In this just-completed vacation I watched a lot of youth baseball.

I finally figured out that in Shetland baseball if you are thrown out you remain on the base, and if you are the last hitter in an inning, you’re going to get a home run as long as you hit the ball and run around the bases.

Despite this scripted nature — or maybe because of it — I enjoy watching this youngest level of youth baseball.

There are no outs, no score. Just hitting, running, fielding and throwing. And lots and lots of coaching.

It is fun to see little boys and girls, some barely past what you would call toddlers, learn the game pitch-by-pitch, inning-by-inning.

While the outcomes are predictable, what the kids will do is not. They seem disinterested at times, playing with the grass or dirt instead of watching the ball, but they still have a good time.

The coaches are incredibly nurturing and patient, standing out in the hot sun with the kids. They get them to focus best they can and teach them the basics of the game.

I used to think it ridiculous that organized baseball was played by children as young as 4, but have come to change my mind. It’s because of these dedicated adults. They don’t force-feed the kids, but they do demand they pay attention. In just a couple of games you can see marked improvement. And there’s no pressure to win, because no one’s keeping score.

For some it unfortunately doesn’t take long for things to change, for the worse. At the next level, Pinto, the coaches still pitch, but they start keeping score. And mismatches can get really ugly.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to handle blowouts. I saw both last month.

These are still young kids just learning basics. Some have mastered skills and advanced quicker than others. But I saw a game where some guys who call themselves coaches seemed to have no realization of that, or simply didn’t care.

A team was leading around 25-0 late in the game and continued to run aggressively, intentionally getting into rundowns the other younger, physically overmatched team couldn’t deal with and scoring more runs. I love aggressive baserunning, but the adults supervising the winning team were doing a disservice to everyone, including their boys and girls, in condoning and encouraging that kind of play in that situation.

The team that lost that game on the scoreboard did nothing to embarrass itself. But the adult supervisors of the team that scored all those runs should be ashamed of themselves, although I’m sure they’re not.

A veteran league administrator told me Pinto is the toughest level to deal with, because once you add in baserunning it makes some coaches and parents more competitive than what is appropriate for the kids’ age.

A couple of weeks later I saw a Pinto team with a big lead against a team with no chance of coming back do it the right way. In a subtle manner, the coach instructed his players to go one base at a time. That’s all you need to do. And since there’s a limit on how many runs you can score in an inning, more of your players get a chance to hit.

Cheers to the vast majority of youth sports coaches; they see the big picture and know that winning and losing with class is one of the most important things they teach children.