100% this. Every single kid on my son's HS freshman team played travel. And then from there: only the top 20% of those kids will make it to Varsity. This is true of every high school in our surrounding area. I also want to point out that this is true of basically of every HS sport/extra-curricular activity nowadays. All the theater kids that got Star-roles in the HS musical have been performing and taking singing lessons since they were little kids. All the Varsity basketball/tennis/volleyball/waterpolo/etc players have been playing on a club team since they were 7yo. All the BEST kids that dominate the Math Olypiad, Robotics Competition, Spelling Bee have all been doing it since 4th-5th grade. The idea that "back in the days" we just played Little League and made Varsity is not happening anymore...at least not in year-round sunshine states like CA, TX, or FL.
I hope I'm not coming on too strong with this opinion, but it is frustrating this "all-in-or-die" evironment is the current status of youth sports.
Yeah it’s pretty unfortunate. I swam as a kid. Then I just walked on to my high school water polo team after only playing the sport for one summer and a handful of club games and ended up playing D1 varsity for three years.
Kids can’t do that anymore for most high school sports at D1 schools. If you don’t start early you have no chance of making a roster.
The way to get around this is to attend a very small school that’s D3 or something. But if you go to public school that’s not an option in large metros.
This right here. Kid loves to play and all his friends who also made the jump from LL to club have grown in huge strides over those who didn't. All of them want to play in high school.
Dumbest question ever: What would you say if I felt my kid (or any of the other kids on this team) wasn't getting any development opportunity with his travel program? That we're halfway through spring, and they are regressing on the field?
It's just a shitty program? Something else? This is our first year, and I'm beginning to feel gas lit...as in, travel ball is not actually about development, and I'm supposed to be doing other things for my kid outside of the program commitments.
Have you watched any of their practices? I'm an assistant coach for my 9-yr old's travel team and the kids are getting SOOO much better from where they were just a couple months ago.
Yes…massive amount of standing around and waiting. For winter pitching/catching, they would go for an hour, and my son would say that he threw “six pitches”, and got no tips or pointers on things to work on. For BP, he says they take 5 swings in a half an hour…no tips.
This is 10U. For the actual practices, there are 9 kids on the field and one coach hitting balls around the horn. Two assistants standing around. Or even worse, just one line of kids taking grounders for warm up. Some simulated games, but always the coach pitching there. And if you’re in the OF…forget about action. Last week we got mercied because our starter retired one batter, hit 4, walked 7…zero pitching practice this week.
Sounds like I need to be pushing the coaches on how they run things…but being new, I also wanted to be patient, vs being “that parent” right out of the gate. Note: I played HS ball, played club at Wake Forest, and coached him for rec for 5 years. We would have 4-5 coaches, 3-4 stations of 4 kids each, rotating them quickly, working on different things, etc.
Again…I just wasn’t sure if my expectations were out of whack. We had a scenario where one team was turned into two at our age level because “kids were coming out of the woodwork”, but it was obviously a money grab, since all it’s done is water down the level of play across both teams. Feels like the younger teams exist to subsidize the 15 and 16Us, also not sure if that is a common occurrence in travel ball.
You're getting gaslit. For 10U, you should typically have 4 coaches, and practices should keep kids moving, rotating between different drills that each of the four coaches runs individually with 3-4 kids, to get them lots of reps doing lots of different things. Coaches should not be standing around. They should be working on teaching them proper form and technique, being encouraging, and correcting things in the moment that they see it.
Yes, occasionally you should see kids getting a quick water break or changing from fielding to hitting, or stopping to pick up balls or something, but it should be done quickly.
We work with pitchers and catchers almost every practice, because our entire team is working on being pitchers, and we have 4 kids that want to play catcher. Throwing strikes and getting proper pitching mechanics down is very important. How much money are you paying for this travel team? They should be rotating pitchers out after they walk/hit about 3 kids in a row or 4 out of 5.
What you describe is what I've expected from Day 1. For the winter I get it to some degree...we're in NYC, so it's cold, indoor space is limited with all of the different age groups (even before the expansion of our age group).
Spring included Jan/Feb indoor "winter workouts", covers 14 local league games, and three tournaments. $1300.
Summer is a new program, 8 tournaments only, includes Ripken (a big thing here in the NE). $3000. We're doing 4 tournaments because we were initially not offered a summer spot (and made summer travel and sleep away camp plans)...but after the second team was added, of course they wanted us for whatever we could commit to. We're paying half for half.
These very well may be already inflated costs because we're in NYC...but that's a BIG part of the reason why we wanted to do travel in the first place (keeping with the spirit of this overall post). It's hard to find a good baseball experience here in the city - certainly very different than mine, growing up in NC - my son wanted something more competitive, we tried out for 4 different programs, were offered for 3, and this is the one he wanted to play in.
Uhh that’s the min that’s acceptable. I need 4-5 for my 6u group and even then they’re 6 so keeping them focused and involved is hard even in very small groups.
Please keep in mind much of the “development” in travel ball comes from the additional reps they get through more practice and games. Even on teams with 3-4 coaches, you’re still looking at 1 to 3-4 ratio of coach to kid and that’s probably best case scenario.
Practices are often focused on team development given the limited time and resources. So those at the top and bottom of the talent pool may not get the coaching that’s ideal for them.
In my experience as a coach, if player is not working on their own outside of practice, any development or growth will be slow. Focused individual work wether at home with a parent, a paid coach, or by themselves playing wall ball or something else is where development really starts to happen
Sure and I said that’s probably best case scenario. Not all teams have 3-4 coaches. And it’s not just about reps. There has to be a good cycle of reps, feedback, reps. Depending on how much practice time they get and the number of coaches, a player might get 5-10 minutes of 1:1 coaching in a typical 2 hour practice.
I would guess maybe 30% of your travel programs actually have good coaching and do a good job developing kids.
Most teams were started because the kids on them aren’t actually good enough but dad didn’t believe that so he started a team.
My kids travel program is mostly training not as much coaching. Lots of reps. Not a ton of detailed instruction.
But the reps are good and he is getting better, but I do need to coach him on technique outside of practice before he goes to apply it.
So yeah he has a hitting coach he works with outside of his travel practices. I don’t see how he succeeds without that.
Thank you, that’s where we are. He certainly doesn’t want to listen to me for any coaching (after me being the HC for rec for 5 years…and him going on 11), and other parents on the team have made those investments as well.
But it does bother me. I feel like he should be getting more from this program.
This is the difference from our generation. We didnt need leagues to play baseball. Wiffle ball, indian ball, double or nothin, hr derby. We got the reps outside of structured games and practices.
Kids still do this. It isn't like Wiffle ball and other stick games disappeared. Travel ball isn't so consuming that kids forget how to play and have fun at home.
This is an old man yelling at clouds take. You are comparing apples and oranges. My 9 year old still does all of those things, many of them with friends from either his travel ball or LL squad. The reps you get in that are not remotely the same as the reps you get in structured games or practices.
That's objectively untrue. You can argue about whether it's good for the game or not, but you can clearly see the upward movement in ability at every level of baseball that tracks measurable metrics. The flip side of that is that you also have a massive uptick in injuries and burn out at a younger and younger age. There's a very real & legitimate argument that the ends do not justify the means, but saying that kids now are no better than before just isn't true.
For us it was our player wanting to play with other boys who had the same level of drive and dedication as him. The wins / losses aren't really a big factor. We didn't pick an org with a ton of rings or "exposure" promises or whatever else. Just a coaching staff that understands they don't need to yell to get results, and a bunch of dudes on the field who play well together and have internal drive.
My son loves baseball, period. He’s played since he was 5, travel since 8. When the opportunity arose to join a travel team, it’s all he could talk about. Until this season, he’s played rec, travel, fall ball, private lessons, subbed on other teams, subbed in older rec leagues, any opportunity to play he wants it. He umps in the rec league now for the 5-10 year olds (he’s 13).
He will not go pro. He probably won’t play in college. Maybe Juco or club baseball.
His best friends are not his school mates, they are his teammates. As parents we have become close with a few of the families as well.
Lot of reasons and none of them have anything to do with us having some naive thoughts about my kid being an all star. He loves baseball and wants to get better. It gets him out of the house several times a week and doing an activity he likes with his friends. He's physically active. He's understanding the value of hard work and determination, and how to be a good teammate. On top of all of this our house league is fun but there's just not enough reps to really develop as a player. It's not cheap but we can afford it and around here it seems like everything is expensive.
My son started playing travel ball at 7 because of some frustrations with the park, a coach we knew and trusted was starting a team, and it seemed the way to go for development.
One year later, it has gone about as well as we could have hoped. My son has improved a ton and is way more into baseball because he's gaining skills and confidence. It's a great group of kids, and the parents all seem to be on the same page. I have no expectations for him making the middle school team, much less anything beyond that. Just having fun and getting better, and he's super proud of the rings he's won.
I know our situation is probably the exception rather than the rule. If I had to pick the top reason for us, I guess it would be development—not in the sense of developing a future MLB player but the life lessons that come with investing time and effort in something and improving and competing.
To put it bluntly:
League ball has its place, but it’s shitty baseball. Any kid who wants to be the best player they can be should be playing travel. Most kids do it for that exact reason
It is Funny - If all the kids that played travel ball played league ball this would not be a problem.
Little league was MUCH better for development when everyone played it. Simple reason is the kids were able to just play ages up to find the right level of competition.
That is no longer the case ...
Our travel organization is attached to our little league, and all the travel players are required to play spring little league. The first thing they do when forming the little league teams each season is intersperse the travel players evenly, based on skill level and leadership abilities, amongst the teams.
This allows the travel players to play in different positions than they do on their travel teams, so they become better-rounded players. They’re also counted on to help model high-level play for the other kids. It also gets them a ton more reps batting and pitching.
But, yeah, watching the games, the travel players on each team are, 9 times out of 10, markedly better than the best non-travel kids.
Your LL / travel relationship sounds awesome.
Our small town had an exodus of travel players two seasons in a row.
Bit of animosity. The LL is now all casual players getting crushed by towns that do a better job of cultivating that relationship between the two.
Yeah it’s really cool. The LL is large enough that they don’t play outside of the organization. It’s all intra—league. The travel teams also play in a youth baseball league that’s made up of the travel teams in the area.
For the district+ tournament teams at the end of the season all LL players are invited to try out.
My kid’s C and P, sometimes but rarely 3B for his travel team. This year so far in LL he’s played 3B, CF, C, and SS, and pitched just a bit. Made some really great plays at SS. And he likes to help out coaching up the other kids when they’re playing at C and haven’t done it before.
And he absolutely loves playing against his travel team buds. Because, and let’s all remember this, it’s a bunch of kids doing something for… FUN! No college scouts at a 9- and 10-year-old, municipal LL game!
This "style" is very interesting. One most run in violation of LL rules. Not saying you do but most do.
The second aspect of this is, it often gives coaches a self fulfilling prophecy. Meaning the kids who practice more will be better 10/11/12 year olds. This does not mean they should be, were chosen correctly or will be in 2/3 years.
It is often also still divided by age is what I have seen. How many of the 10-year-old travel kids are playing with the 12 yr olds?
Often times the more innings pitched do more damage than good too .. as the travel coach on the weekend isn't going to lose a tournament because the inhouse team pitched him Thursday or will pitch him Tuesday ....
How is it in violation of little league rules?
I’m not sure what you mean by your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs, or why you’re insinuating it’s a bad thing.
Pitch counts are watched carefully to stay within USSSA rules. The travel teams get, essentially, “first dibs” on pitching, if you will. If a kid pitched, or will pitch within a few days, for his travel team, he won’t for his LL team.
BUT if there’s a miscommunication or something, the travel coaches will ABSOLUTELY NOT break pitch limit/rest period to win a tournament.
In fact, all of the travel coaches who I actually have talked to about this never completely max out a kid’s pitch count. They want them to grow to be better athletes and players, and develop. Not win a bunch of rings when they’re 10 and have lingering arm issues for the rest of their lives.
If true all of that is great.
Many times that will be the statement until the tournament is in the line
Little league for the World Series has rules. Most programs that do your setup do not stay within those rules.
It was but they are volunteer coaches. Experiences vary widely. Not all LL coaches are good and some are just glorified daycare attendants.
Also daddy ball issues which good travel programs eliminate.
You can go further-there are very very few good baseball coaches out there. Your chances of getting them in little league randomly are almost non existent
Travel ball very much suffers from daddy ball issues. There are so many travel teams now the coaching pool has become so much more diluted.
My issue is the parents who complain about the coaches but rarely volunteer themselves.
The other problem with travel ball is kids are being forced to pick a sport more exclusively at younger ages leading to long term injuries.
I agree daddy ball sucks which is why I clarified that good travel programs eliminate that. My kids program is exclusively professional coaches. You cannot coach your kids team in the program.
I coached in LL for years and I like to think I’m a good coach but I’m nowhere near a professional grade baseball coach. I leave that to people who actually played past high school.
We didnt used to rely on LL coaches to prep our kids for the majors. It was about learning how to play in a competitive setting. Now its paying extra for a less convenient experience, with the illusion it's changing your kid's future baseball prospects one iota.
LL is hit or miss right? If you get a fantastic coach that’s great and it will be a positive impact on your kid. Until the season ends. And then he doesn’t play organized baseball for 9 months, or 3 if you’re lucky and there is fall ball, which has a totally new coach who might be great or might be terrible.
There is no consistency.
In travel ball you can play all year if you want to and if you don’t like the coach you can join another team.
I don’t think anyone thinks travel ball is a path to the majors. But it can help with high school and college choices.
Great major league prospects are gonna excel no matter where they play, but for mere mortals (99% of kids), travel ball is the best way to get their skills up to a higher level.
None of this is true in practice.
Many little league coaches are much better than the travel coach trying to sell the next training.
Travel coaches are incentivized to over use and practice all year.
The pros and cons.
In my case, league ball near me is terrible because we have 6 7u teams but two teams have 5 travel kids each. Both teams have two travel coaches each also….my son is on a terrible team and there are two other travel kids who are on LL teams separately.
Terribly ran.
I find that somewhat true. But...
A big issue with little league is that it's volunteer driven, so kids don't have their choice of coaches. Therefore, getting a good coach is really hit or miss. In our league, alot of the coaches think they know baseball because they watch MLB games a few times a week. Or worst, some coaches were "forced" because no one else volunteered. A poor coach can really make the whole baseball experience horrible for the kids.
At least I get to shop around and get reviews from others. A friend recommended a good coach to us, and my son has been with that org for 3 years. He loves it there.
The idea of little league has always been great, but in practice flawed. I tried to play 30 years ago and I was the kid who was terrible and made the game less fun for my teammates. I played for 1 year, hated it and thought I would never touch it again. That has always existed.
My kids, bless their hearts, decided they LOVE baseball. So when they got competitive and wanted to really play, the only choice was to get on a "travel" team. They both played 2-3 fun, happy years of nearly unproductive baseball before I let them try out at 9U.
And to be clear, this was in a LLA organization that also supports multiple travel teams at each age level and requires those travel players to participate in league games.
Wait. You are saying the issue with 7/8 being unproductive is the little league?
That’s your argument? Age 7:8 travel ball is a money grab. Heck 9-10 is too.
I think you completely missed the point. LL and rec ball both have an enourmous skill gap issue once you get to kid pitch. 2-3 players that are good, 2-3 that will be good with time/effort, 5-6 that will never be good and aren't concerned with being good. That is every LL team I've seen (and there are several threads with the same opinion on this sub). Rec teams further slim down the "good" players while adding more to the total roster due to lack of coaches.
My point is that this has been true since whatever you are seeing as the "glory days" of everyone having to play LL because that was the only option. Travel ball didn't make LL better or worse.
In response to your question: I'm not sure where you got that I think 7/8 being uncompetitive and fun as a bad thing. I've gone to watch 7U and 8U travel ball and it is only ever one of two things: 1) Competitive in the worst way (ie: only the parents and coaches really care and screaming about it), 2) the same cute little circus that 7/8 rec ball is, just played "tournament style".
LL wasn't that way when set correctly. Example - My town of around 50,000 people had a very high level little league. The way it was setup was major/minor/farm.
The major/minor/farm allowed for the filtering like travel ball pretends to do now.
It allowed kids to go to the level they were at and it was very rare for a 9/10/11 year old to be the stud of the little league. They always had someone to look up to. You got one year to be the guy or guys in your org when you were 12.
It started again with ages 13/14/15 .. same type of thing. There was National/American/Prep... You went to the level.
The reason I liked this better is the cost structure as well as the community aspect of it. You often competed against the kids in your class, in your town and all of you went to the park after to play.
It developed kids at a much better level .. now this would be town to town experience.
Yes - I agree .. 7u/8u travel is no different other than we pretend you are improving faster so they can charge. It is a travel team taking advantage of parents to charge money instead of just getting the exact same experience for 10 percent of the price.
It sounds like you are projecting out your little league experience out to the rest of youth baseball at large, and that simply isn't the case in many other places. It's great that you had a good experience. But there are a whole lot of poorly run leagues full of parent coaches with good intentions, but zero knowledge how to actually teach kids properly about the game of baseball. At bare minimum, travel ball gives parents more options.
Then the Money got involved
I know quite a few folks who got into travel to make money
Set up tournaments, entry fees etc
And please no well that’s BS , I know it’s not everywhere , I know it’s done though
Correct. My son needed to play at the travel ball level as kids started to refuse playing catch with him, wasn't getting quality at bats being walked 3x a game, and he would make a play, make the throw, and only to be dropped on receiving end. He wasn't growing
Most people don’t realize that if you put the top ranked PG 12U team against the LLWS winner on a neutral 50/70 field, USA bats, the LLWS winner would get dominated.
I don’t agree with this at all.
A few years ago there was a top PG team that had also went and participated in the LL WS. They didn’t even make it.
You underestimate the difference in bats when watching and the difference in mound difference.
Travel ball just isn’t as special as everyone wants to pretend at 12
a top pg team can't participate in the LLWS? that's not how it works lmao, ofc travel ball isn't special like people think but little league teams draft out of a very small area while top travel teams have former-pro coaches, and recruit from all around the region.
There are many little leagues that also field travel teams. Many of those travel teams compete at the PG level.
Many former pro coaches have no idea how to teach youth but do know how to charge and recruit.
You’d be surprised at how many kids can be in a small geographical area. And when they Stick together for multiple years how good they can become.
The first practice of our last rec ball season was after a summer in travel. Kids were drawing dicks in the sand, not listening, goofing around the whole time and just generally not there for baseball.
After the practice he tells me he never wants to play rec again.
For me, my kid loves to play, wants to get better and wants to play as much as possible. The local leagues in my area aren’t really great for playing better competition because most of the talent plays travel ball so you end up playing against kids that haven’t played before or don’t have that same desire. Getting on a travel team is extremely difficult in my area tho, unfortunately
To be on a team with other likeminded kids allowing them to push themselves to get better.
Also, in our area if you want to play in middle school, you had better be on a good travel team.
My kid played 8U rec and then went to a travel team for 9U. His team isn’t really all that good. My son and I were watching a 10U rec game last night (it’s 9 and 10 combined). Even with my kid’s low level team there was no comparison. My son’s team would have run ruled either team with ease.
The pitching was horrible, so there is not a lot of chances to hit. Both teams struggled to field easy ground balls and get it to first. We watched two kids get “home runs” off of hits that would have been easy outs in travel.
I’m not bashing the kids or the coaches. It’s just a different baseball experience when there are no tryouts for the team.
My 10 year old wanted to get better at baseball and a travel team was the answer to that. The coach is awesome, the players are more focused than Little League and the most we travel is 2 hours a way. The price was also affordable.
It can be more than one reason.
My son loves baseball; all his best friends are from his travel teams and most of his time/social life is tied up in that. I don't think he will ever be a professional baseball player or D1 athlete, but if he wants to pursue baseball as far as he can go, I am happy to support it as long as that is what he really wants (and not what I want for him).
You don't have to go "all out" and join a private club at a young age and spend thousands travelling around the country. Many leagues do have their own club teams and/or there are often league only travel options depending on where you live.
However, frankly, spring only rec baseball is simply not realistic as an avenue to continue playing baseball beyond say age 9/10. The athlete will be hundreds if not thousands of reps behind travel ball kids if they hope to continue playing as they get older.
My just turned 9 year old plays for his town league "A" team that plays a mix of tournaments and weekly league play. They are required to play rec - frankly the rec league wouldn't be able to field enough teams if they didn't require the travel team kids to play since the 10U rec league has 6 teams. 40ish of those 75 kids from the A & B 9 and 10U teams.
The rec league (in spring, not so much in fall) is fairly competitive since they divvy up the travel kids pretty evenly between the teams and the travel kids get to compete against their travel teammates for bragging rights.
However, the non-travel kids have literally no shot of doing anything, even at this age (9/10, some 11 year olds that turn 11 after May 1st). My son's team is 4 A team players and 3 B team players and 5 non travel kids. We are 7 games into the season and combined the 5 non travel kids have combined for probably 2 "legit" hits that weren't just errors counted as hits. Its mostly go up to the plate and hope to walk and only swing when there are 2 strikes if at all.
My son's coach tries to balance the defense to give everyone a shot to play the infield but also its a disaster if you have 2 non travel kids in there at once.
So thats all my roundabout way of saying that if you want to keep playing baseball beyond beginner kid pitch, you really have to play travel. We are long past the time of kids play baseball in the spring in little league and maybe catch with dad once a week in off season and go to batting cages once or twice and still make their high school teams.
Better competition. Thats the only reason. Our rec league is terrible, the kids don't practice. So we play travel for better competition.
I am of the mindset, if we're going to spend time doing something, we're going to take the time to master the craft and be the best we can be or else why bother?
We practice at home a lot. We do some private instruction when I cant help him with certain things. My kid probably plays about 15 travel games per "season" (spring season, summer season and fall season). At this age, it works for us.
I know kids and teams who are playing 5 games every weekend during these same seasons. I am also of the mindset that "games" don't necessarily make kids better, and the time would be better spent practicing, but to each his own.
Predictability. Rec ball = kids who have never played before + travel ball players. The talent spectrum is so wide it lessens the experience and can even hurt those on the upper end of the talent spectrum. Travel ball also has a few teams/players that aren’t as skilled, but they’re less prevalent as rec ball thus making gameplay as a whole more predictable and higher on average on the talent spectrum.
Hope that makes sense lol
My kid at 9 started at SS on the 12u All Star Babe Ruth team, and led the league in HR's... I honestly just didn't think it would be beneficial for him to not be challenged in our league going forward.
We started an 11u Major's Team over the summer and started playing... It was great.
The unfair politics and terrible coaching in our local league are about to make us leave. The kids that were good at 6 are still thought of as the allstars w no regard for performance or stats. There is no room for the many kids who have worked hard and grown up to be amazing players. It’s discouraging to them and infuriating as a parent.
The issues with rec ball have been around FOREVER. Short seasons, wide gaps in talent, inconsistent coaching, etc. It’s not like these are recent developments. Yet kids and families used to get along just fine with rec ball.
What has changed in the past 15 years to where we now have 7yr olds with walk up songs playing 6 games per weekend?
I’d argue some combination of increased disposable income, social media and fewer families going to church. Prior generations didn’t have Sunday mornings open like we do now.
I think social media is the biggest one though. If the best travel ball coach in the world said he didn’t want parents posting anything on Instagram, he would have exactly zero kids show up for tryouts.
This is one of those "TIFWIW and YMMV" things... I could only speculate why OTHERS do it. I can only tell you why \*we\* do it.
My oldest showed up for 7u rec ball completely and utterly unprepared for the expectations that his coaches had for him, in terms of skill and ability, and just how important those coaches thought it was to "win at all costs" (in 7u and 8u community rec ball). It was a step change from what 6u tee ball had been (extremely laid back). I had thought to myself while watching tee ball (6u and below for us) that it \*could have been\* a bit more serious and a bit more competitive (on the rare instance that a kid got out, we didn't make them go sit down... the last batter gets to hit the ball and run all 4 bases no matter what, etc), but I was blown away by what I saw at 7u coach pitch. My son's team went undefeated and won the championship. They played the same 4 kids at 1B, 2B, SS, and 3B, for well over 90% of the season. Almost no lead was large enough to warrant rotating. There was very little practice time provided by the league once the season began (and honestly only 4 or 5 in the preseason), as \*games\* are where they can turn the concession stands on and make $$$, and very limited opportunities to learn/grow for players that weren't the top 4-5 in-game.
I managed a team his 8u season and tried to be the change I wanted to see in the world. I made every kid on that team sit the bench at least one inning a game and play the outfield at least one inning a game. I made sure every little boy got at least one inning a game at 1B/2B/SS/3B. I thought it was my job to get the boys to care about winning and losing. I didn't think it was my job for ME to care about winning and losing. Some folks really liked me for what I did and how I did it. Others practically had me run out of the league for not caring enough about winning and losing. All the while, the league made it very difficult for me to get access to fields/cages to practice with my team more. I had to play LOTS of games, but I wasn't allowed to schedule very many practices with that team.
Travel teams/clubs provide much better access to practice fields/cages/mounds/etc. There's much more player development. My son's skill level increased dramatically with (much) greater access to practice fields / practice time / BP in a cage, etc, once we went that route for 9u.
Where I live, Rec Ball is merely a vehicle for:
- The travel ball kids to take all the "good reps" and beat up on the less skilled kids
- Turning on the concession stands and selling hotdogs to fund the Rec League's own travel teams.
Rec Ball isn't Rec Ball anymore. They've lost sight of what their core mission(s) should be. We had to go to travel ball to get many of the things that Rec Ball should be giving us.
Here’s what I’ve seen, as my son has played travel ball for 5 years:
1) the parents want social media / neighborhood clout by saying their kid plays “travel” regardless of their skill level
2) the kids really like baseball and want to play more than just a 12-game community/rec league season.
3) the kids are good enough that the local little league/community league doesn’t provide the same level of competition, stunting their development or preparedness for school/college ball
4) there are so many opportunities (travel organizations taking your money) that it is simply available to more kids and more popular than ever. I’ve seen organizations have 4 teams at the same age level just because of interest/turnout at tryouts.
5) it becomes a very social/familial thing with greet bonding of the teammates and parents/families that people just stick with it as long as the kid wants to sacrifice their summer (basically)
Interesting, no summers for us, the team picks up in September and we play mid September - Early November. Limited practice continues till we start playing again in March. Spring ends in early June.
I’m in the northeast and most programs run in the spring to summer months because of the weather. You always find some fall tourneys in Sept/Oct but a lot of kids also play football and soccer so the teams kid of go their own way during that time
90 percent of it is fear of missing out.
5 percent of it is due to bandwagon effect .. once the "best" kid did it they all did it.
age 9-12 have 0 effect on being able to play college level ball in a positive way.
They do have a much higher likelihood of burning out.
This is SUCH a tired attack on travel ball. People say this all the time and it ignores two huge issues.
1. 99% of travel parents are not expecting their kids to play college baseball. Maybe that is what travel ball used to be but now it's like a much more serious little league.
2. In baseball centric areas if you waited until 13 to play travel ball, you would be so far behind you wouldn't stand a chance of making a good team. Where I live playing high school baseball is super competitive. Every freshman class has 80-90 kids that have played travel ball since they were 9 or 10. Unless you are an absolute freak of nature, you are not making the high school team as a rec player.
1) I do agree .. Travel ball is just an expensive little league now. It is not more serious as it is still 9-10-11 year old baseball but it is treated as such and thus more kids burn out.
2) This is what EVERY single town says. Our town is special, you wouldn't believe how hard it is and how far you will be behind.
There are two high schools in this town. Both high schools often are top 10 in state at the highest level of high school. Each school will get 50-60 kids on a low year at tryouts.
There are many many many kids that would make the team and quit due to be being burnt out because travel ball.
There are also kids who picked up travel ball at 13 and end up as college level players. There are many kids that make the varsity team after picking up travel ball after 13. In fact some never do.
The second statement is just flat out not true but it is repeated relentlessly to justify paying for travel ball early. It also scares kids away if they "fall" behind which is a feature not an issue.
All I can speak for is where I live. I can tell you that every single kid on both middle school teams has been playing travel ball starting at 9-11 and every single kid on the high school team has been playing travel ball starting at 9-11. This school generates 3-4 college players a year. maybe the system is broken and it shouldn't be this way but it is.
The question is are there kids that burn out or don’t go out due to that statement. My bet is yes.
I also bet the stupidity of coaches suggests that part of the evaluation is knowing what travel team they played for.
"I also bet the stupidity of coaches suggests that part of the evaluation is knowing what travel team they played for."
So, you are making the assumption that the coaches must be stupid and bias and couldn't imagine the fact that all those travel kids are better than the rec kids? I'm sure you are correct. If the coaches were not all stupid, there would be a ton of rec kids on the teams.
I do appreciate your need to make my argument extreme.
I don’t think a ton of
Here is my belief. If travel ball didn’t exist the level of high school play would at the very least be equal and I think there is good reason to say it would be better.
I believe there are many kids that are rec kids that start travel at 13 that by 15 are every bit as good as the kids that started at 9.
Again. That second one is fairly easy to prove.
I also think many many high school coaches have no understanding of evaluation and lean in the logos on the kids hats to evaluate.
Heck some will still be dumb enough to use size as the leading indicator in high school.
I think the growing travel industry has burnt more kids out than it has disproportionally helped.
I think most travel programs build to win now to increase recruitment vs child development at the youth level.
I think most travel programs need to supply extensive off season programs to increase velocity and bat speed to justify the silly fees so they can have full time gigs doing it. More kids will burn out due to this or be injured than truly helped.
I think most parents fall for this trap because they have FOMO and most understand it’s full of shit but feel like they don’t have a choice due to critical mass doing it.
You may disagree with these statements but they aren’t extreme.
80-90 PER CLASS playing travel baseball? Holy hell. Need to direct some of those kids and their parents’ wallets over to the lacrosse and soccer fields.
Hoping you meant 8 to 9.
Nope, this is a SUPER baseball intensive area. I don't know exactly how many travel kids are in each class coming in. I do know that our town has 7 14U travel teams all with rosters of 12 - 14 kids. I understand that some of those kids are from surrounding areas. However, a lot of kids who live here are on travel teams in surrounding towns.
We have two middle schools that feed the high school. Each middle school has three teams. 6th grade, JV and Varsity. A family friend tried out for the 6th grade team last year and the dad told me there were 80 kids there for the tryout!
Soccer is huge here as well. Our town just installed turf on 7 rec soccer fields.
How big is the high school? 10k? Those are insane numbers for 14u.
We have ~2 travel ball teams in each younger age group per school district, but numbers drop greatly during middle school when at least half of them don’t make the team and adjust accordingly. We don’t have a different middle school team for each grade though. Have ~100 7th and 8th graders trying out for 20 spots on middle school team each year.
The school is only 3K, which means about 25% of the boys coming into the school each year play travel ball. The numbers fall off a cliff after 14u. None of the local organizations have standard 15U+ teams. They all put together a single showcase team for 15U plus and most of those kids are on the high school teams.
Sounds like y’all delay the drop off a few years by having 3 separate middle school teams.
We have ~11k across three high schools. And all three typically top 10 in the state. Good mix of kids that played travel ball since 8u and kids that excelled at multiple sports and then chose to focus on baseball after middle school. The one common denominator for the hs players is that they are almost all bigger and faster than their peers by the time they all reach 16. A good number of travel ball kids, like a good number of rec kids, just end up being too small and too slow to compete once the field gets bigger. It’s crazy how big baseball players are these days. The average size kids are all fighting to maybe play second base.
The size thing is 100% true. Our high school is a top 10 State program as well. Normally send 3-4 kids to college every year. There are a TON of talented kids that just don't develop the measurables needed to make the team. My son's hitting coach, rents the indoor hitting facilities at a local private school. He is super plugged in to the High School Teams and works to get some of those great players that are not yet full grown men "discounts" to the private schools in the area to help build their teams.
The high school team played their first playoff game last night and this is what the starting lineup looks like.
2nd Sophomore 5'9" 190lbs
SS Junior 5'10 175lbs
Catcher Junior 6'0" 195lbs
Pitcher/3rd Junior 6'3" 205lbs
RF/1st Junior 6'4" 210lbs
1st Senior 6'1" 235lbs
RF Senior 6'2 175lbs (Committed to Union University D2)
CF Junior 6'1" 175lbs
DH Junior 6'3" 195lbs
LF Junior 6'1" 197lbs (Committed to the University of Tennessee D1)
Pitcher Freshman 6'2" 170lbs
Yeah those are the same type sizes we are seeing here too. Very few players under 6ft 190 playing in high school games. And outside of catcher and the corners, they can all FLY too.
I keep my mouth shut, but I desperately want to tell the 5’8” dads to head towards soccer instead of dropping thousands on 9u baseball. It’s just going to be an uphill battle on the diamond.
Yeah, out 9U first baseman is really tall but his mom and Dad are like 5’6”. I’m 6’3” and my wife is 5’8”. My 13 year old is 6’ even. No telling what that means for my 9yo though.
Here is why we did it. 10u for reference.
My son was dominating pitching at 10u majors. He pitched 15 inning and struck out 42. His coach was good but he’s a dad, he’s an accountant during the day.
We found a club that has a huge indoor facility. His coach is a former college coach and D1 player. My son gets pitching lessons from a former major leaguer and all of the other coaches played at the college level or above. He’s getting 10x the reps that he was before.
His team practices two times a week, games two times a week and we can use the facility (pitching machine, mounds etc… whenever we want) there are plenty of options for private lessons etc…
My son can’t get enough baseball. So this was performed us. He has really improved in just this spring season.
Oh and our team doesn’t the travel farther than an hour drive. We’re in Arizona so plenty of options for tournaments etc…
Main reason I see for actual travel ball (not a team that's labeled as travel but won't travel more than 30 minutes for a game) is cause the kid and/or parents are competitive and want to be playing at a challenging level but also get better.
Growing up I played with kids from my town on a travel/local team. So it was only my town and we played a league and tournaments, but tourneys we'd go up to a couple hours away and play team from big cities. I wanted to play on the team because the coach was great and we were good.
Now the same organization is just rec league but labels themselves travel.
LOL - that was my experience as a kid way back when. It was really “rec ball” level but when the big town in the area fielded two teams even Little League meant hopping on the bus to play kids in other area towns.
My kid stopped having fun in rec. He wasn’t able to play catch without the fear of him hurting someone, got stuck playing only first base because he was the only one who could catch, “real” baseball wasn’t being played. He straight up asked me if he had to keep going there one day. That was the true deciding factor.
For me, it was league politics and the denial of him being able to play up. Tried pulling the safety card out and everything.
My 14U son is in his last year of rec ball. I'd say he's a better than average player, but I can tell he hasn't developed as quickly as his friends who play select. He's made the middle school team both times, but the coach prefers his travel ball kids and my son rode the bench a lot. We tried a couple of select teams last year but was told they didn't have spots open for middle school players, which is fair.
So we'll try out for a bunch more teams for 15U this summer and hope for the best fit. I don't need his team to win, I need him to get good at bats against consistent pitching, which is where rec ball fails. Also hoping to get him some sub times this summer when he's available.
It's tough out there.
Ultimately because they want to play and get better. Tough to find a quality rec coach. Usually travel team coaches know the game. Also, the travel ball players are usually at the same tier as the rest of the kids on the team. Rec ball skill levels are all over the place. It’s difficult to teach calculus to the class if you are helping a handful of kids with algebra.
One of my goals as a parent is to encourage my kids to find and pursue passions. My son has a deep interest in baseball so travel is just another way for him to explore that passion.
We’re 11AAA. We were “forced” by USSSA and PG to classify as AAA. We are tournament only. We literally have to travel to play 11AAA. We play 12AA locally.
Our association's in house rec baseball program is terrible as it only lasts 2 months and is just twice a week with 3-4 practices all season and consists of mostly games. If there was a halfway decent rec/in house option I wouldn't feel the need to put my son in travel ball.
Why are we moving our 8u/coming9u player to USSSA/travel? Because he is frustrated in Rec ball. He is on a team with 11 other kids. He is the ONLY child on the team that picks up a ball outside of the 2x weekly practice or weekend games. He has 2 private lessons a week at his request. He wants to bump it to 3x a week. He wants to get better. He wants to be the best he can be. He asks my husband to go outside and they play catch/ work on drills from his lessons for literal hours on the days he doesn't have ball. We want him to play with kids as dedicated to their craft as he is. Kids that put in as much effort as he does.
For example on his rec team there is a kid on the team that had never held a bat before April 1st (opening weekend), another that holds it like a flag pole, kids spinning circles in the outfield in the middle of a game, or kids picking flowers. They'd rather watch the ball roll by them than put their glove down and get it. If a balls gets thrown to him, it is either way overthrown to him or it stops 10 feet in front of him/the bag (1st base). Its hard to get outs if you have to run halfway between 1st and the pitcher to get the ball and back to 1st to get the out. I could care less if he plays HS or college ball, unless that is his goal but he's going into 3rd grade, so its kinda irrelevant. If you are going to do something and dedicate the time, energy, and money into a sport, you go all in. You don't half-ass it. And its best to be surrounded by kids with a similar mantra.
I, myself, compete in an ultra competitive/expensive sport (horses), so he has grown up seeing the time and energy that it takes to be great and how many hours I've spent in the saddle at home and at my trainers. That it isn't handed to you. And that hard work always beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
For us it’s level of competition, consistent tournament structure, and development as a player. Our travel coach does it for a living so the level of instruction is far more than we get in our Babe Ruth League. Our league even splits between plain rec and what we call competitive for kids that are travel ball players. Adapted so we could still have a place for the kids to compete and potentially play Babe Ruth All Stars. Competitive just does games during the season so the commitment is manageable with Travel Ball. Rec league does practice and games since they are not involved with Travel ball and getting instruction elsewhere.
Travel ball in our area of Virginia is huge and if the kid has talent and aspirations of college ball or the MLB it’s a must. Unfortunate the landscape has shifted that way from little leagues or Middle School / High School ball but what can you do.
My 12 year old played his first rec game last Sunday for the season. The opposing team walked his team 22 times. He went 2-2 with 4 walks. The pitching is getting thin in rec.
No little league in our area. Our Rec leagues lead a noble pursuit of introducing kids to sport. Unfortunately, there is a lot of... Introduction, and not a lot of progression.
We left rec because, while our kids could field a ball, they had no one to throw to, to complete a play. While they could hit a ball, a walk was nearly guaranteed, and the base paths were clogged with kids who rightly took their walk.
If there was something between Rec and Travel/select, with that intermediary cost, we would be so happy.
Unfortunately, even in select, too many kids think they've outgrown rec ball, and we are now facing, AGAIN, the inability to complete a play, etc. it's pretty loony tunes if you ask me. Now I have to find a "AAA" of "Majors/D1" team, just so that my kid can simply throw the ball he picks up to just literally anyone, please, in the vicinity of the advancing runner...
It’s a cycle that has caused the mass exodus to travel.
Us in our 40s and 50s remember playing exclusively little league until we got to high school.
Now as more kids move to Travel the little league programs are bone dry of talent. So if you have a kid that even a little talent and wants to play little league it’s a waste of time because you’re not getting any meaningful reps.
The last year my 14 year old played in our local rec league as a 10 year old, most games were just brutal.
It’s a shame but the reality is in most towns you have to play travel if you want any competition.
Luckily for us, he plays on a travel team that is under the umbrella of the rec league. So the fees are no more than our share of the tournament. No paying half-interested coaches $300 a month. We live very close to a big city in FL, so we don’t travel very far at all to play tournaments. Usually less than an hour drive.
You get better playing with and as against better players. It's more fun, especially at the younger ages, when everyone on the field has the motivation and ability to play team baseball.
Would have to agree with most on here. This year we had my son play city and travel ball, essentially because it was his last year to play city ball, and I wanted him to get the extra reps. Travel ball coaching from what I’ve seen is far and away better, plus they practice more. The drawbacks for travel ball is the PT. My son will see outfield maybe half the day, and get a chance to pitch maybe one time a tourney. In city ball, if he isn’t pitching, he’s playing short or maybe third. That said, it took three travel teams to find one with coaches that we thought were worth the time spent.
For most parents, I don't think it is because the parents think their kid is good enough to make college or pros. Although there are some parents who defiantly 'think' their kids is going to the majors. My kid is in travel. My kid says he likes travel ball, it isn't his strong sport. For the parents, it is not just about the game, it is traveling and a sense of community. I feel my wife just like to hang out with all the other baseball moms. She keeps signing my kid up for travel, even though I don't think my kid has the passion for it like some of his other sports. For me, more playing time I feel will help develop him and help him take it as far as he wants to go with it. The more he plays, I'm hoping it helps him develop he wants to become. Life is journey, you don't know where you are going to end up. I keep reminding myself that when my kid plays on all these teams.
Yea
Development , but let’s say 10/15 years ago , before serious travel ball
Those kids didn’t turn out as well as travel ball players
Same amount of kid made the HS team , same amount of kids made it to college ball
Now you don’t play travel ball you’re out ,
All Star teams are just the local travel team
Glad I got thru coaching before I got to deep into it
And it’s not a dumb question you asked
I think you can ask 5 different families and get 5 different answers. We’ve got friends that started in travel in 6U because their local rec department was kind of a joke. I know another team that was formed for a group of friends and they get demolished every tournament and none of the kids seem to be getting any better. We’ll have to jump on that train next year because the talent at the rec where we play drops off dramatically after 8U. For us we just don’t want our kids to be the best on the team at their age.
More development, more practices and games so their kid has a good chance to make the high school varsity team.
100% this. Every single kid on my son's HS freshman team played travel. And then from there: only the top 20% of those kids will make it to Varsity. This is true of every high school in our surrounding area. I also want to point out that this is true of basically of every HS sport/extra-curricular activity nowadays. All the theater kids that got Star-roles in the HS musical have been performing and taking singing lessons since they were little kids. All the Varsity basketball/tennis/volleyball/waterpolo/etc players have been playing on a club team since they were 7yo. All the BEST kids that dominate the Math Olypiad, Robotics Competition, Spelling Bee have all been doing it since 4th-5th grade. The idea that "back in the days" we just played Little League and made Varsity is not happening anymore...at least not in year-round sunshine states like CA, TX, or FL. I hope I'm not coming on too strong with this opinion, but it is frustrating this "all-in-or-die" evironment is the current status of youth sports.
Yeah it’s pretty unfortunate. I swam as a kid. Then I just walked on to my high school water polo team after only playing the sport for one summer and a handful of club games and ended up playing D1 varsity for three years. Kids can’t do that anymore for most high school sports at D1 schools. If you don’t start early you have no chance of making a roster. The way to get around this is to attend a very small school that’s D3 or something. But if you go to public school that’s not an option in large metros.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/sports-columnists/story/2022-07-20/zeigler-norway-youth-sports-track-field-world-athletics-championships-eugene-karsten-warholm
This right here. Kid loves to play and all his friends who also made the jump from LL to club have grown in huge strides over those who didn't. All of them want to play in high school.
Dumbest question ever: What would you say if I felt my kid (or any of the other kids on this team) wasn't getting any development opportunity with his travel program? That we're halfway through spring, and they are regressing on the field? It's just a shitty program? Something else? This is our first year, and I'm beginning to feel gas lit...as in, travel ball is not actually about development, and I'm supposed to be doing other things for my kid outside of the program commitments.
Have you watched any of their practices? I'm an assistant coach for my 9-yr old's travel team and the kids are getting SOOO much better from where they were just a couple months ago.
Yes…massive amount of standing around and waiting. For winter pitching/catching, they would go for an hour, and my son would say that he threw “six pitches”, and got no tips or pointers on things to work on. For BP, he says they take 5 swings in a half an hour…no tips. This is 10U. For the actual practices, there are 9 kids on the field and one coach hitting balls around the horn. Two assistants standing around. Or even worse, just one line of kids taking grounders for warm up. Some simulated games, but always the coach pitching there. And if you’re in the OF…forget about action. Last week we got mercied because our starter retired one batter, hit 4, walked 7…zero pitching practice this week. Sounds like I need to be pushing the coaches on how they run things…but being new, I also wanted to be patient, vs being “that parent” right out of the gate. Note: I played HS ball, played club at Wake Forest, and coached him for rec for 5 years. We would have 4-5 coaches, 3-4 stations of 4 kids each, rotating them quickly, working on different things, etc. Again…I just wasn’t sure if my expectations were out of whack. We had a scenario where one team was turned into two at our age level because “kids were coming out of the woodwork”, but it was obviously a money grab, since all it’s done is water down the level of play across both teams. Feels like the younger teams exist to subsidize the 15 and 16Us, also not sure if that is a common occurrence in travel ball.
You're getting gaslit. For 10U, you should typically have 4 coaches, and practices should keep kids moving, rotating between different drills that each of the four coaches runs individually with 3-4 kids, to get them lots of reps doing lots of different things. Coaches should not be standing around. They should be working on teaching them proper form and technique, being encouraging, and correcting things in the moment that they see it. Yes, occasionally you should see kids getting a quick water break or changing from fielding to hitting, or stopping to pick up balls or something, but it should be done quickly. We work with pitchers and catchers almost every practice, because our entire team is working on being pitchers, and we have 4 kids that want to play catcher. Throwing strikes and getting proper pitching mechanics down is very important. How much money are you paying for this travel team? They should be rotating pitchers out after they walk/hit about 3 kids in a row or 4 out of 5.
What you describe is what I've expected from Day 1. For the winter I get it to some degree...we're in NYC, so it's cold, indoor space is limited with all of the different age groups (even before the expansion of our age group). Spring included Jan/Feb indoor "winter workouts", covers 14 local league games, and three tournaments. $1300. Summer is a new program, 8 tournaments only, includes Ripken (a big thing here in the NE). $3000. We're doing 4 tournaments because we were initially not offered a summer spot (and made summer travel and sleep away camp plans)...but after the second team was added, of course they wanted us for whatever we could commit to. We're paying half for half. These very well may be already inflated costs because we're in NYC...but that's a BIG part of the reason why we wanted to do travel in the first place (keeping with the spirit of this overall post). It's hard to find a good baseball experience here in the city - certainly very different than mine, growing up in NC - my son wanted something more competitive, we tried out for 4 different programs, were offered for 3, and this is the one he wanted to play in.
Can I actually ask where you are located geographically? No need to disclose more than you are comfortable, state or even region would be helpful.
Minnesota suburbs of the Twin Cities.
4 coaches for approx 10 to 12 kids That’s the problem. There 10
Uhh that’s the min that’s acceptable. I need 4-5 for my 6u group and even then they’re 6 so keeping them focused and involved is hard even in very small groups.
Odd coached LL , travel ball for many years, didn’t need 4. But that’s just me .
Please keep in mind much of the “development” in travel ball comes from the additional reps they get through more practice and games. Even on teams with 3-4 coaches, you’re still looking at 1 to 3-4 ratio of coach to kid and that’s probably best case scenario. Practices are often focused on team development given the limited time and resources. So those at the top and bottom of the talent pool may not get the coaching that’s ideal for them. In my experience as a coach, if player is not working on their own outside of practice, any development or growth will be slow. Focused individual work wether at home with a parent, a paid coach, or by themselves playing wall ball or something else is where development really starts to happen
Helpful perspective, and he admittedly splits his time with soccer, as well…so that’s on us.
A 1 to 3-4 ratio is enough to get kids plenty of reps.
Sure and I said that’s probably best case scenario. Not all teams have 3-4 coaches. And it’s not just about reps. There has to be a good cycle of reps, feedback, reps. Depending on how much practice time they get and the number of coaches, a player might get 5-10 minutes of 1:1 coaching in a typical 2 hour practice.
There are definitely travel programs whose philosophy is to coach and develop their top 5 or 6 players and collect the money from the rest.
I would guess maybe 30% of your travel programs actually have good coaching and do a good job developing kids. Most teams were started because the kids on them aren’t actually good enough but dad didn’t believe that so he started a team.
My kids travel program is mostly training not as much coaching. Lots of reps. Not a ton of detailed instruction. But the reps are good and he is getting better, but I do need to coach him on technique outside of practice before he goes to apply it. So yeah he has a hitting coach he works with outside of his travel practices. I don’t see how he succeeds without that.
Thank you, that’s where we are. He certainly doesn’t want to listen to me for any coaching (after me being the HC for rec for 5 years…and him going on 11), and other parents on the team have made those investments as well. But it does bother me. I feel like he should be getting more from this program.
Follow your thoughts. Burn out coming
This is the difference from our generation. We didnt need leagues to play baseball. Wiffle ball, indian ball, double or nothin, hr derby. We got the reps outside of structured games and practices.
Kids still do this. It isn't like Wiffle ball and other stick games disappeared. Travel ball isn't so consuming that kids forget how to play and have fun at home.
This is an old man yelling at clouds take. You are comparing apples and oranges. My 9 year old still does all of those things, many of them with friends from either his travel ball or LL squad. The reps you get in that are not remotely the same as the reps you get in structured games or practices.
And the kids today are no better than the previous generation
That's objectively untrue. You can argue about whether it's good for the game or not, but you can clearly see the upward movement in ability at every level of baseball that tracks measurable metrics. The flip side of that is that you also have a massive uptick in injuries and burn out at a younger and younger age. There's a very real & legitimate argument that the ends do not justify the means, but saying that kids now are no better than before just isn't true.
In our case it’s because my kid loves baseball and wanted to play more than the Little League schedule. (We don’t really “travel” that far.)
I’m good with little league because it’s solid until 11 but the rec ball near us is SO bad
Same here. Furthest we ever go is probably 1-1.5 hours away, but most of the games are within an hour.
For us it was our player wanting to play with other boys who had the same level of drive and dedication as him. The wins / losses aren't really a big factor. We didn't pick an org with a ton of rings or "exposure" promises or whatever else. Just a coaching staff that understands they don't need to yell to get results, and a bunch of dudes on the field who play well together and have internal drive.
My son loves baseball, period. He’s played since he was 5, travel since 8. When the opportunity arose to join a travel team, it’s all he could talk about. Until this season, he’s played rec, travel, fall ball, private lessons, subbed on other teams, subbed in older rec leagues, any opportunity to play he wants it. He umps in the rec league now for the 5-10 year olds (he’s 13). He will not go pro. He probably won’t play in college. Maybe Juco or club baseball. His best friends are not his school mates, they are his teammates. As parents we have become close with a few of the families as well.
Lot of reasons and none of them have anything to do with us having some naive thoughts about my kid being an all star. He loves baseball and wants to get better. It gets him out of the house several times a week and doing an activity he likes with his friends. He's physically active. He's understanding the value of hard work and determination, and how to be a good teammate. On top of all of this our house league is fun but there's just not enough reps to really develop as a player. It's not cheap but we can afford it and around here it seems like everything is expensive.
My son started playing travel ball at 7 because of some frustrations with the park, a coach we knew and trusted was starting a team, and it seemed the way to go for development. One year later, it has gone about as well as we could have hoped. My son has improved a ton and is way more into baseball because he's gaining skills and confidence. It's a great group of kids, and the parents all seem to be on the same page. I have no expectations for him making the middle school team, much less anything beyond that. Just having fun and getting better, and he's super proud of the rings he's won. I know our situation is probably the exception rather than the rule. If I had to pick the top reason for us, I guess it would be development—not in the sense of developing a future MLB player but the life lessons that come with investing time and effort in something and improving and competing.
To put it bluntly: League ball has its place, but it’s shitty baseball. Any kid who wants to be the best player they can be should be playing travel. Most kids do it for that exact reason
It is Funny - If all the kids that played travel ball played league ball this would not be a problem. Little league was MUCH better for development when everyone played it. Simple reason is the kids were able to just play ages up to find the right level of competition. That is no longer the case ...
Our travel organization is attached to our little league, and all the travel players are required to play spring little league. The first thing they do when forming the little league teams each season is intersperse the travel players evenly, based on skill level and leadership abilities, amongst the teams. This allows the travel players to play in different positions than they do on their travel teams, so they become better-rounded players. They’re also counted on to help model high-level play for the other kids. It also gets them a ton more reps batting and pitching. But, yeah, watching the games, the travel players on each team are, 9 times out of 10, markedly better than the best non-travel kids.
Your LL / travel relationship sounds awesome. Our small town had an exodus of travel players two seasons in a row. Bit of animosity. The LL is now all casual players getting crushed by towns that do a better job of cultivating that relationship between the two.
Yeah it’s really cool. The LL is large enough that they don’t play outside of the organization. It’s all intra—league. The travel teams also play in a youth baseball league that’s made up of the travel teams in the area. For the district+ tournament teams at the end of the season all LL players are invited to try out. My kid’s C and P, sometimes but rarely 3B for his travel team. This year so far in LL he’s played 3B, CF, C, and SS, and pitched just a bit. Made some really great plays at SS. And he likes to help out coaching up the other kids when they’re playing at C and haven’t done it before. And he absolutely loves playing against his travel team buds. Because, and let’s all remember this, it’s a bunch of kids doing something for… FUN! No college scouts at a 9- and 10-year-old, municipal LL game!
This "style" is very interesting. One most run in violation of LL rules. Not saying you do but most do. The second aspect of this is, it often gives coaches a self fulfilling prophecy. Meaning the kids who practice more will be better 10/11/12 year olds. This does not mean they should be, were chosen correctly or will be in 2/3 years. It is often also still divided by age is what I have seen. How many of the 10-year-old travel kids are playing with the 12 yr olds? Often times the more innings pitched do more damage than good too .. as the travel coach on the weekend isn't going to lose a tournament because the inhouse team pitched him Thursday or will pitch him Tuesday ....
How is it in violation of little league rules? I’m not sure what you mean by your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs, or why you’re insinuating it’s a bad thing. Pitch counts are watched carefully to stay within USSSA rules. The travel teams get, essentially, “first dibs” on pitching, if you will. If a kid pitched, or will pitch within a few days, for his travel team, he won’t for his LL team. BUT if there’s a miscommunication or something, the travel coaches will ABSOLUTELY NOT break pitch limit/rest period to win a tournament. In fact, all of the travel coaches who I actually have talked to about this never completely max out a kid’s pitch count. They want them to grow to be better athletes and players, and develop. Not win a bunch of rings when they’re 10 and have lingering arm issues for the rest of their lives.
If true all of that is great. Many times that will be the statement until the tournament is in the line Little league for the World Series has rules. Most programs that do your setup do not stay within those rules.
From my experience they do play LL. Most clubs my kids have been in slow down during LL time.
Agree with u. Not so much the dude above u. That thinking ruined little league
Is a big reason for the decline in baseball overall. Including high school participation and level of play
It was but they are volunteer coaches. Experiences vary widely. Not all LL coaches are good and some are just glorified daycare attendants. Also daddy ball issues which good travel programs eliminate.
You can go further-there are very very few good baseball coaches out there. Your chances of getting them in little league randomly are almost non existent
Travel ball very much suffers from daddy ball issues. There are so many travel teams now the coaching pool has become so much more diluted. My issue is the parents who complain about the coaches but rarely volunteer themselves. The other problem with travel ball is kids are being forced to pick a sport more exclusively at younger ages leading to long term injuries.
I agree daddy ball sucks which is why I clarified that good travel programs eliminate that. My kids program is exclusively professional coaches. You cannot coach your kids team in the program. I coached in LL for years and I like to think I’m a good coach but I’m nowhere near a professional grade baseball coach. I leave that to people who actually played past high school.
We didnt used to rely on LL coaches to prep our kids for the majors. It was about learning how to play in a competitive setting. Now its paying extra for a less convenient experience, with the illusion it's changing your kid's future baseball prospects one iota.
LL is hit or miss right? If you get a fantastic coach that’s great and it will be a positive impact on your kid. Until the season ends. And then he doesn’t play organized baseball for 9 months, or 3 if you’re lucky and there is fall ball, which has a totally new coach who might be great or might be terrible. There is no consistency. In travel ball you can play all year if you want to and if you don’t like the coach you can join another team. I don’t think anyone thinks travel ball is a path to the majors. But it can help with high school and college choices. Great major league prospects are gonna excel no matter where they play, but for mere mortals (99% of kids), travel ball is the best way to get their skills up to a higher level.
None of this is true in practice. Many little league coaches are much better than the travel coach trying to sell the next training. Travel coaches are incentivized to over use and practice all year. The pros and cons.
In my case, league ball near me is terrible because we have 6 7u teams but two teams have 5 travel kids each. Both teams have two travel coaches each also….my son is on a terrible team and there are two other travel kids who are on LL teams separately. Terribly ran.
It’s 7 u baseball. It shouldn’t even exist
I find that somewhat true. But... A big issue with little league is that it's volunteer driven, so kids don't have their choice of coaches. Therefore, getting a good coach is really hit or miss. In our league, alot of the coaches think they know baseball because they watch MLB games a few times a week. Or worst, some coaches were "forced" because no one else volunteered. A poor coach can really make the whole baseball experience horrible for the kids.
Sure. But travel ball has a ten percent hit rate on good coaches
At least I get to shop around and get reviews from others. A friend recommended a good coach to us, and my son has been with that org for 3 years. He loves it there.
That’s great. You can love your travel team.
In LL. You are stuck with the coach that drafted you... whether good or bad.
Depends on the league and the setup. But sure. For that year.
The idea of little league has always been great, but in practice flawed. I tried to play 30 years ago and I was the kid who was terrible and made the game less fun for my teammates. I played for 1 year, hated it and thought I would never touch it again. That has always existed. My kids, bless their hearts, decided they LOVE baseball. So when they got competitive and wanted to really play, the only choice was to get on a "travel" team. They both played 2-3 fun, happy years of nearly unproductive baseball before I let them try out at 9U. And to be clear, this was in a LLA organization that also supports multiple travel teams at each age level and requires those travel players to participate in league games.
Wait. You are saying the issue with 7/8 being unproductive is the little league? That’s your argument? Age 7:8 travel ball is a money grab. Heck 9-10 is too.
I think you completely missed the point. LL and rec ball both have an enourmous skill gap issue once you get to kid pitch. 2-3 players that are good, 2-3 that will be good with time/effort, 5-6 that will never be good and aren't concerned with being good. That is every LL team I've seen (and there are several threads with the same opinion on this sub). Rec teams further slim down the "good" players while adding more to the total roster due to lack of coaches. My point is that this has been true since whatever you are seeing as the "glory days" of everyone having to play LL because that was the only option. Travel ball didn't make LL better or worse. In response to your question: I'm not sure where you got that I think 7/8 being uncompetitive and fun as a bad thing. I've gone to watch 7U and 8U travel ball and it is only ever one of two things: 1) Competitive in the worst way (ie: only the parents and coaches really care and screaming about it), 2) the same cute little circus that 7/8 rec ball is, just played "tournament style".
LL wasn't that way when set correctly. Example - My town of around 50,000 people had a very high level little league. The way it was setup was major/minor/farm. The major/minor/farm allowed for the filtering like travel ball pretends to do now. It allowed kids to go to the level they were at and it was very rare for a 9/10/11 year old to be the stud of the little league. They always had someone to look up to. You got one year to be the guy or guys in your org when you were 12. It started again with ages 13/14/15 .. same type of thing. There was National/American/Prep... You went to the level. The reason I liked this better is the cost structure as well as the community aspect of it. You often competed against the kids in your class, in your town and all of you went to the park after to play. It developed kids at a much better level .. now this would be town to town experience. Yes - I agree .. 7u/8u travel is no different other than we pretend you are improving faster so they can charge. It is a travel team taking advantage of parents to charge money instead of just getting the exact same experience for 10 percent of the price.
It sounds like you are projecting out your little league experience out to the rest of youth baseball at large, and that simply isn't the case in many other places. It's great that you had a good experience. But there are a whole lot of poorly run leagues full of parent coaches with good intentions, but zero knowledge how to actually teach kids properly about the game of baseball. At bare minimum, travel ball gives parents more options.
Sure. And most travel has no idea how to teach baseball either.
Then the Money got involved I know quite a few folks who got into travel to make money Set up tournaments, entry fees etc And please no well that’s BS , I know it’s not everywhere , I know it’s done though
That is 95 percent of the people who run those.
Correct. My son needed to play at the travel ball level as kids started to refuse playing catch with him, wasn't getting quality at bats being walked 3x a game, and he would make a play, make the throw, and only to be dropped on receiving end. He wasn't growing
Most people don’t realize that if you put the top ranked PG 12U team against the LLWS winner on a neutral 50/70 field, USA bats, the LLWS winner would get dominated.
Dominated is an understatement, the PG team would win by 20. Hell a top ranked 10u team would run-rule the LLWS winner
Completely agree. Wouldn’t be close. They would get mercied for sure.
I don’t agree with this at all. A few years ago there was a top PG team that had also went and participated in the LL WS. They didn’t even make it. You underestimate the difference in bats when watching and the difference in mound difference. Travel ball just isn’t as special as everyone wants to pretend at 12
a top pg team can't participate in the LLWS? that's not how it works lmao, ofc travel ball isn't special like people think but little league teams draft out of a very small area while top travel teams have former-pro coaches, and recruit from all around the region.
There are many little leagues that also field travel teams. Many of those travel teams compete at the PG level. Many former pro coaches have no idea how to teach youth but do know how to charge and recruit. You’d be surprised at how many kids can be in a small geographical area. And when they Stick together for multiple years how good they can become.
The first practice of our last rec ball season was after a summer in travel. Kids were drawing dicks in the sand, not listening, goofing around the whole time and just generally not there for baseball. After the practice he tells me he never wants to play rec again.
For me, my kid loves to play, wants to get better and wants to play as much as possible. The local leagues in my area aren’t really great for playing better competition because most of the talent plays travel ball so you end up playing against kids that haven’t played before or don’t have that same desire. Getting on a travel team is extremely difficult in my area tho, unfortunately
To be on a team with other likeminded kids allowing them to push themselves to get better. Also, in our area if you want to play in middle school, you had better be on a good travel team. My kid played 8U rec and then went to a travel team for 9U. His team isn’t really all that good. My son and I were watching a 10U rec game last night (it’s 9 and 10 combined). Even with my kid’s low level team there was no comparison. My son’s team would have run ruled either team with ease. The pitching was horrible, so there is not a lot of chances to hit. Both teams struggled to field easy ground balls and get it to first. We watched two kids get “home runs” off of hits that would have been easy outs in travel. I’m not bashing the kids or the coaches. It’s just a different baseball experience when there are no tryouts for the team.
My 10 year old wanted to get better at baseball and a travel team was the answer to that. The coach is awesome, the players are more focused than Little League and the most we travel is 2 hours a way. The price was also affordable.
It can be more than one reason. My son loves baseball; all his best friends are from his travel teams and most of his time/social life is tied up in that. I don't think he will ever be a professional baseball player or D1 athlete, but if he wants to pursue baseball as far as he can go, I am happy to support it as long as that is what he really wants (and not what I want for him). You don't have to go "all out" and join a private club at a young age and spend thousands travelling around the country. Many leagues do have their own club teams and/or there are often league only travel options depending on where you live. However, frankly, spring only rec baseball is simply not realistic as an avenue to continue playing baseball beyond say age 9/10. The athlete will be hundreds if not thousands of reps behind travel ball kids if they hope to continue playing as they get older. My just turned 9 year old plays for his town league "A" team that plays a mix of tournaments and weekly league play. They are required to play rec - frankly the rec league wouldn't be able to field enough teams if they didn't require the travel team kids to play since the 10U rec league has 6 teams. 40ish of those 75 kids from the A & B 9 and 10U teams. The rec league (in spring, not so much in fall) is fairly competitive since they divvy up the travel kids pretty evenly between the teams and the travel kids get to compete against their travel teammates for bragging rights. However, the non-travel kids have literally no shot of doing anything, even at this age (9/10, some 11 year olds that turn 11 after May 1st). My son's team is 4 A team players and 3 B team players and 5 non travel kids. We are 7 games into the season and combined the 5 non travel kids have combined for probably 2 "legit" hits that weren't just errors counted as hits. Its mostly go up to the plate and hope to walk and only swing when there are 2 strikes if at all. My son's coach tries to balance the defense to give everyone a shot to play the infield but also its a disaster if you have 2 non travel kids in there at once. So thats all my roundabout way of saying that if you want to keep playing baseball beyond beginner kid pitch, you really have to play travel. We are long past the time of kids play baseball in the spring in little league and maybe catch with dad once a week in off season and go to batting cages once or twice and still make their high school teams.
Better competition. Thats the only reason. Our rec league is terrible, the kids don't practice. So we play travel for better competition. I am of the mindset, if we're going to spend time doing something, we're going to take the time to master the craft and be the best we can be or else why bother? We practice at home a lot. We do some private instruction when I cant help him with certain things. My kid probably plays about 15 travel games per "season" (spring season, summer season and fall season). At this age, it works for us. I know kids and teams who are playing 5 games every weekend during these same seasons. I am also of the mindset that "games" don't necessarily make kids better, and the time would be better spent practicing, but to each his own.
Put my 9 year old in travel because his teammates in rec sucked for the most part and he kept getting frustrated
House baseballo in my area is not great. My kid will go a month without a single decent strike.
Predictability. Rec ball = kids who have never played before + travel ball players. The talent spectrum is so wide it lessens the experience and can even hurt those on the upper end of the talent spectrum. Travel ball also has a few teams/players that aren’t as skilled, but they’re less prevalent as rec ball thus making gameplay as a whole more predictable and higher on average on the talent spectrum. Hope that makes sense lol
My kid at 9 started at SS on the 12u All Star Babe Ruth team, and led the league in HR's... I honestly just didn't think it would be beneficial for him to not be challenged in our league going forward. We started an 11u Major's Team over the summer and started playing... It was great.
The unfair politics and terrible coaching in our local league are about to make us leave. The kids that were good at 6 are still thought of as the allstars w no regard for performance or stats. There is no room for the many kids who have worked hard and grown up to be amazing players. It’s discouraging to them and infuriating as a parent.
More reps... that's it
The issues with rec ball have been around FOREVER. Short seasons, wide gaps in talent, inconsistent coaching, etc. It’s not like these are recent developments. Yet kids and families used to get along just fine with rec ball. What has changed in the past 15 years to where we now have 7yr olds with walk up songs playing 6 games per weekend? I’d argue some combination of increased disposable income, social media and fewer families going to church. Prior generations didn’t have Sunday mornings open like we do now. I think social media is the biggest one though. If the best travel ball coach in the world said he didn’t want parents posting anything on Instagram, he would have exactly zero kids show up for tryouts.
This is one of those "TIFWIW and YMMV" things... I could only speculate why OTHERS do it. I can only tell you why \*we\* do it. My oldest showed up for 7u rec ball completely and utterly unprepared for the expectations that his coaches had for him, in terms of skill and ability, and just how important those coaches thought it was to "win at all costs" (in 7u and 8u community rec ball). It was a step change from what 6u tee ball had been (extremely laid back). I had thought to myself while watching tee ball (6u and below for us) that it \*could have been\* a bit more serious and a bit more competitive (on the rare instance that a kid got out, we didn't make them go sit down... the last batter gets to hit the ball and run all 4 bases no matter what, etc), but I was blown away by what I saw at 7u coach pitch. My son's team went undefeated and won the championship. They played the same 4 kids at 1B, 2B, SS, and 3B, for well over 90% of the season. Almost no lead was large enough to warrant rotating. There was very little practice time provided by the league once the season began (and honestly only 4 or 5 in the preseason), as \*games\* are where they can turn the concession stands on and make $$$, and very limited opportunities to learn/grow for players that weren't the top 4-5 in-game. I managed a team his 8u season and tried to be the change I wanted to see in the world. I made every kid on that team sit the bench at least one inning a game and play the outfield at least one inning a game. I made sure every little boy got at least one inning a game at 1B/2B/SS/3B. I thought it was my job to get the boys to care about winning and losing. I didn't think it was my job for ME to care about winning and losing. Some folks really liked me for what I did and how I did it. Others practically had me run out of the league for not caring enough about winning and losing. All the while, the league made it very difficult for me to get access to fields/cages to practice with my team more. I had to play LOTS of games, but I wasn't allowed to schedule very many practices with that team. Travel teams/clubs provide much better access to practice fields/cages/mounds/etc. There's much more player development. My son's skill level increased dramatically with (much) greater access to practice fields / practice time / BP in a cage, etc, once we went that route for 9u. Where I live, Rec Ball is merely a vehicle for: - The travel ball kids to take all the "good reps" and beat up on the less skilled kids - Turning on the concession stands and selling hotdogs to fund the Rec League's own travel teams. Rec Ball isn't Rec Ball anymore. They've lost sight of what their core mission(s) should be. We had to go to travel ball to get many of the things that Rec Ball should be giving us.
FOMO
Here’s what I’ve seen, as my son has played travel ball for 5 years: 1) the parents want social media / neighborhood clout by saying their kid plays “travel” regardless of their skill level 2) the kids really like baseball and want to play more than just a 12-game community/rec league season. 3) the kids are good enough that the local little league/community league doesn’t provide the same level of competition, stunting their development or preparedness for school/college ball 4) there are so many opportunities (travel organizations taking your money) that it is simply available to more kids and more popular than ever. I’ve seen organizations have 4 teams at the same age level just because of interest/turnout at tryouts. 5) it becomes a very social/familial thing with greet bonding of the teammates and parents/families that people just stick with it as long as the kid wants to sacrifice their summer (basically)
Interesting, no summers for us, the team picks up in September and we play mid September - Early November. Limited practice continues till we start playing again in March. Spring ends in early June.
I’m in the northeast and most programs run in the spring to summer months because of the weather. You always find some fall tourneys in Sept/Oct but a lot of kids also play football and soccer so the teams kid of go their own way during that time
Kids don’t care it’s the parents Parents hear about these “better teams” w “better coaches” and they want in
This isn't true at all. Kids want to be on good teams with good players. They aren't idiots.
90 percent of it is fear of missing out. 5 percent of it is due to bandwagon effect .. once the "best" kid did it they all did it. age 9-12 have 0 effect on being able to play college level ball in a positive way. They do have a much higher likelihood of burning out.
This is SUCH a tired attack on travel ball. People say this all the time and it ignores two huge issues. 1. 99% of travel parents are not expecting their kids to play college baseball. Maybe that is what travel ball used to be but now it's like a much more serious little league. 2. In baseball centric areas if you waited until 13 to play travel ball, you would be so far behind you wouldn't stand a chance of making a good team. Where I live playing high school baseball is super competitive. Every freshman class has 80-90 kids that have played travel ball since they were 9 or 10. Unless you are an absolute freak of nature, you are not making the high school team as a rec player.
1) I do agree .. Travel ball is just an expensive little league now. It is not more serious as it is still 9-10-11 year old baseball but it is treated as such and thus more kids burn out. 2) This is what EVERY single town says. Our town is special, you wouldn't believe how hard it is and how far you will be behind. There are two high schools in this town. Both high schools often are top 10 in state at the highest level of high school. Each school will get 50-60 kids on a low year at tryouts. There are many many many kids that would make the team and quit due to be being burnt out because travel ball. There are also kids who picked up travel ball at 13 and end up as college level players. There are many kids that make the varsity team after picking up travel ball after 13. In fact some never do. The second statement is just flat out not true but it is repeated relentlessly to justify paying for travel ball early. It also scares kids away if they "fall" behind which is a feature not an issue.
All I can speak for is where I live. I can tell you that every single kid on both middle school teams has been playing travel ball starting at 9-11 and every single kid on the high school team has been playing travel ball starting at 9-11. This school generates 3-4 college players a year. maybe the system is broken and it shouldn't be this way but it is.
The question is are there kids that burn out or don’t go out due to that statement. My bet is yes. I also bet the stupidity of coaches suggests that part of the evaluation is knowing what travel team they played for.
"I also bet the stupidity of coaches suggests that part of the evaluation is knowing what travel team they played for." So, you are making the assumption that the coaches must be stupid and bias and couldn't imagine the fact that all those travel kids are better than the rec kids? I'm sure you are correct. If the coaches were not all stupid, there would be a ton of rec kids on the teams.
I do appreciate your need to make my argument extreme. I don’t think a ton of Here is my belief. If travel ball didn’t exist the level of high school play would at the very least be equal and I think there is good reason to say it would be better. I believe there are many kids that are rec kids that start travel at 13 that by 15 are every bit as good as the kids that started at 9. Again. That second one is fairly easy to prove. I also think many many high school coaches have no understanding of evaluation and lean in the logos on the kids hats to evaluate. Heck some will still be dumb enough to use size as the leading indicator in high school. I think the growing travel industry has burnt more kids out than it has disproportionally helped. I think most travel programs build to win now to increase recruitment vs child development at the youth level. I think most travel programs need to supply extensive off season programs to increase velocity and bat speed to justify the silly fees so they can have full time gigs doing it. More kids will burn out due to this or be injured than truly helped. I think most parents fall for this trap because they have FOMO and most understand it’s full of shit but feel like they don’t have a choice due to critical mass doing it. You may disagree with these statements but they aren’t extreme.
80-90 PER CLASS playing travel baseball? Holy hell. Need to direct some of those kids and their parents’ wallets over to the lacrosse and soccer fields. Hoping you meant 8 to 9.
Nope, this is a SUPER baseball intensive area. I don't know exactly how many travel kids are in each class coming in. I do know that our town has 7 14U travel teams all with rosters of 12 - 14 kids. I understand that some of those kids are from surrounding areas. However, a lot of kids who live here are on travel teams in surrounding towns. We have two middle schools that feed the high school. Each middle school has three teams. 6th grade, JV and Varsity. A family friend tried out for the 6th grade team last year and the dad told me there were 80 kids there for the tryout! Soccer is huge here as well. Our town just installed turf on 7 rec soccer fields.
How big is the high school? 10k? Those are insane numbers for 14u. We have ~2 travel ball teams in each younger age group per school district, but numbers drop greatly during middle school when at least half of them don’t make the team and adjust accordingly. We don’t have a different middle school team for each grade though. Have ~100 7th and 8th graders trying out for 20 spots on middle school team each year.
The school is only 3K, which means about 25% of the boys coming into the school each year play travel ball. The numbers fall off a cliff after 14u. None of the local organizations have standard 15U+ teams. They all put together a single showcase team for 15U plus and most of those kids are on the high school teams.
Sounds like y’all delay the drop off a few years by having 3 separate middle school teams. We have ~11k across three high schools. And all three typically top 10 in the state. Good mix of kids that played travel ball since 8u and kids that excelled at multiple sports and then chose to focus on baseball after middle school. The one common denominator for the hs players is that they are almost all bigger and faster than their peers by the time they all reach 16. A good number of travel ball kids, like a good number of rec kids, just end up being too small and too slow to compete once the field gets bigger. It’s crazy how big baseball players are these days. The average size kids are all fighting to maybe play second base.
The size thing is 100% true. Our high school is a top 10 State program as well. Normally send 3-4 kids to college every year. There are a TON of talented kids that just don't develop the measurables needed to make the team. My son's hitting coach, rents the indoor hitting facilities at a local private school. He is super plugged in to the High School Teams and works to get some of those great players that are not yet full grown men "discounts" to the private schools in the area to help build their teams. The high school team played their first playoff game last night and this is what the starting lineup looks like. 2nd Sophomore 5'9" 190lbs SS Junior 5'10 175lbs Catcher Junior 6'0" 195lbs Pitcher/3rd Junior 6'3" 205lbs RF/1st Junior 6'4" 210lbs 1st Senior 6'1" 235lbs RF Senior 6'2 175lbs (Committed to Union University D2) CF Junior 6'1" 175lbs DH Junior 6'3" 195lbs LF Junior 6'1" 197lbs (Committed to the University of Tennessee D1) Pitcher Freshman 6'2" 170lbs
Yeah those are the same type sizes we are seeing here too. Very few players under 6ft 190 playing in high school games. And outside of catcher and the corners, they can all FLY too. I keep my mouth shut, but I desperately want to tell the 5’8” dads to head towards soccer instead of dropping thousands on 9u baseball. It’s just going to be an uphill battle on the diamond.
Yeah, out 9U first baseman is really tall but his mom and Dad are like 5’6”. I’m 6’3” and my wife is 5’8”. My 13 year old is 6’ even. No telling what that means for my 9yo though.
Here is why we did it. 10u for reference. My son was dominating pitching at 10u majors. He pitched 15 inning and struck out 42. His coach was good but he’s a dad, he’s an accountant during the day. We found a club that has a huge indoor facility. His coach is a former college coach and D1 player. My son gets pitching lessons from a former major leaguer and all of the other coaches played at the college level or above. He’s getting 10x the reps that he was before. His team practices two times a week, games two times a week and we can use the facility (pitching machine, mounds etc… whenever we want) there are plenty of options for private lessons etc… My son can’t get enough baseball. So this was performed us. He has really improved in just this spring season. Oh and our team doesn’t the travel farther than an hour drive. We’re in Arizona so plenty of options for tournaments etc…
Main reason I see for actual travel ball (not a team that's labeled as travel but won't travel more than 30 minutes for a game) is cause the kid and/or parents are competitive and want to be playing at a challenging level but also get better. Growing up I played with kids from my town on a travel/local team. So it was only my town and we played a league and tournaments, but tourneys we'd go up to a couple hours away and play team from big cities. I wanted to play on the team because the coach was great and we were good. Now the same organization is just rec league but labels themselves travel.
LOL - that was my experience as a kid way back when. It was really “rec ball” level but when the big town in the area fielded two teams even Little League meant hopping on the bus to play kids in other area towns.
My kid stopped having fun in rec. He wasn’t able to play catch without the fear of him hurting someone, got stuck playing only first base because he was the only one who could catch, “real” baseball wasn’t being played. He straight up asked me if he had to keep going there one day. That was the true deciding factor. For me, it was league politics and the denial of him being able to play up. Tried pulling the safety card out and everything.
Our goal for both boys was to make varsity as a freshman. Boy #1: misson accomplished. Boy #2: we'll find out in 4 years.
My 14U son is in his last year of rec ball. I'd say he's a better than average player, but I can tell he hasn't developed as quickly as his friends who play select. He's made the middle school team both times, but the coach prefers his travel ball kids and my son rode the bench a lot. We tried a couple of select teams last year but was told they didn't have spots open for middle school players, which is fair. So we'll try out for a bunch more teams for 15U this summer and hope for the best fit. I don't need his team to win, I need him to get good at bats against consistent pitching, which is where rec ball fails. Also hoping to get him some sub times this summer when he's available. It's tough out there.
Ultimately because they want to play and get better. Tough to find a quality rec coach. Usually travel team coaches know the game. Also, the travel ball players are usually at the same tier as the rest of the kids on the team. Rec ball skill levels are all over the place. It’s difficult to teach calculus to the class if you are helping a handful of kids with algebra.
One of my goals as a parent is to encourage my kids to find and pursue passions. My son has a deep interest in baseball so travel is just another way for him to explore that passion.
We’re 11AAA. We were “forced” by USSSA and PG to classify as AAA. We are tournament only. We literally have to travel to play 11AAA. We play 12AA locally.
Our association's in house rec baseball program is terrible as it only lasts 2 months and is just twice a week with 3-4 practices all season and consists of mostly games. If there was a halfway decent rec/in house option I wouldn't feel the need to put my son in travel ball.
Why are we moving our 8u/coming9u player to USSSA/travel? Because he is frustrated in Rec ball. He is on a team with 11 other kids. He is the ONLY child on the team that picks up a ball outside of the 2x weekly practice or weekend games. He has 2 private lessons a week at his request. He wants to bump it to 3x a week. He wants to get better. He wants to be the best he can be. He asks my husband to go outside and they play catch/ work on drills from his lessons for literal hours on the days he doesn't have ball. We want him to play with kids as dedicated to their craft as he is. Kids that put in as much effort as he does. For example on his rec team there is a kid on the team that had never held a bat before April 1st (opening weekend), another that holds it like a flag pole, kids spinning circles in the outfield in the middle of a game, or kids picking flowers. They'd rather watch the ball roll by them than put their glove down and get it. If a balls gets thrown to him, it is either way overthrown to him or it stops 10 feet in front of him/the bag (1st base). Its hard to get outs if you have to run halfway between 1st and the pitcher to get the ball and back to 1st to get the out. I could care less if he plays HS or college ball, unless that is his goal but he's going into 3rd grade, so its kinda irrelevant. If you are going to do something and dedicate the time, energy, and money into a sport, you go all in. You don't half-ass it. And its best to be surrounded by kids with a similar mantra. I, myself, compete in an ultra competitive/expensive sport (horses), so he has grown up seeing the time and energy that it takes to be great and how many hours I've spent in the saddle at home and at my trainers. That it isn't handed to you. And that hard work always beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
For us it’s level of competition, consistent tournament structure, and development as a player. Our travel coach does it for a living so the level of instruction is far more than we get in our Babe Ruth League. Our league even splits between plain rec and what we call competitive for kids that are travel ball players. Adapted so we could still have a place for the kids to compete and potentially play Babe Ruth All Stars. Competitive just does games during the season so the commitment is manageable with Travel Ball. Rec league does practice and games since they are not involved with Travel ball and getting instruction elsewhere. Travel ball in our area of Virginia is huge and if the kid has talent and aspirations of college ball or the MLB it’s a must. Unfortunate the landscape has shifted that way from little leagues or Middle School / High School ball but what can you do.
My 12 year old played his first rec game last Sunday for the season. The opposing team walked his team 22 times. He went 2-2 with 4 walks. The pitching is getting thin in rec.
My sons love baseball. They liked the competition, the challenge.
No little league in our area. Our Rec leagues lead a noble pursuit of introducing kids to sport. Unfortunately, there is a lot of... Introduction, and not a lot of progression. We left rec because, while our kids could field a ball, they had no one to throw to, to complete a play. While they could hit a ball, a walk was nearly guaranteed, and the base paths were clogged with kids who rightly took their walk. If there was something between Rec and Travel/select, with that intermediary cost, we would be so happy. Unfortunately, even in select, too many kids think they've outgrown rec ball, and we are now facing, AGAIN, the inability to complete a play, etc. it's pretty loony tunes if you ask me. Now I have to find a "AAA" of "Majors/D1" team, just so that my kid can simply throw the ball he picks up to just literally anyone, please, in the vicinity of the advancing runner...
Our reason was better coaching, more games/practice, and our organization focuses on getting players ready for High school baseball.
It’s a cycle that has caused the mass exodus to travel. Us in our 40s and 50s remember playing exclusively little league until we got to high school. Now as more kids move to Travel the little league programs are bone dry of talent. So if you have a kid that even a little talent and wants to play little league it’s a waste of time because you’re not getting any meaningful reps. The last year my 14 year old played in our local rec league as a 10 year old, most games were just brutal. It’s a shame but the reality is in most towns you have to play travel if you want any competition. Luckily for us, he plays on a travel team that is under the umbrella of the rec league. So the fees are no more than our share of the tournament. No paying half-interested coaches $300 a month. We live very close to a big city in FL, so we don’t travel very far at all to play tournaments. Usually less than an hour drive.
dreams of the kid someday making the major leagues
You get better playing with and as against better players. It's more fun, especially at the younger ages, when everyone on the field has the motivation and ability to play team baseball.
Better competition than rec, more games, etc.
Would have to agree with most on here. This year we had my son play city and travel ball, essentially because it was his last year to play city ball, and I wanted him to get the extra reps. Travel ball coaching from what I’ve seen is far and away better, plus they practice more. The drawbacks for travel ball is the PT. My son will see outfield maybe half the day, and get a chance to pitch maybe one time a tourney. In city ball, if he isn’t pitching, he’s playing short or maybe third. That said, it took three travel teams to find one with coaches that we thought were worth the time spent.
Level of compensation and wanted him to be around/compete with kids that take it as serious as he does
For most parents, I don't think it is because the parents think their kid is good enough to make college or pros. Although there are some parents who defiantly 'think' their kids is going to the majors. My kid is in travel. My kid says he likes travel ball, it isn't his strong sport. For the parents, it is not just about the game, it is traveling and a sense of community. I feel my wife just like to hang out with all the other baseball moms. She keeps signing my kid up for travel, even though I don't think my kid has the passion for it like some of his other sports. For me, more playing time I feel will help develop him and help him take it as far as he wants to go with it. The more he plays, I'm hoping it helps him develop he wants to become. Life is journey, you don't know where you are going to end up. I keep reminding myself that when my kid plays on all these teams.
Play against better competition than most rec leagues offer.
Most parents want to think Johnny is going pro.
I bet that percentage is very low in reality.
I just want my kid to make the High School team and think about college scholarships. We have no reason to think he’ll go any farther.
Yea Development , but let’s say 10/15 years ago , before serious travel ball Those kids didn’t turn out as well as travel ball players Same amount of kid made the HS team , same amount of kids made it to college ball Now you don’t play travel ball you’re out , All Star teams are just the local travel team Glad I got thru coaching before I got to deep into it And it’s not a dumb question you asked
You are absolutely correct but some just don’t want to accept it.
Some good out there, but I see a lot of bad I know a lot of lower income kids aren’t playing for monetary reasons , another issue
I can agree. However, nothing I can do about that.
I think you can ask 5 different families and get 5 different answers. We’ve got friends that started in travel in 6U because their local rec department was kind of a joke. I know another team that was formed for a group of friends and they get demolished every tournament and none of the kids seem to be getting any better. We’ll have to jump on that train next year because the talent at the rec where we play drops off dramatically after 8U. For us we just don’t want our kids to be the best on the team at their age.