The Failure of Travel Ball

Bottom line - playing games is not where you develop the fundamental skills. Going away every weekend and playing 5-6 games so we can get a "ring" does very little other than burn out the players doing it.

Now, in terms of comparing American travel ballers to players from Latin America, you also have to consider desire and environment. Lots of players from Latin America play ball all day because that's what they have to do. A kid playing travel ball on the weekends probably spends a lot of his time inside playing on his phone or Playstation or whatever.

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Bottom line - playing games is not where you develop the fundamental skills. Going away every weekend and playing 5-6 games so we can get a "ring" does very little other than burn out the players doing it.

Now, in terms of comparing American travel ballers to players from Latin America, you also have to consider desire and environment. Lots of players from Latin America play ball all day because that's what they have to do. A kid playing travel ball on the weekends probably spends a lot of his time inside playing on his phone or Playstation or whatever.

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It's this exactly. My daughter plays "academy" soccer. She practices about 3 hours a week and plays 2 games on the weekends. Kids in Argentina probably play +40 hours a week because they don't have anything else to do.

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Bottom line - playing games is not where you develop the fundamental skills. Going away every weekend and playing 5-6 games so we can get a "ring" does very little other than burn out the players doing it.

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Absolutely.

It’s similar with soccer overseas. The kids in the big academies in Europe aren’t traversing the damn country playing other academies as kids. They’re developing elite skills and maybe playing some intra squad scrimmages.

But American parents love games so they feel better about forking over all this money.

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The Failure of Travel Ball

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Interesting little Youtube video on how poorly developed American baseball players are compared to foreign ones. So much for mom and dad packing Brantley away for every out of state tournament when he is 8 years old.

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Did you even watch the video?

The carribean and central american players are plucked from the neighborhood fields at an early age and, "have to go all-in on baseball at a very early age."

To say the USA failure in the WBC is due to travel ball is just a terrible take.

Yes, travel ball has an abundance of negatives and failures. But equating travel ball to the failure of American players is dumb.

Most of those other countries do not have as many opportunities for competing sports as American youth... football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse are all pulling top-tier athletes and diluting the talent pool.

You don't have that in any other nation to the degree we have it here.

Travel and tournament ball is the death of moderately talented kids learning and getting better through rec play. It seems like you are either on a team of beginners or on a weekly tournament team.

All the video really talks about is how much more seriously the rest of the (baseball playing) world takes the WBC than the US. Which is not surprising. It also, in a related matter, discusses how much more intense the baseball training from a young age is in parts of Asia (most notably, Japan) and Latin America compared to the US.

But is that really surprising? Particularly in Latin America? The USA is unbelievably wealthy compared to the rest of the world. Our kids have countless entertainment options/opportunities available to them kids in much poorer countries simply don't have. Thus, baseball is not only one of the few(er) entertainment options for kids in Latin America, it's one of the few ways they can potentially earn substantial wealth. When baseball is one of the only ways "out" of the country, it stands to reason it is taken more seriously from an early age. Desperation often breeds desire.

US kids are probably still getting the best coaching/instruction available anywhere in the world. But they don't view baseball as their only chance for a comfortable livelihood. So they aren't dedicating their entire lives to becoming the best they can.

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Most of those other countries do not have as many opportunities for competing sports as American youth... football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse are all pulling top-tier athletes and diluting the talent pool. You don't have that in any other nation to the degree we have it here.

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Yeah they just have the most popular sport in the world pulling them away

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It doesn’t develop, anybody willing to pay can play, and it’s coached by a bunch of jackass dads with delusional dreams. Unfortunately, the Rec leagues in many places that aren’t a huge metro area are shite because those kids have gone to play travel forcing you to also do travel if you want your get to get any decent competition.

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fricking this.

Another thing I see right now with my own kids (and I am 100% guilty of and 100% contributing to this problem) is that parents are not willing to put their kids in a pool, let kids get drafted to a random team, and play with kids they may not know.

We kept my oldest’s team together because no parent wanted to risk joining a middle level league and not let the kids play with their friends. So instead we formed a kids pitch team that only plays tournaments and are taking serious lumps

Here's the pros & cons of travel baseball.

Pro's: Competition. You aren't going to get better playing in your local recreation league. You have to get out and play teams. It exposes kids to things they can learn and adapt to. I played travel in early to mid 2000s. I played for independent travel teams. Not these facility run teams that cost monthly mortgages to play for. We did car washes, can shakes, hosted our own tournaments. We did all of that to pay for the tournaments. Plus 14/16 players were going to the same school. The other two guys played with us because there was nothing else.

Cons: Someone was brilliant enough to see a business model with travel ball. Charge an arm and a leg. Take anyone willing to provide a check. Play tournaments every weekend to justify the fee. Pay coaches who are not in it for the kids, but get paid to clap their hands and say good job (This doesn't apply to everyone). Plus it's inflated the egos of not only every player, but every parent of every player. The entitlement is unbearable.

As Tony Robichaux said: Travel baseball itself is not the problem. It's the model it follows that's the problem.

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and the part that nobody brings up when mentioning Latin America. Weather.

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Eh, these travel ball kids have access to indoor training facilities. There’s several options where I live and I’m not in an area known for high rollers with a full cage in the backyard.