re: Can someone explain the different Usssa classifications

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Coaches would love to do this, but it's tough to do when Marucci Elite, Team Louisiana, Lousiana Knights, EvoShield, etc. come calling. Hard for a kid to turn down those guys and opportunities to play in front of college coaches every weekend.

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We play in the same tournaments as all those teams in front of the same college coaches. Only difference is our kids pay half the price.

2D Sports, Marucci, Southeast Showcase Series, and all those other organizations usually put their schedules out in January. We pick the ones that best fit our schedule and sign up early. Our summer schedule is usually complete before the end of March

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JJ27

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I do agree that those organizations offer good coaching and provide a great opportunity for kids whose coaches don't keep them together

yeah yeah you in BR?

Sounds a lot like my old school's program.

When I played in it were still playing just summer league. The year after I left they started traveling together playing in wwba and other huge tourneys.

Made a huge difference for the program.

Not accurate at all if you go by USSSA points. That's just teams that played the most UTrip tournaments/paid the most money. A more accurate gauge is the Power Rating.

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yeah yeah you in BR?

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Yeah, this is my 3rd year in BR. Before this I was in Miami for 5 years

It is important to remember....

No kid should swing a bat that cost more than his batting average. Nothing better than a kid that swings a $289 bat and hits .167...... At 7 years old!

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Maybe I took the OP wrong. The OP said, JUST in 7U there are x amount of differences and was asking for clarification. In 7u, yes AAA is the highest and there are good AA teams. Once you get to an appropriate age for travel ball, not 7 years old imo, the gap between Major and AA is unbelievable. I've seen major teams destroy even really good AAA teams. I've seen "Open" tournaments change their classification as soon as a Major called to enter.

AA is generally bad and typically just a money grab from coaches/organizations. Major teams can be honestly laughable with their recruitment/tactics. I saw an 11 year old flown in to pitch one game for a tournament in Shreveport. That's just crazy to me. He lost btw on a balk.

Then again, I don't think there's any reason to travel on a team until at least 11-12 years old. Gives you 3-4 years on a travel team to see better competition before high school.

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Team I played on as a kid was a local playground team that decided to play in travel ball tournaments because we were good. We ended up getting a few kids from around the area to try out, but almost all of the players on our team were from the same local park. We were just fricking legit. Played AAA and Major. Won a ton of tournaments and went to a World Series every year (Triple Crown WS 2x, Super Series WS, USSSA WS, and PONY WS).

And we didn't play year round either. I played other sports throughout the year.

I disagree with not playing travel ball until 11 or 12 years old. We would not have been tested at all if we played local playground ball. The playground competition was just not even close.

People here hate on "travel ball"... but it was a really fun time. Maybe my experience is different because we were essentially a local playground team that was competing with (and beating) the best teams at the highest classification who get kids from all over the area. It's probably over-zealous parents that give travel ball a bad name. But our group wasn't like that and we had fun.

My nephew plays Mad Dawgs (Austin), Pistols(Okla. City) and Fort Bend (Sugar Land). Just think its crazy to drag kids across the country at this age.

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People here hate on "travel ball"... but it was a really fun time. Maybe my experience is different because we were essentially a local playground team that was competing with (and beating) the best teams at the highest classification who get kids from all over the area. It's probably over-zealous parents that give travel ball a bad name. But our group wasn't like that and we had fun.

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Just saw your post...I think this paragraph is pretty fair. There can be good experiences with "travel ball" (like yours) but there are a lot of bad elements out there too.

In a perfect world, youth baseball with quality competition wouldn't be expensive, wouldn't require parents to rack up miles on the road, and would consist of kids playing with their friends. You can do all of that with good, well-run leagues with competent people in charge and nice facilities. Then at the end you can go to 1-2 out-of-town tourneys and have a blast.

I think one of them did. I know a lot of the kids and 2 of the coaches on the other one and their team was pooled from nine 9-10 year old rec teams. I believe 4 came off one team and all other teams in their league had 1 player and a couple had 2. They were just so strong pitching. I watched a few of their games and they had at least 6 pitchers that could throw very well. Our best pitcher would have been the 3rd or 4th best on their team. We only had four 9-10 teams to pool from. We do have a 10u travel team but we scrimmaged them twice and beat them pretty handily. There are 3 players on that team of 12 that would be on our all star team had they played rec this year.