re: Travel ball parents

My kid doesn’t play travel ball anymore. However when he did we didn’t keep track of what we spent. It wasn’t enough for us to worry about.

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And the worst part is these people actually think their kid will make it big too.

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This is mindblowing. I didn't realize just how serious travel ball was until about 11 years ago (11 to be specific, I just remember the year I was in a temporary office building and my cubicle was right by this guy's office).

When this guy wasn't talking work, he was on the phone talking travel ball. He was a pretty cool guy.. That was until I was located next to his office. I couldn't believe how pathetic some of the shite he would say was.

He would be talking to someone else complaining about how there was a player who everyone had to chip in to pay his expenses to go to an out of state tournament. Come to find out, as he continued to talk, they wanted this kid on the team because their 2nd option "made them weak at 3rd base".

Evidently his son was a power hitter. He had his son going to batting practice sessions with blake dean at the time. The reason I remember this is because it use to annoy the piss out of me when he would be talking to someone and he would be like "Yeah, Blake told him he needed to......." or "That's exactly what blake told me". And then I heard him say something like "Yeah, now that blake is done with his season..." and someone must have asked him blake who and he says "Blake.... Dean.. you know Blake Dean, plays at LSU".

But it was as if he became a different person once he started talking travel ball and his son playing.

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Before travel ball, every single MLB player in history did NOT play travel ball.

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So you think MLB players just started playing baseball when they got to high school? NONE of them played some sort of higher than Wreck level ball growing up??

Did your Braxtoyn get a scholarship to play college ball from the years of spending 10k a year on travel ball?

My sister and BIL spend thousands on travel ball and dance events. They are OT ballers though so I don't think they give a shite.

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Did you know that all 32 MLB teams have a compound/training/farm/factory whatever you want to call it in the Dominican Republic? And that they start recruiting those kids down there as early as 9 years old and if by the time you’re 16 and not picked up by a MLB team your career is pretty much over? Those kids don’t go to college, they go to MLB factories, learn English, learn how to live in the US and not a 3rd world county and wait to get drafted.

That’s what these US kids are competing against, except US kids can’t go down there and get drafted, they have to go to high school and college first.

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You sound like literally every single stereotypical travel ball parent.

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So you think MLB players just started playing baseball when they got to high school? NONE of them played some sort of higher than Wreck level ball growing up??

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They played seasonal sports and did fun things in the summer

In doing so, they maintained balance in their training /body/ life

Talk to folks who have played historically, to a man they will describe an upbringing similar to above

Current practices build elite, injury prone athletes who are likely to become dysfunctional adults once their MLB dreams do not come to fruition (statistically speaking)

Ironically, these folks often find easy work coaching the next dysfunctional cycle of folks (perhaps their own children) for $$$$

Everything in its own time/season...

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I know lots of guys that played college and professional baseball and never played on any kind of select team other than rec all stars.

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Name them

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You can YouTube it...

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I’ve seen it. Welcome to 5 years ago