Legendary youth baseball coach lays the smack down on travel ball

I keep telling my brother, after about 35 games in a season, there are seriously diminishing returns. Not to mention all the other travel ball bullshite. A kid is going to be as good as he'll be.

It comes down to this: if your kid (NOT you) loves baseball then let him play as much as he can. If your kid only likes it a little bit the. He should probably not travel and play all those games to avoid burnout.

If your kid is talented he will get noticed and drafted or given a schollie regardless of where he plays.

One of the reasons why rec ball is considered "bad" by so many is because the best players even down to the "sorta good" players are under constant pressure to play travel ball. So they abandon the league.

Think about the rec league team you played on growing up. Chances are there were maybe two guys on that team who were really good, just like all the other teams. Now imagine the two good players from every team left and made a single team. That's what is happening to the quality of rec leagues right now.

What people need to understand is that these good kids who have left rec ball, elevated the play of the other kids because they both learned from them and were led by them. And most of the time, the parents of these "good" kids are the quality parents that push rec leagues toward quality, and form the base from which good rec coaches emerge.

When I coached rec ball, my roster was under constant siege from travel teams, which aggressively recruited my kids year after year. Early in the game, at the 8 -12 year old level, I lost my players left and right to travel teams. By age 13-14, though, I had players leave travel teams to come to me, because they were tired of it. I actually drew kids to my roster with the promise that we would never travel.

Still, I believe travel ball has its place. And I don't think it's inherently bad. I don't place all of rec league's problems on travel ball. That wouldn't be right or fair. But I will tell proponents of travel ball to quit fracturing teams at the rec level. They either don't realize the effect they have, or they don't care. It goes way beyond the one or two players they take from a rec team.

Anybody know what youth baseball is like in countries like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic? Is it at all comparable to our travel ball system? Considering the number of foreign players in the majors (a quarter I believe), other systems seem to work just fine.

Is there a legendary travel ball coach to offer an opposing view?

These are personal decisions to each family, who enjoy active lifestyles and making friends and memories along the way. Sure, some folks get caught up but it's not most.

I've coached both and quite frankly most of the serious problems I saw were at the tee ball level, where many folks had yet to learn proper ballpark etiquette.