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Message
re: Who actually likes “travel ball”
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:17 am to ArcticTiger
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:17 am to ArcticTiger
quote:
It has gotten out of control. Go to any tourney and you see several teams that do not belong. Basically kids that aren’t good enough to make a decent team parents get together and make a team.
agree, but to be fair...rec leagues are horrible in Louisiana and even those cost 2-300 in many areas. if you are only playing league then you are also falling further behind.
every once in a while kids that are later bloomers work hard and by 13 have bumped to AAA teams.
but in general yes you are right. im sorry but at 13 if you are playing aa ball on the intermediatte field and swinging a -8 .....you are way way way behind and should just stop wasting money. its a waste.
like the other day, had a dad ask me about a drop 8 for a 13u kid, i said should be swinging drop 5...said well my kid is small and told me he was 78 pounds.......sorry but at this point, your kid is way behind the 8 ball and no amount of lessons or any 500 dollar bat is helping. he needs to gain strength and lots of weight to be able to able to compete.
the talk earlier about kids getting passed in hs after being a 12u superstar is common because parents and coaches are too worried about winning the next tournament instead of understanding the big field is coming and its coming like a freight train. if you are not ready...it will hit you like you are standing on the tracks. its why so many kids have always quit organized baseball after 12. you either start preparing for it or be prepared to get processed. is what it is.
i know many just think travel ball is for suckers, a money grab etc....its because you are not involved at the higher levels or you live in an area where HS baseball sucks.
bottom line is, atleast in South LA, if your kid doesnt have clear goals of playing HS and isnt willign to put the work in to achieve those goals then dont waste your time in travel because the kids that are goign to play at the great programs have those goals and are willing to do whatever it takes to reach them starting at young ages.
i do love TD though...."KIDS NEED TO PLAY MORE and STOP SO MUCH SCREEN TIME"..................also TD "KIDS PLAY TOO MUCH ORGANIZED BALL, TRAVEL BALL IS A RACKET!!"
which is it?
4
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:17 am to lsu777
quote:
it is actually recommended by the american pediatric association and many other orgs. here is a great 5 part series from the doctors over at barbell medicine that goes over everything from the myths to how to program for youth
Great read thus far.
Our approach to my oldest at this point has been variety in sports. In other words, learn to be an athlete through the combination of different sports. Soccer, basketball,tennis, and golf. We even completed a 5k together a few weeks back. We're now moving into specialization as she'll be turning 11 this summer. Knowing that opinions of early childhood resistance training have reversed seems like a game changer.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:18 am to lsu777
(no message)
This post was edited on 5/16/23 at 8:19 am
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:18 am to lsu777
quote:
but in louisiana.....all these idiots on here can say what ever the frick they want....if you are not playing travel and ill be honest by age 9 at the very latest....then you are not making a good HS team in 3a and above.
I’m not an expert on developmental baseball, but this seems unlikely to me. If a kid can’t make a HS team after playing Little League, All Stars until age 12, and then travel teams from 12-15, then they just aren’t that gifted.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:18 am to lsu777
I’m not interested in any kid of travel ball unless the Bad News Bears end up in the Astrodome to play the Texas Toros.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:18 am to lsudocts
What does "travel ball" consist of? I played summer rec baseball(mustang, bronco, pony) and the furthest we've ever traveled was maybe 20 miles? I sure hope that isn't the same thing...
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:21 am to lsu777
The "you have to play travel ball to play high school ball" I think is kind of a coincidence, not a cause. The kids who are the most talented are being drawn to travel ball, along with a lot of other kids who are not talented at all.
The best 25 kids in your school district are going to play varsity baseball, whether they played travel or not. It's just that... 100 kids in your district are playing travel ball, including the 25 that will make the varsity team.
But if a kid showed up from another state freshman year and had the talent to play, unless your coach is an idiot, he's going to make the team.
If more places did it like this, it would be much better. This is very reasonable.
When done right, with qualified instruction, this is great. But I keep having this picture of the daddy travel ball coaches trying to get their 5th graders to lift in the garage... and the results being a disaster.
As far as number of teams and team size... school size has nothing to do with it. My less than 800 person catholic school in the mid 90s had varsity, JV, and freshman baseball teams... with each having about 25 players. The bigger Catholic schools with 1300 or so kids often had 8th grade, freshman, 2 JV, and a varsity team.
But... the problem with the Louisiana schools is a lack of resources and coaching. Our middle school always had two teams... this year, the coach (who coached both teams) left and the new coach only wanted to coach one team, and no one was willing to step up to find a second coach. And I consider ourselves lucky... many public schools in SELA don't have middle school teams at all.
The best 25 kids in your school district are going to play varsity baseball, whether they played travel or not. It's just that... 100 kids in your district are playing travel ball, including the 25 that will make the varsity team.
But if a kid showed up from another state freshman year and had the talent to play, unless your coach is an idiot, he's going to make the team.
quote:
1) most of the travel teams here are only playing 50 or so games, playing 1-2 fall tournies and every other weekend in the spring march-mid june. so not nearly the amount of games some schools are playing, instead lots more practice
If more places did it like this, it would be much better. This is very reasonable.
quote:
3) lots of kids starting S&C very early. by 5th grade many of the elite kids are actually lifting.
When done right, with qualified instruction, this is great. But I keep having this picture of the daddy travel ball coaches trying to get their 5th graders to lift in the garage... and the results being a disaster.
As far as number of teams and team size... school size has nothing to do with it. My less than 800 person catholic school in the mid 90s had varsity, JV, and freshman baseball teams... with each having about 25 players. The bigger Catholic schools with 1300 or so kids often had 8th grade, freshman, 2 JV, and a varsity team.
But... the problem with the Louisiana schools is a lack of resources and coaching. Our middle school always had two teams... this year, the coach (who coached both teams) left and the new coach only wanted to coach one team, and no one was willing to step up to find a second coach. And I consider ourselves lucky... many public schools in SELA don't have middle school teams at all.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:22 am to lsudocts
The other strange item to me- they often claim it's to get noticed by colleges. If they saved the 15-25k a a year they spend on baseball...their kid could go to any college they wanted at 18.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:23 am to LSUFanHouston
quote:
The "you have to play travel ball to play high school ball" I think is kind of a coincidence, not a cause. The kids who are the most talented are being drawn to travel ball, along with a lot of other kids who are not talented at all.
Agree with this. Correlation not causation.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:23 am to coachbush
quote:
If you think "travel ball" is bad, try competition cheer!!
My brother...
But to me, the difference is... while rec baseball may be bad in many / most places... rec cheer is pretty much non-existent in most places. If you want to cheer outside of a school team... your only choice is competition cheer.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:27 am to lsudocts
I was at a Rangers game a few years ago, and it was one of those youth baseball nights. While in line I heard parents from the Metroplex discussing how they would travel every weekend to Orange Beach for their kids to play on a travel ball team there. They were traveling 10 hours one way every weekend for junior to play baseball. I was like how stupid are y'all?
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:28 am to Crowknowsbest
quote:
I’m not an expert on developmental baseball, but this seems unlikely to me. If a kid can’t make a HS team after playing Little League, All Stars until age 12, and then travel teams from 12-15, then they just aren’t that gifted.
you arent and i dont care what you feel is likely or unlikely....its the facts.
nobody that made the big schools in swla except 1 kids who barely made it and physically is just way bigger than all the other kids did what you just said. and that kid prolly never play, ever on the HS diamond.
it is what it is and by 13 if you only played rec you would be so so far behind you would be lucky to make even a 13AA team. I know because i have one that is in 12 year old LL and have coached it the last 8 years. Also have 2 others involved in travel and am around the HS programs and im very aware of who and where the kids that are making the team played, what their velo and exit velo where around etc.
i chart all of this shite as those that know me from the H&F board know lifting, nutrition and especially sports performance are my passions. i prolly spend 4 hours a week just reading different things on sports performance and listening to podcast on it. i also know where the better kids nationally are at in the skills that scale. i know the feeder schools across the state, which kids are going to be studs etc.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:29 am to Crowknowsbest
To me, this sounds regionally specific. I played other sports in HS, but our HS had a really good team (deep run in state playoffs, multiple drafted, all starters had college opportunities at some level, etc). I know most of them played little league and all stars, etc. with me and then jumped to AAU to supplement middle school baseball. I graduated high school in 2009 in VA, for context, so maybe things have just changed that much, but I can’t imagine players that were eventually drafted or D1 college would have been so far behind from playing Little League that they would have been unable to hang in high school.
This post was edited on 5/16/23 at 8:33 am
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:29 am to cheobode
quote:
What does "travel ball" consist of? I played summer rec baseball(mustang, bronco, pony) and the furthest we've ever traveled was maybe 20 miles? I sure hope that isn't the same thing.
Originally, it was basically an offshoot of rec allstar teams. Instead of playing rec, making the all-star team, and then playing in 3 tournaments before district, you just skipped rec and the kids who would be on the all-star team, just formed their own team and did tournaments from the start. So since each community might have had one or two such teams, you actually did travel a lot.
Now a days, a significant portion of travel ball is basically weekend rec ball. Communities have multiple teams and weekend tournaments are held at the same parks that host rec ball during the week.
Nothing makes me laught more than when a AA team from Chalmette travels to Gulf Shores for the "world series" and competes against teams from Harahan, the west bank, Carrollton, and Mandeville, and the "world series" held in Chalmette has 5 teams from South Alabama.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:29 am to lsudocts
Travel ball made a wrong turn about 10 years ago…
It used to be predominantly “Majors” ball. Now, you have Majors, AAA, and AA.
-Majors is still majors even though you have a few kids that don’t belong on that level.
-AAA is good development in my opinion but these are all kids who will not make it past high school but are talented enough to not have to play with rec kids
-AA is paid rec ball yet the parents call it travel. It’s not travel. It’s a bunch of unathletic kids who pay to play.
The problem people see with travel ball relies on the parents of the AA & AAA teams. Those are the delusional parents who think their kid is better than what they are. High drama, very emotional, mentally unstable people.
Majors is entirely different. Yeah you still have a few shitstain parents but not even remotely close to the other ones.
Then you have cost. Like everything else in life, people realized how much $ you can make coaching, owning an organization, etc. Anyone would do it, it’s not just baseball. Cheer, dance, softball all have “travel/select” that’s just as costly.
There’s nothing wrong with rec ball. It was created to have fun. The kids suck, the parents are laid back, everyone has a smile and a bag of Doritos and a juice box after the game. But, you can’t put a majors level player in rec ball. 1, they would dominate. 2, most major level players put in the work every day. Rec kids do not.
If AA was eliminated which it never will be now that it’s just easy $, and a league was formed with AA & AAA kids, then travel wouldn’t get a bad rep.
Point of all of this: Majors level travel baseball is highly competitive and exists for a reason.
The last team I coached was a 14u Majors team. 12/12 made their high school squad and 12/12 made Varsity at some point. 5/12 made it past high school. 2 D1, 1 NAIA, 2 juco. That’s the real numbers and unless you’re a school like Barbe, only 1-2 kids from high school might make it to college playing baseball. Without travel and preparing them, those 5 wouldn’t have made it. That’s the point of true Majors level travel baseball.
It used to be predominantly “Majors” ball. Now, you have Majors, AAA, and AA.
-Majors is still majors even though you have a few kids that don’t belong on that level.
-AAA is good development in my opinion but these are all kids who will not make it past high school but are talented enough to not have to play with rec kids
-AA is paid rec ball yet the parents call it travel. It’s not travel. It’s a bunch of unathletic kids who pay to play.
The problem people see with travel ball relies on the parents of the AA & AAA teams. Those are the delusional parents who think their kid is better than what they are. High drama, very emotional, mentally unstable people.
Majors is entirely different. Yeah you still have a few shitstain parents but not even remotely close to the other ones.
Then you have cost. Like everything else in life, people realized how much $ you can make coaching, owning an organization, etc. Anyone would do it, it’s not just baseball. Cheer, dance, softball all have “travel/select” that’s just as costly.
There’s nothing wrong with rec ball. It was created to have fun. The kids suck, the parents are laid back, everyone has a smile and a bag of Doritos and a juice box after the game. But, you can’t put a majors level player in rec ball. 1, they would dominate. 2, most major level players put in the work every day. Rec kids do not.
If AA was eliminated which it never will be now that it’s just easy $, and a league was formed with AA & AAA kids, then travel wouldn’t get a bad rep.
Point of all of this: Majors level travel baseball is highly competitive and exists for a reason.
The last team I coached was a 14u Majors team. 12/12 made their high school squad and 12/12 made Varsity at some point. 5/12 made it past high school. 2 D1, 1 NAIA, 2 juco. That’s the real numbers and unless you’re a school like Barbe, only 1-2 kids from high school might make it to college playing baseball. Without travel and preparing them, those 5 wouldn’t have made it. That’s the point of true Majors level travel baseball.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:34 am to Tiger Ike
quote:
Our approach to my oldest at this point has been variety in sports. In other words, learn to be an athlete through the combination of different sports. Soccer, basketball,tennis, and golf. We even completed a 5k together a few weeks back. We're now moving into specialization as she'll be turning 11 this summer. Knowing that opinions of early childhood resistance training have reversed seems like a game changer.
they are, if you ever want to programming and things of the like, you can email me
lsu777td
gmail
and its prolly more important for girls than anyone else for long term health and body positivity and mental health.
also understand the forces in play in a sport that your child sees is greater than most national level powerlifters would even see lifting. example a 100lbs kid jumping out the bed of a truck 4' off the ground will see 1300lbs of force upon landing and no parent would ever be like OMG thats so unsafe.
yet put a 45 lbs bar on their back or dumbbell in their hand and suddenly its a huge deal. example is a 100lbs kid struggles at pushups, essentialy 53-60 lbs of resistance as a pushup is around 53% of BW at top & roughly 60% at bottom.....why is it dangerous to put 10lbs in each hand and do bench and progress them up in weight? your body doesnt know the difference, resistance and force is just that no matter them implement used.
we know training doesnt stunt growth, effect growth plates negatively etc etc. literally once a kid has the attention span to lift weights, they are ready to lift weights.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:36 am to Crowknowsbest
quote:
To me, this sounds regionally specific. I played other sports in HS, but our HS had a really good team (deep run in state playoffs, multiple drafted, all starters had college opportunities at some level, etc). I know most of them played little league and all stars, etc. with me and then jumped to AAU to supplement middle school baseball. I graduated high school in 2009 in VA, for context, so maybe things have just changed that much, but I can’t imagine players that were eventually drafted or D1 college would have been so far behind from playing Little League that they would have been unable to hang in high school.
its changed a lot since then. almost unrecognizable.
also most places dont have middle school ball in louisiana or alot of places in the south.
and yea those future d1 kdis would be out of little league no later than 9 now. prolly more like 7 as the competition is horrible and like i said....playing 10-15 games and then putting the ball down for 6-9 months is not a recipe for long term success.
and frankly if you are not charting velo/exit velo etc against aging curves and strving to beat the curves...you are behind the 8 ball.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:38 am to lsudocts
It's clout for the parents.
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:39 am to LSUFanHouston
quote:
The "you have to play travel ball to play high school ball" I think is kind of a coincidence, not a cause. The kids who are the most talented are being drawn to travel ball, along with a lot of other kids who are not talented at all.
That’s an excellent point that hasn’t been mentioned yet. Kids who are naturally talented want to play at a high level. That was a lot of my point is that talent will prevail over all the time/lessons/games/training but there is no exact playbook for how to get your kid to be a great high school player or even a college player. Every kid is on their own schedule and it’s discouraging to hear that in south Louisiana the only way to have a chance is have a proverbial gun put to your head and have to decide when you are 10.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
This post was edited on 5/16/23 at 8:43 am
Posted on 5/16/23 at 8:40 am to lsu777
quote:
and yea those future d1 kdis would be out of little league no later than 9 now. prolly more like 7 as the competition is horrible and like i said....playing 10-15 games and then putting the ball down for 6-9 months is not a recipe for long term success.
and frankly if you are not charting velo/exit velo etc against aging curves and strving to beat the curves...you are behind the 8 ball.
Your kid will hate baseball by 16. And his arm will be absolutely shot.
Velo is as much god given as anything else. You might can turn 78 into 82 but you aren't turning 82 into 95. Just won't ever happen.
It all starts over after puberty anyway. You will see.
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