re: Youth travel ball has to be the dumbest waste of time and money.

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I don’t see how anyone who coaches Rec baseball can say that’s a good trade.

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Anyone who has any interest in baseball, from the professional level to your kids t ball team should realize it's not good.

But that's the look at me, my kid is the most important attitude that runs the travel baseball community

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but the % playing sports across the board is down just from ages 8-12. its more of a societal problem of kids being frickign soft and soft arse parents, not because of travel baseball. football participation rate is way way down. and now a days kids have way more sprots to choose from like beach volleyball, soccer, lacrosse, swimming etc..that were not availble in the 80s and 90s or that were only available in small sections of the country.

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The bigger problem as I see it is that the local rec leagues have almost been eliminated, especially for ages 10 and up. So it’s either dedicate all your time to one sport, or don’t do sports. I played club soccer growing up, but still had time to do rec baseball and basketball. And if a 12 year old gets burned out on say baseball, that kid already behind in another sport and the club/travel teams may not want him/her. I saw it with my son when he realized he wasn’t improving in baseball as quickly as his friends and teammates. Once his travel coach told him he needed to spend all summer break with a private coach, he was done. It became a job to him, and that’s not what he wanted.

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He loves it, it really helps develop his body and mind..

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I assume not all travel sports are equal. Im sure there are teams that actually help develop kids in their respective sport, but this past weekend I saw a kid play catcher then play again right after the first game in which he pitched. By the third inning the other team started drilling the ball or get walked. Eventually the kid would bring in his arm an grab it after throwing a pitch. His arm was clearly bothering him. They were winning until that inning where their opponent scored 6 or 7 runs.

Do you allow a kid whose arm is clearly bothering him continue pitching? It doesn't matter if they win or lose on Saturday so the coach leaves the starter in the whole game. These are the things I am questioning. You have some guy who used to be an, at best, average HS ball player whose only coaching experience is an assistant on a middle school team.

In some cases it seems like they could be doing more harm to some of these kids than good.

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Interesting point. Is the result of this that there are no fans of the game in 30 years

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For me, interest in baseball is secondary to bringing the kids together to learn teamwork and effort and all the rest, bringing the parents together, encouraging a spirit of volunteerism, putting aside political, racial, socio-economic differences and cheering on kids together, etc.

“It’s just a sport”. Yes, but just think of the interactions that most people have with their fellow citizens on a daily basis and compare that to what happens at a rec sporting event.

You can say I’m making too much of it, but I think we collectively are making far too little of it.

I've mentioned this before, but I think one of the worst things I've seen related to travel ball are the families who plan their vacation around a travel ball tournament. For instance, they book a week-long beach trip, but spend at least 4 or 5 days of it at a ballpark.

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I think its more for the parents than the kids

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This

It’s why the parents act like absolute fools too. They’ll ruin it for the kids in a heartbeat.

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I've mentioned this before, but I think one of the worst things I've seen related to travel ball are the families who plan their vacation around a travel ball tournament.

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I’m sure it’s more cost effective for most families. I’m not why another family’s vacation even registers on your radar.

We have a travel team. By seasons end (Feb-June) will have played in 7 tournaments all 6 miles from my house.

As other have said, there are some extremes of course, but not all are made out to be as ridiculous as made out to be.

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I’m sure it’s more cost effective for most families. I’m not why another family’s vacation even registers on your radar.

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It's not that their vacations really "register on my radar" but I do know people who have done it so I'm just aware that it happens. I don't see how it would be much of a vacation if you spend so much of it at a ballpark rather than vacationing.

My kid is playing 11U right now and my wife and I have already had the “what are we doing this for” discussion between the 2 of us a few times this spring. We played 3 weekends in March, 3 in April, and we play every weekend from this past weekend to late June with the exception of Memorial Day weekend. That’s too much.

My son loves it, and we constantly ask him if he’s still having fun, and he assures us he is. His team is pretty decent and his coaches aren’t the head cases we’ve had on other teams, but it’s a big commitment for something we know he’s not going to play in or near high school. We’ve talked with him about just doing rec ball, but he’s been resistant to do that, and our area rec leagues have been talent pillaged by the sizeable travel ball community and number of teams in the area. As he puts it “I don’t want to go play with a bunch of kids who are just going to boot the ball around the infield.” There’s got to be a middle ground between that and almost every weekend and 2 nights a week being eaten up for 9 months out of the year, especially as he’s starting to get back to doing other sports as well now that we’re on the other side of Covid.

On that note, we faced a few teams in a tournament this weekend who were single A and had never won a game. I’m by no means a “ball is life” ring chaser parent, but I simply can’t understand paying thousands of dollars to get run ruled every game of every tournament. That’s a lot of money and time spent on something you could probably enjoy more with rec ball.