if I would have graduated from A&M even 1 semester later (I graduated in 4 years), I would have had a 10 year pilot commitment from USAF (the changed from 8 to 10 years after May '99) Instead I had an 8 year commitment, was offered considerable money to get out early in my 7th year (wouldn't have been possibke with 3 years left) and scored a great job with JNJ that was and has not been available since.

By holding back a child for sports, you are also holding them back on potential opportunities and life.

Just my 2 cents...of course, I know a similar chain if events could happen if I had been held back.