The case against Travel Ball by Dr. James Andrews

Glads its not just me that thinks these parents as a whole group are over board.

But my kid has the talent to make it to the majors

Great article. I have a friend that does this and they are absolutely miserable. Son plays travel ball and they are on the road almost every weekend year round as their kid (11 years old) plays both Winter and Summer League travel baseball.

She was complaining that they haven't been home for Thanksgiving and Easter and how they never have time to clean because they "have" to go to these tournaments.

Tried to tell her it was OK to not go crazy. even told her that her son complains about not getting to be with his friends. Her response was "he complains sometimes but he really loves it, he just says that, he doesn't mean it."


Really sad to see parents like that. And yes she is already talking about his "future" in baseball because of how good he is.

I've seen this before. My son is part of a motion study that Andrews does where they follow young pitchers from 9 until they quit. They are trying to find a causal effect to youth arm injuries.


Travel ball is like anything else. Done right with the right intentions, its great. Done for the wrong reasons, its awful. My son wanted to play baseball and that's all he ever wanted to do. We tried to get him into other sports, but he just didn't care for anything like he did baseball. He didn't make the freshman team at high school this year (daddy ball). He's working out and gonna keep trying until he makes it. At least that what he says!

Yeah my nephew is into that. When I first found out I couldn't believe they spend their entire weekends traveling to different cities for kid baseball. It's like he's a semi pro or something.

When I was a kid we just went down to the local park.

my kid got burned out of travel ball at age 11. Thank God, b/c those parents were terrible to be around. She played travel soccer a bit longer, but it seemed like the parents were less jerky in soccer. Maybe the lack of knowledge of the game/no personal history playing made the difference.

My son plays travel ball in the Spring (we are not a hard core travel ball team) and we recently (2 months ago) had a scrimmage with another local team. There was a little boy on the opposing team that was throwing curveballs at 9 years old and had been having private lessons with a local former collegiate player. Of course, we, as parents, were impressed at how our boys couldn't hit anything he threw (which was curveballs mixed with high velocity fast balls), but we also knew that our kids didn't need to be pressured into doing something that was potentially arm killing. Our coaches and parents aren't that dumb.
Needless to say, that kid had to have surgery on his arm the very next week.

Vlad and his fellow Dominicans did just fine playing with a stick and milk carton and no travel ball.

thanks for posting this. Very good read