re: The benefits of playing travel ball 9 months a year

Tommy John surgery at 10. The kid will be throwing 97 in HS.

BRILLIANT!

quote:

---

Is he eligible for odp this year or next and is that a goal?

---

Let me help you out here. ODP is a joke. It is a money grab. Don't get fooled into think there is anything elite about the Louisiana ODP program. ANd pretty sure Gaston plays for a MS group SMSC or GSC. Pretty sure our sons saw each other recently actually.

He's SMSC, we play y'all twice in Foley? We've played up in the B bracket this spring. Yep then, my boy was the one chasing in the middle the whole time. I think our team is coached terribly (and our parents obnoxious), is why I want him moved up onto a more possession style team.

GCU is the other local club.

quote:

---

He's SMSC, we play y'all twice in Foley? We've played up in the B bracket this spring. Yep then, my boy was the one chasing in the middle the whole time. I think our team is coached terribly (and our parents obnoxious), is why I want him moved up onto a more possession style team.

---

Yep. And you'd know who my kid was based on how that second game ended. Dude just crapped all over that ball. Easiest play he had all weekend and he just...CRAPPED on it.

You'll have a good experience. Odds are he'll end up playing on that U11 team with a coach who coached my son years ago. GREAT guy. Honestly, Gonzales teams are usually between comp 2 and Comp 3. They are by no means top competition. But that will be better for your son. They tend to lose their better players to BRSC. But, I think that may start to change with the new complex.

quote:

---

. I think our team is coached terribly

---

If you think it's so bad, you should coach.

If you live in BR, you can easily play "tournament" baseball and get very good competition without ever spending the night in a hotel room. The "travel" part is stictly because your team/coach wants to. I always hated the 8:00 midweek game on a school night, sometimes they were twice a week. We found it easier to just practice during the week and play in local tournaments on the weekend.

My son guest plays for Barca and the coach wants him...but the club is so political. They're kind of hurting as well.

We've played BRSC black in our age bracket, but it's been a while.

Hey, you sending your son to camp over here in BSL? My boy went last year and loved it. Think we may board him this year.

I actually think I recommended that to you last year. And Adam is actually coaching that black team now (as of a couple months ago). We will probably jump in again this year.

My son plays travel ball and we hardly travel either. This year so far the longest we traveled, once, was Lafayette. Which is fun for the boys because its a mini vacation with all of your closest friends. I have seen teams that take it way to serious and focus on wins instead of fundamentals, but they have great teams out there also who are in it because they love coaching and the game. Which in turn makes it a great learning experience for the boys. We only played for a year, but we have found the more you pay the more B/S you have to deal with.Our coaches make it mandatory that the kids play more than one sport. They only play March-June, Every other weekend, and sometimes we have two weekends off in a row.
With the pitching, 9u is the first division that starts pitching, so I smell b/s from the op. USSSA and OTC do have rules to protect pitchers and their arms, in 10U you can only pitch 6 innings through a whole tournament. So if he is having arms problems, it sounds like the dad is pushing him to do too much with pitching, between games. Parents have a responsibility to protect their kids also, and good coaches won't push it that far.