re: Who actually likes “travel ball”

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I'm not in the travel ball age range yet with my kids. Oldest boy is currently 7 and playing in little league-esque league in Gwinnett. the 7/8 yr old league is a hybrid coach pitch player pitch league. Each team probably has 1 true stud, a couple of other 8 year olds that do really well, and then a number of kids who aren't very good (including my kid right now).

It's fun, the games are competitive, and I think they got in about 15 games this year.

I grew up in the 90s before travel ball was really a thing and our city had probably 4 or 5 Little League affiliates and were based on where you lived, similar to school. So typically, the kids in your league had a good chance of going to your school. My favorite memories of baseball as a kid were having my parents drop me off at the park on Saturdays and spending all day eating concessions, watching the other games, playing in my own game, and trying to impress the softball girls. You'd then show up to school on Monday morning bragging about winning/hitting a homerun/getting the win as a pitcher. We played 21 games as well, which felt like a lot.

A-Ball (my leagues equivalent of "Majors") was a 4 year league from 9-12 with each team having 3 9 yr olds, 3 10s, 3 11s, and 3 12s. So if you got drafted as a 9 yr old you stayed on the same team. Loved moving up in tenure/skill every year and finally becoming the guy as a 12 yr old. Kinda felt like a mini high school team experience.

All of those memories have nothing to do with playing in tournaments and getting opportunities to play better competition. Would love it if my kids could have similar memories and not worry so much about the travel stuff.

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man you absolutely can do that. Rec is still a very viable option so long as you and the kid understand it comes to an end usally after 12. at least in louisiana. texas is different apparently because they keep 25 or so players on the roster for freshman compared to around 10-12 for louisiana

my oldest, he has played little league and has a blast during games. he is sad knowing its coming to an end here in the next week but he also is into other things and baseball is not his main sport.

with travel you can still play other sports dont let others tell you that its not possible

i can sum up a lot of louisiana higher level travel ball like this

1) its about 1200-2k per year

2) travel is not that much unless you choose as a team too. between lafayette, crowley, BR, alexandria there is a tournament to play in atleast every other weekend that will pit you against best competition across the state. espcially if you join the 2d select series which whole goal is to pit the best teams across the state against each other with less travel. if you are lower level ball, there is a tournament every weekend between LC and BR on I-10. every weekend.

3) the better orgs play 2 tournaments in the fall, 10-12 in the spring trying(notice i said trying) to do every other weekend. about 40-50 games total once reach kid pitch.

4) in my expierence and others here can attest to it, the way travel ball is painted on here is nothing like it is in real life. I mentioned maybe i am in a bubble due to the teams my kids are on...but yea nothing like portrayed here. most of the griping seems to come from people without kids in it which baffles me why they care.

5) in our expierence crazy compared to kids that stuck just in league. granted our kids work much harder than those kids, set goals and try and achieve those goals but crazy the growth difference. I here a lot of griping on here about the work some of these kids put in, that comes mainly from people that never played or are not high acheivers in general and were their goals are having the ability to go drink at the fishing camp every weekend and anything that disrupts that is a scam.

Prom and Ryno have kids playing and they can attest to the above. Ryno and my kids play same level and the competition they see is insane and really has the kids prepared and learning compete.

I personally enjoy seeing my kids happy and them chasing dreams. I do not live through my kids and for us personally travel is not a financial burden, cant speak for everyone on that.

I will say its a huge huge time committment as a parent though. alot of my free time is spent at their games and workign with them outside of practice. But my dad did this for me growing up and i coach the other sports they play in and coach my oldest in LL. My kids are really into sports and we never ever pushed them into it. We pushed academics and still hold them to an almost unreasonable standard when it comes to school, but they handle everythign well.

I understand its not for everyone. lots of parents are not into sacrificing their time for their kids. I understand that. Some do not get joy out of watching their kids play and i understand that too especially if sports where not your thing growing up. I just get annoyed when people come on here and make up bullshite and sit here and talk so negative about it when they are not even involved at all and it has no bearing on their life at all

in the end i find almost everyone who hates travel ball either doesnt have kids, have kids not into sports or and this is a big one...hate their kid is getting left behind and are just pissed about it.

same reason people hate most things in life, fear of being left behind. But its funny HS baseball is celebrated like crazy on this board and the talent is hearlded but they fail to acknowledge where that talent came from and how it got to be like that or why HS baseball in LA is at an all time high.

they also dont acknowledge AAU basketball, club soccer, tennis, golf, gymnastics, track etc are all the same way. only sport not like that is football and thats because its the most athletic vs skill based sport. for some reason only travel baseball is the devil

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I'm a long time little league coach, and I will tell you -

The local rec leagues are terrible, as far as the level of play goes. The coaching in most cases isn't very good and you're talking about 12 games, plus a 1 to 2 game tournament and it's over.

The rec league is perfect for the less-than-serious crowd and the kids who are just looking to play a little.

The more talented and competitive kids have to go to tournament ball, usually around the age of 10 or 11.

And there's only 1 to 2 tournaments per year that require them to get a hotel and stay out of town. The rest of the tournaments are within an hour or so.

In the first half of the year they'll play 45-50 games and later - 1 to 2 tournaments in the fall.

I've got 8 to 10 boys currently playing and these boys love it. They work hard away from practice, on their own.

It's not just about baseball. There are soooo many lessons these boys are learning. Baseball is the most difficult game to play. It is absolutely filled with adversity....

Committment. Hard work. Being a good teammate. Over-coming adversity. And so much more.

And like others have mentioned - over time you become a little baseball family. Yes, you sometimes spend your entire Saturday or Sunday at a ballpark... but all of them understand this going in.

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:bow:

preach and spread the gospel man

i was just like so many here and hated travel until i got involved in rec and saw the level of play...didnt take but watching 1 tournament to change my mind.

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In the first half of the year they'll play 45-50 games and later - 1 to 2 tournaments in the fall.

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So nearly many as a college baseball team.

I'm now not a fan of it and it's my fault. My youngest did the entire travel ball scene and got burned out and quit baseball all together. However, he played college football and started. Baseball was his best sport though

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in my expierence and others here can attest to it, the way travel ball is painted on here is nothing like it is in real life

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Yep. The problem with TD is that these freakin retards take the absolute worst stereotypes from travel ball and use them to paint every single experience, team, and/or league this way as if every single team is the same


It’s not. There’s some of us out here who do it the right way and do it for the right reasons. These kids are learning so much about baseball and also about life.. it’s a damn shame people act the way they do. It’s about the kids man (at least, it is when it’s done right)

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Sounds like a great model. Houston is obviously a much bigger pond so never a shortage of very high level competition in majors here. The most dominant teams are owned by a multi millionaire who bought up several independent teams over the past couple years and replaced their parent coaches with paid staff. Their best two teams are top 4 in the country at this age. Insane. They have zero weaknesses but keep in mind their roster is made up from kids across a 100 mile radius, conroe, Katy, Kingwood, Cypress, Woodlands, Pearland. None of those players will play together in HS. We are a different model...made up entirely of kids from the same neighborhood. All zoned to same HS. We are a majors team but play. 400 to. 500 baseball. We have played the juggernaut teams many times and took them to extra innings /played them close a couple times when we pitched insanely good against them. At the end of the day most of our boys will end up playing HS ball and playing together in HS. Great value to that. It's not about winning the intergalactic championship. These NIT tournies are a joke. Teams flying kids in from all over the place to stack their roster. We never pick up kids unless someone is out that weekend or hurt and can't play. Very rarely. We only carry 10 players to maximize reps for our kids and ALL 10 get bullpens each week. Long term development is the focus. We could easily cut the bottom 3 and replace with studs who have already asked to join, but we are committed to the ones we have... They parents are great, the kids never miss practice and they bust arse.

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yea wildcatters and premiere are stupid good.

and yea we are similar. all of our kids from LC or Grandlake except 1. all our kids will go st louis, grandlake or barbe.

we do not pick up players either. this past weekend bunch of the texas & oklahoma teams and 1 of the big LA teams who ended up winning picked up players from all across texas 2 or 3 pitchers per team. we rolled out our 10 and competed our asses off comign up short.

and yea team we lost to had kid throwing 75% curves.

our focus is long term development also thats why we dont pick up kids.

cooperstown is the crazy one, kids flying in from Cali to pitch one game and flying back out

i get people being like WTF on that kind of stuff.

We do not allow our boys to throw curves. Probably won't next year either. They understand why. Fb and change up only. I want them healthy at 14.

Good for you man. That's the way to do it. The HS we are zoned to which is rhe largest division in TX made the state final 4 last year losing to south lake carrol. They are back in playoffs this year and great chance to make state again. 8 of those kids all played on same select team coached by dads growing up through 13u.

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We do not allow our boys to throw curves. Probably won't next year either. They understand why. Fb and change up only. I want them healthy at 14.

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i am ok with them throwing it to an exent. its fastball spotting up first, then changeup then we allow for about 5 curve/sliders. The only kids that throw the CB/SL work with the same pitching coach and have for a very long time and all 3 do lots of arm care and all lift weights already and are extremely strong. 1 also uses the armcare.com app, i plan on getting that soon for mine too.

so its not just random kids throwing it thats for sure and its very monitored.

curve/slider is actually less valgus stress on the elbow than a fastball just due to the velo of each. we do change first because we feel its one of the harder pitches to perfect and they need more of those to truely develop an elite change and learn how to spot it.

Yeah I've done the research and understand throwing curves isn't an auto injury problem for kids when thrown correctly, but at this age the mileage varies for each kid on maintaining proper mechanics and hard to monitor all the time. Probably erring on side of caution but there is plenty of time for them to develop