re: My Non-travel ball playing nephew just made the HS baseball team

Travel ball is such a hot button issue because it's where the rich people put their kids so that instead of genetics and God shaping the available talent, a checking account does. Sure to hurt feelings, but it's the truth.

There are non traveling highly competitive local options available, but little jimmy and his noodle arm have to go pitch in Texas or he'll fall behind.

If the shoe fits....... Love y'all!

So it's where you can basically pay to feel like your kid is good enough to be "selected?"

It explains so much about the insecurity level I've experienced from adults down here

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or a full ride to a D-1 school of his choosing

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negative ghostrider not in baseball

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Bregman gets that full ride in the Southland or a similar conference...

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You made my point.... And no he probably still doesn't get it b/c that means they lose out on 3-4 other kids they could've had. You have basically 11-12 schollys to field an entire team. It ain't happenin

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I have.

And I haven't come across a college or high school coach who thought that highly of it. Most begrudgingly accept it as the status quo but almost all of them to a man say that kids know less and less about how to play the game. In short, they think they play too many games and spend far too little time in practice and understanding situations.

Have you gotten different feedback?

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Absolutely none of that has to do with what I posted.

I don't think of travel baseball being necessary or as the "status quo". I played travel baseball and rec baseball because I enjoyed it. Travel baseball can be a fun thing to do and doesn't just have to be just a way to make high school teams and get scholarships.

But the argument you entered into didn't even have anything to do with that so I don't know why you went that route with your argument.

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Mainly because travel ball has become so watered down the competition is much like what they would find at their local parks. You still have teams that require tryouts and only select the best but many travel ball teams is just a coach who found a few parents willing to pay out the arse so their kids can have a custom jersey.

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this is very true. When I was growing up (I'm from a large metro area fwiw), there were only a handful of travel baseball teams in the area. By the time my younger cousins were playing around 8-10 years later it seemed like there were at least a couple dozen teams in the area and they played twice as many games. I think it's gotten rather ridiculous. IIRC we played, on average, 3 games a week and had 2 practices a week. I thought that was a lot

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Travel ball is such a hot button issue because it's where the rich people put their kids

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Yup.

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so that instead of genetics

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Yup

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and God

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haping the available talent, a checking account does. Sure to hurt feelings, but it's the truth.

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pretty true

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yet 30% of the MLB is dominican / Hispanic with no travel teams

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A. They have travel ball teams from Latin America in Utrip

B. They have baseball academies backed by MLB teams starting at a young age. Every single team has an academy in the Dominican.

How good do you think you would be if all you did was play one sport? No education, just took ground balls all day.

It seems like there is a ton of misinformation out there regarding travel ball. This is my oldest boys third year of organized travel ball and we have never played in a tournament which included any more than a 4 game guarantee.(2 pool games and double elimination).
I will admit that some parents carry it way too far and take it way too seriously. To say that it has helped both of my boys become better baseball players is an understatement though. Not only do they receive more physical reps the mental aspect seems to be the biggest improvement. Not only that half the kids in local leagues could care less about being there. They are happy to get a uniform and go strike out. I don't push either of mine to play that is totally their own decision and if they ever want to stop then that is fine with me too.

The biggest knock I have are parents of pitchers pushing their kids to throw breaking balls at 9 years old. Coming from the parent of a young pitcher there is no way in hell I'm letting my kid throw 90 pitches a game with 40 of those being breaking balls. I witnessed a kid throw 3 innings this past weekend against us that threw at least 2 curves per batter for every batter he faced. Most of these kids never learn how to locate a fastball until they are in high school if then.