re: Travel teams eroding community baseball

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My Dixie Youth All Star summers were some of the funnest and most memorable summers of my life.

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Same here..I did both back then, and the way that travel has taken over is good for those that are better athletes.

Instead of only getting to be involved with that 1 month of baseball for all stars, you get from March-End of June...Its definitely something the kids look forward to, sleeping in hotels when they travel further away, and getting to be with their friends all weekend long...it is some of the funnest times of their lives...

Theres nothing wrong with the way its going these days, its actually going in a good direction. The kids that arent as great can play more and develop on the rec level and if they become good enough they may play travel ball.

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My Dixie Youth All Star summers were some of the funnest and most memorable summers of my life. The park ball, the All-Star tryouts, and then traveling with the All Star team with kids from all the different parks was a blast.

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That is essentially what the better travel teams are doing but instead of doing it a month or so they do it all season. I have had 2 boys play travel ball and 1 that had no desire to play travel ball. It isn't for every player but we have made life long memories and friends through travel ball, most of these friends are people my family would probably have never met. My last son played the most travel ball, started as a pitcher only 2 years in high school and just graduated and while he had a few offers to play college ball he decided it was time to do some fishing and move forward with his education but he wouldn't trade any of the memories or games. My point is you can have a good time with travel ball without breaking the bank and/or ruining a kid.

Do you even have kids? Boys, generally, like to play.

Yes, I have 2 boys. Oldest is 19 months, loves hitting off a tee and chasing me with a ball. And he really did that pitching thing I said.

Here in KY I see a lot of different travel team philosophies and costs. Here in Lexington, Babe Ruth is on a life line. Nobody is playing anymore and it's depressing. Part of the reason is that the good coaches are getting paid to do travel and have less of a hassle than with the league. I finally made the flip to travel ball and coach for the least expensive programs in the area. I don't take the team very far from home because it's not necessary. We aren't a nationally elite program but we do win and give the more expensive programs hell when we play. Travel teams aren't the devil. You just need to make sure you research and get the right fit for your child. I see people pay $3000-$4000 a season to play and think that is guaranteeing a scholarship for their child? Not realizing they could have just saved that money and paid for a chunk of school.

This progression started around a decade ago in rural NW GA and hasn't slowed down since. There were travel ball teams before that, obviously, but I remember being the first player in my age group from my county to play travel ball heavily. Played rec growing up, all stars and all that. Then dabbled in some fall leagues around age 12 where the umpires actually coached a travel team (based about 45 min from house) and essentially used the fall leagues as a recruiting tool.

I finally decided to give it a shot in 8th grade at age 14. Interesting year. You could play JV as an 8th grader in my school system. In a single season I played 14U rec, travel ball and for the JV. Got about 90 games in total that spring/summer and about 10-15 more that fall. Should have been playing travel ball at a much younger age, but we didn't know much about it until then.

The effect on your high school team is dramatic. I was the only guy on my team that played year round and it showed - we were terrible.

After my experience, my brother started playing travel ball at age 7. My father coached it and made it a point to get as many local kids as possible on the team for development purposes (he also coached my brother's rec team from age 8 to 14). Once my brother got to high school, they made 2 playoff appearances. 2 of the 3 in the last 30 years. The results are undeniable.

tl;dr version: your kid needs to be playing travel ball if he's serious about baseball.

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, but if not...I don't think I ever insinuated that the parent's should make the decision. I said if the kid is serious about it. If he wants to try it because he loves baseball them let him do it for a year. Reassess the situation at the end of the year. If he's less interested, tone it down.

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No, spending money for your kid to be on a travel ball team when they have no skill set is the biggest waste of money.

Develop skills, practice, play rec, school ball.....if your kid is good enough, travel ball will come to him.

If not, give your kids the skill set to make the high school team. The key is developing a program.....and letting your kid develop at their own speed.

A kid that is average at best won't get any better standing in the outfield for 5 games over a two day period.

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I think its all about getting your kid to enjoy playing the game. If a kid enjoys baseball enough he will strive to get better at it on his own, without any prodding

I knew several other kids growing up whose parents pushed them too hard in baseball. Travel and select ball was like a full time job to them, and they ended up hating it and quitting by the time they got finished high school. To them it became another chore, and quitting was kind of them being rebellious.

If you want your kid to get good at baseball, set up conditions to where they enjoy it. If they enjoy it and want to play, they will want to get better on their own.

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We also had the two age groupings. So, there was 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14. I made the All-Stars when I was "older" in the age bracket, but would typically only make the tryouts when I was younger in the age bracket. But, when you were younger, you didn't mind because you knew your time was coming the following year.

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Same. When I was growing up everyone played in the rec league. One year we had 18 teams in our age group alone. Select/Travel ball was a foreign concept at the time and all the good players played in the Rec League. Had some great times together.

It wasn't really until I turned 13 where parents started to put their kids on select teams. So when we got to the 13-14 age group there started to be cast offs. But then we all merged right back again in high school a couple years later and the rec kids were just as good as the select kids, in fact some select kids didn't even make the team. And the best players on our team didn't play select.

I never played select because my parents couldn't afford it. My dad played minor league baseball though so he was able to teach me how to pitch and hit which was enough for me.

Agreed. In my experience with my team and my brother's team there was no cutting or tryouts so to speak. The only time the parents changed their kid's team was typically due to travel convenience, i.e. playing for a team that played most of their tournaments closer to their hometown.

However, I'm aware it's not quite this harmonic in many cases.