re: Orange Beach USSSA World Series

quote:

---

I think back to my time as a little leaguer. My relatively small town had 6 teams in the league. We'd play 1-2 games a week for about 6 weeks with a mid-season weekend tournament and the playoffs at the end of the year. My dad never lost his shite about any of the games. In fact, he was (quietly) very happy if my team went 0-2 in the tournaments because it meant he could avoid sitting in 100 degree heat all weekend and not fricking up the apparent main focus of his weekends, which was cutting the grass.

---

I wish rec ball around here was like that, with a tournament and playoffs within the rec.

As it is, if you don’t make the all star team you get 6 or 8 games max, which at the 9-10 year old level means 16-20 at bats and 1 or 2 chances to make a play in the field if you’re lucky.

A couple of years of all-stars, paying 3 days of entry fees at FOUR “tune up” tournaments has convinced me that rec baseball has become an excuse for as many towns as possible to host an all-star tournament as a fund-raiser.

And 90% of the kids don’t make all-stars and therefore get almost no real chance to play baseball. Then we wonder why people either play “select” ball or just stay home and play video games.