re: ULL Coach Robichaux discusses "Daddy Ball"

I love hearing the parents of a kid who has played 6 years of travel ball explain that their kids quit the high school team because they were not going to play despite being "better" than the other kids. The go on to say that the coach hates them and that's why he quit.

In Louisiana (LSA) league play your competitive divisions are divided up between C1-C3 or C4. That is the level of the more competitive teams.

For the tourneys you're referring to they divide them up into gold, silver and bronze divisions.

So a C1 team would play in the gold division and a C3 team would play in the bronze division.

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Yeah wasting 6 hours sitting around a track waiting for your kid to run for 4 minutes is much better use of your time.

At least they sell beer at the park in Chalmette

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Well I normally go eat and drink beer between events in the air condition and certainly have beer in an ice chest.

And I wish like hell she did run it in 4 minutes. Her scholarship would be better than a baseball.

But mostly it is Cross Country which is an hour and a half for about 8 Saturday mornings in the fall.

My kid played high level rec, travel and HS ball. I'd say that on every level - depending on the situation - a "motivated" daddy can see to it that Little Johnny is the SS, leadoff hitter and never comes out. The key word is situation - it's certainly not equal everywhere. Where star Status is only failing to get a hit 6 of 10 times, there's a lot of wiggle room.

Of course it happens, and it happens in soccer, even subjective thing like theatre and singing. Parents use their influence ("donations", bankrolling teams, etc) The big difference is that now a Daddy Ball dad can directly influence everything himself in travel ball, bypassing rec and school coaches. He can be the coach whose kid always gets the green light, whereas a better player may be called on to bunt or H&R for the "sake of the team". Any players challenging Little Johnny as team stud can be buried or sent on their way.

These Daddies enter every travel tournament, so the organizers love them. Then they get the prime time slots, and optimal opponents.

We can argue this forever, but you'd think with all of the academies, private training, travel teams, "Elite" tournaments, that the US players would be retaking the MLB from the foreign players - NOT. Worse now than ever. US baseball players do not have a true mechanism that fosters competition. And it's showing.

Let me add there still are some very, very good people running HS, Rec and yes, even Travel Ball...But they're getting scarcer.

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but you'd think with all of the academies, private training, travel teams, "Elite" tournaments, that the US players would be retaking the MLB from the foreign players - NOT. Worse now than ever. US baseball players do not have a true mechanism that fosters competition. And it's showing.

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I've heard Coach Robichaux speak on this in a longer format and he talks about the high number of MLB middle infielders in particular from foreign countries. In many cases, they grow up making a glove out of a cardboard box to play, so they learn better footwork and quickness to get to the ball and field it cleanly into the body.

He's a great speaker and is pretty passionate about the game and life lessons learned from it.

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a hose pipe

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This is where "baw" can finally be used in correct context.