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

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We need to find the other videos making fun of the travel ball coaches and parents

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yea thats it. yet Tony made sure he frickign recruited those kids. You realize he isnt making fun of travel ball or putting it down....but yet saying coaches need to focus more on developing good humans and not worry so much about winning?

i acutally agree with him, but stop posting the video when you dont even understand the video. and Tony is a hypocrite and recruited the shite out of the showcase circuit.

and for the last time dumbass....nobody gets a fricking watch for winning a travel ball tournament.

why does the travel model piss you off so bad???

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but playing travel ball at 10 under the current model is retarded

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maybe so, but that's how some of the parents choose to have their kids play baseball. Why do you care? Have your child play rec ball, and then switch over at 13.

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Agree, and Tournament Ball is a more accurate description than Travel Ball as far as the format of how most youths play baseball today. There are still plenty of leagues for league play, and plenty of classifications based on skill level for tournaments.

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:bow:

exactly....99% of teams in louisiana only need to travel an hour or less to find a tournament that has teams of similar capabilities. for 13 and 14u majors it can be different but for the most part outside of those...you can play up if you need harder competeition locally.

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Comments like this are just plain ignorant.

There are a lot of teams out there with kids that are excelling very well and play incredible baseball being a 7 and 8 year old.

Maybe some play too much ball. That's a different issue. But to take away their due of how well they learn and play the game because of blanket ignorance like yourself is simply short sighted.

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this is the case with 99% of the comments in here.

i laid out a case why the current model is better for long term athletic development across the board. Instead of coming with a legit reason why....they just say Im wrong. mostly coming from people who have never played the sport or any sport and are just fatasses arm chair QBing from the couch.


ill give Mingo credit, he atleast played, still trains and puts his money were his mouth is and coaches. I respect the shite out of that. We may differ in opinions and he may have pissed me off yesterday being his typical self, but he doesnt just come on the OT and mouth off about things he has no clue about. He is well informed and isnt the typical Fatass of the ot. I respect that.

Here is to you Mingo

Still think you are wrong on the current model but atleast you put your money where your mouth is and help kids :cheers:

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And that along with the trajectory of the professional game is killing the sport.

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I believe just the opposite. The Tournament Ball format is developing many more players. The elite are still elite, but we have many more developed players, which equates to better quality high school baseball, and much more parity in the college ranks.

I assume that you have similar objections to tennis, golf, dance, cheer, soccer, and basketball, all of which have similar models of participation and development?

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played 3 games a week for 6 or 8 weeks in the spring, plus league tournament plus all stars from 8 to 12. That worked out to 30ish games between Aprilish through late July. That was enough to produce a handful of professional players from my little hometown. Most of which were either one of the best players on their high school basketball or football team too.

Im not near as against the tournament scene for 13 and 14 year olds because at that age players can really start to speperate themselves and kids that don't want to play usually give it up around that age. They can start to actually hone some skill for high school, but playing travel ball at 10 under the current model is retarded

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yea well mingo...that was a long time ago. the skill level is much higher at a lower age now. and at 15 or 16 its time to specialize and there are a couple of studies showing that to be the case, atleast in the sports like baseball which are high skill vs atheltic ability.

as far as not having tournament ball before 13....laughable that you think 20 games is enough to develop and that kids should just do nothing rest of the summer. and i dont care what you played, im telling you the lay out now.

even in tball with 12+ teams its only 16 games regular season plus 4 max for playoffs. then all stars.

so for a league like slc, if all kids came back except 12 and they were able to make the state tournament and put together 12+ teams in the majors division that would still be less than 30 games overall.

but that doesnt address my points about kids that are not as developed getting more playing time and playing positions they otherwise wouldnt if the travel players came back.

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but playing travel ball at 10 under the current model is retarded

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im sorry but i disagree 100%. the difference between 8 year olds playing AAA coach pitch and the kids in little league is retarded and it would be down right dangerous to have those kids on the same field. it is what it is.

couple years ago i would have agreed with you, now i have seen first hand both sides and the current model allows for the best long term development.

tell me how i am wrong please. specifically what point is wrong, how only playing 25 games at most would allow for full development of skill, how its better for the lower unskilled players to play with the better kids and lose valuable playing time?

i genuinely curious where you feel its wrong?

for example i laid out our schedule in post above. we are going to end up playing around 55 games between fall ball and spring ball. all kids play mutiple sports, they all get 2+ months completely off from any form of practice etc.

dont base it off some team that goes overbaord and plays 125 games and travels to houston or dallas every weekend.

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Right, so it's Rec becasue now there's so many teams that every kid that wants to play can find a team, just like Rec was 20 years ago. It's no longer for the "better" players (which is meaningless when you are 10 anyway)

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its essentially mutiple all star teams playing tournaments, mutiple tournaments. and there are divisions so in you play against like skilled competeition and it leaves the kids that are of similar skill in rece to develop. the current model allows kids of every skill level to develop. I laid all of that out a couple post back.

but you conveinetly ignored that.

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High school, I don't know or really care to be honest. College, I'll agree, but I think that may be just as much the equipment as anything compared to 5 or so years ago, but the college game isn't very popular as a whole.

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Your perogative to not care about high school, but understand that some parents know where their kids will attend high school, and some of those high schools require substantial development to make the team, so that impacts the path their kids take in a baseball.

As to college baseball, the equipment changes in no way impact the parity in the game. If anything, the bats of been modified to reduce performance. Also, college baseball attendance and TV production has skyrocketed in the last 10 years. Finally, there are now so many more players drafted from college than ever before.

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Wait, 55 isn't going overboard?

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for an entire year... you can't really expect much less. Teams can play anywhere from 3 to maybe upwards of 6 games in a weekend at most.

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Wait, 55 isn't going overboard?

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My son’s team will probably only play slightly less than that. They only play two tournaments in the Fall, two per month in the Spring, and finish in mid June.

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What's stupid is having your 12 year old play rec ball and see nothing but kids throwing 50 mph that can't throw strikes

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I agree, which is why I'm saying fix the model.

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High school, I don't know or really care to be honest. College, I'll agree, but I think that may be just as much the equipment as anything compared to 5 or so years ago, but the college game isn't very popular as a whole.

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well that doesnt mean it isnt better. your gripe seems to be with pro ball

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The pro's, I don't see how you can argue it's better. It's slower, there's more injuries, and the game is walks, strikeouts, or homeruns. The spectator experience is way worse than 20 years ago. And no matter how much people want to deny it, the culture of the game is built from the top down.

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this has nothing to do with skill level though, in fact the opposite.

hitter were hitting better so pitcher adjusted and starting throwing harder. To compensate for this and to help keep runs down, the specialist middle reliever position was developed.

then the use of analystics has caused the shift which is really whats killign the game, that and pitching has become so good its hard as hell to hit.

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the game is walks, strikeouts, or homeruns.

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A) pitching has gotten crazy with the use of pitching labs, velocity development and teh ability to shift seams. As tech develops it will get even crazier

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The spectator experience is way worse than 20 years ago. And no matter how much people want to deny it, the culture of the game is built from the top down.

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teh lower levels are the exact opposite of the pros.

want to fix the game, do away with the shift and have it to where you have to have a fit on the dirt. bring back small ball by moving the pitching mound back some or move 2nd base away from home plate some so you get more stolen bases.


right now its simple, pitching and defense are way way out in front of hitting because players are much faster and athletic today and the skill level is off the chart. so its harder than ever to get a hit.

why is that? because the lower levels are raising the floor. why....better skill development.....when did that start? when the club or tournament model became more and more popular.


as far as injuries...S&C and arm care is just cathcing up to the changes in the game and developing the tech to keep up.

just because the pro game got worse doesnt mean the other levels havent gotten better. and honestly the pro game has only gotten worse from a spectator standpoint. the game is played at a high level than it ever has been and is only improving every year.

and ftr your arguements above are retarded imo. I too am down on pro baseball but that has nothing to do with lower levels. I prefer college football for similar reasons, i find nfl to be boring at times because it is so fricking skilled, and find college/high school baseball to be more fun to watch than pro.