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re: Tournament Baseball is a scam
Posted on 1/11/09 at 12:30 pm to SPEEDY
Posted on 1/11/09 at 12:30 pm to SPEEDY
Well, I'm going to say something nice about travel ball since everyone's killing it.
I played on a "travel team" of sorts (we played Rough Cut in Baton Rouge, but probably played 90 games total from April to July). Our coach was great...son played for LSU. We didn't have to pay out of the arse, raised most of the money ourselves, and got to play a ton of baseball against really good teams. We won USSSA Majors as 14 yr olds, NABF as 13 yr olds, but I promise if we hadn't won those tournaments it would have still been one of the best experiences of my life.
Two years with that team were two of the funnest of my life. We worked hard, but it was fun. We just loved playing baseball, and we got to travel all across the country and spend our summers with our best friends. I got a lot out of it...probably would have never played college basketball if I hadn't learned all that I learned from it.
I know people take it overboard...but that's going to happen with anything. FWIW, every kid on that team had a D1 scholarship offer in some sport (6 or 7 baseball, a couple football, me basketball). And there were no chronic arm injuries from throwing curves (probably never threw one until 13 yrs old)
I played on a "travel team" of sorts (we played Rough Cut in Baton Rouge, but probably played 90 games total from April to July). Our coach was great...son played for LSU. We didn't have to pay out of the arse, raised most of the money ourselves, and got to play a ton of baseball against really good teams. We won USSSA Majors as 14 yr olds, NABF as 13 yr olds, but I promise if we hadn't won those tournaments it would have still been one of the best experiences of my life.
Two years with that team were two of the funnest of my life. We worked hard, but it was fun. We just loved playing baseball, and we got to travel all across the country and spend our summers with our best friends. I got a lot out of it...probably would have never played college basketball if I hadn't learned all that I learned from it.
I know people take it overboard...but that's going to happen with anything. FWIW, every kid on that team had a D1 scholarship offer in some sport (6 or 7 baseball, a couple football, me basketball). And there were no chronic arm injuries from throwing curves (probably never threw one until 13 yrs old)
1
Posted on 1/11/09 at 1:14 pm to Stewie Griffin
My son played travel ball from 10-13. He played on a team from Central Louisiana that was very competitive. Had a great time, the team got along great and the kids had a wonderful experience. Played great baseball, won many tournaments, and were competitive with the best teams in USSSA, got to compete in two World Series, one in Houston and one in Los Angeles.
There are down sides, the cost, every weekend playing somewhere, and the kids taking it too seriously, but overall it was a great experience for my son. My wife and I loved it, and the baseball he was exposed to was far superior to what he would have encountered in "league" ball.
To each his own, travel ball has its negatives, and there are certainly scrupulous coaches and parents who are scavenging other teams for top players and actually "recruiting" some kids off of other teams. Deplorable, but it was also good life lesson for the kids, even though they were a little young to try to figure out why their good friend, who also happened to be the best player on the team was going to go play for another team, one of our competitors in Lafayette. There is no telling what was promised to that kids mom(she was a single parent) to get that kid to play in Lafayette. It never bothered me, but was confusing to the kids.
Overall, travel ball has its ups and downs, more good than bad, imv. The biggest loser in the development of travel ball is the loss of the best players and parents to travel ball from "league" ball. The level of "league" ball has gone down significantly in the last 10 years.
There are down sides, the cost, every weekend playing somewhere, and the kids taking it too seriously, but overall it was a great experience for my son. My wife and I loved it, and the baseball he was exposed to was far superior to what he would have encountered in "league" ball.
To each his own, travel ball has its negatives, and there are certainly scrupulous coaches and parents who are scavenging other teams for top players and actually "recruiting" some kids off of other teams. Deplorable, but it was also good life lesson for the kids, even though they were a little young to try to figure out why their good friend, who also happened to be the best player on the team was going to go play for another team, one of our competitors in Lafayette. There is no telling what was promised to that kids mom(she was a single parent) to get that kid to play in Lafayette. It never bothered me, but was confusing to the kids.
Overall, travel ball has its ups and downs, more good than bad, imv. The biggest loser in the development of travel ball is the loss of the best players and parents to travel ball from "league" ball. The level of "league" ball has gone down significantly in the last 10 years.
This post was edited on 1/11/09 at 1:16 pm
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