You tell me.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Not safe for in house kids to play against better competition in many cases.

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There is a lot of bad travel baseball out there as well.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The tournaments are all graded, A, AA, AAA, and I think there is an Elite level. Sure, A has some sub par players.

The difference is, both the kids and parents are committed. You practice indoors during the winter. In house has like two practices, and then they roll the balls out. At 14U we played two to three leagues games on week days each week, tournaments every other weekend or so, and then practices at least twice a week. If you want to get better at baseball, travel is the way to go.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

There's some of that. But it makes no sense to have solid baseball players pitching to kids who are scared to stand in the box. On the flip side, the majority of kids can't throw the ball over the plate. So you go out to the field at noon on a Saturday, and your kid walks two times and gets hit by a pitch. You're there three hours for that.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

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Freedom is our Strength.

I'm talking about line drives being ripped at kids who are unable to handle them.

My son would have playing in house against kids three years younger. Which is unsafe for them.

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I know you don't read my posts but this is exactly kind of the stuff I'm talking about. It starts to dominate childhood for a kid. All for what purpose? Is it so you get good at a sport you'll pretty much stop playing after high school? This is why I say that travel sports is a vanity project for parents. You can't tell me that most children would choose to forgo their childhood so they can play games every other day during the week and then a bunch of games in some town that is 4 hours away every other weekend. They will have plenty of time in their lives to have that level of a grind.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

This is why so many kids burnout and quit.

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Incorrect.

Kids burnout when their parents force them to play.

We reassess after every season. Our son will play U14 travel next year on a team of his choosing because he sincerely wants to.

He will also play soccer, act in a school play and try and take up an instrument.

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I wasn't forced to play. I burnt out but luckily I was done either way.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Majors division? That division is a huge problem. No reason to have 12 year olds playing 46/60, but that is your LLWS impact.

Funny thing, we stayed in minors at 10 and then jumped to intermediate at 11. We never actually played in majors. After 11, we played full time travel. At 10 and 11, Tri Cities Travel required you to play in their in house league.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

If my kid burns out, then we stop. We're doing it because we both love baseball. If he doesn't want to play, then I am more than happy to watch Cubs games. I used to get to Wrigley 15 times per year, and I have yet to get there this year because of travel baseball. Either way, I win because I get to watch a sport I love. As long as he enjoys playing, I'll enjoy watching it. We're taking a break from Fall Ball this year to avoid the burn out.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

He's playing fall ball this year to work on being a pitcher. 10 games and one practice every other week.

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It is a great idea. We did that last year so he could adjust to 60/90. It worked like a charm. We played at those turf fields in Wheeling. One game per week on Sundays. We had access to an indoor facility in Huntley. It wasn't our club team but a different travel team that needed players.


Our 14U team is dissolving this year (i.e. no 15U next year), so we are playing on the 16U next year with our club. They'll just be a post high school team. Our high school only has varsity, so he'll be playing against 18 year olds anyway. He did this summer and it went great. Luckily he is 200 pounds, so he can hold his own.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Do you think you're the typical travel parent though? You're a little on the older side and this is what, your 24th kid? I suspect the average travel ball dad is some loon living vicariously through his child who he is desperately trying to make into the athlete that he never was.

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Freedom is our Strength.

You are such an asshole

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We typically see two kids stop playing every year out of 12. You can tell when the kids' hearts are not into it. We lost several off of our 12U team because they just wanted to play football (baseball's too boring).

There is a funnel with baseball. I am just guessing, but I think about 5% of boys are truly baseball players where they love playing. By about 11, very few kids want to play baseball. By high school it is an extremely low amount.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Baseball is boring. All kids should be getting into travel leagues for Pokemon Go. That's the future.

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This. I just want my kids to be kids. I don't want to push that kind of hectic schedule, when a fraction of one percent of kids playing ball will make the majors. As you said, most will stop playing after they graduate high school. I think you know if a kid has Laurence Holmes level elite talent, by the time they are seven or eight.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Very true, baseball is not the sport of choice anymore with kids.

And to JORR's point, I saw way more knuckle headed over involved parents when I coached a girls AAU high school team.

Little Crest played two years of in house, and one year of travel for a former Yankees farmhand who played AA with Jeter. You always knew the crazy was in there, but it finally came out in Cooperstown, NY last year. I don't know what it was, but he finally became a little unhinged. Went nuts on an umpire and started yelling at his kid too.

They left our team this year and went to play for another in our league. He gave up coaching too.

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I am actually surprised how few parents we have that act like that. If you figure I see at least 50 youth games per year that we play in plus all the other games going on around us, I don't see too much of the craziness.

The fall ball team we played on last year had pretty intense coaches. They were too hard on the boys.

We're currently using a pitching coach (former minor leaguer) based on a recommendation. He really got on my son at the 2nd lesson. Then at the 3rd lesson, he and his 15U coach tried to recruit us to play for them next year. Uh no thanks.

But all of that is nothing like football and basketball coaches that scream all the time.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

If by child you mean younger than high school age I agree. No reason for them to be going around the country playing the same kind of baseball they can play 5 blocks away from their home. But once they get to high school age playing against better competition is a must. Especially for players from cold weather states.

I have not seen an overly aggressive parent in two years of travel ball.

Our coaches were dads until this year. Our new head coach has a brother that plays on the team. he is far from a great coach knowledge wise. Our old fall ball coach was an excellent fundamentals coach who played at a D-2 on a full ride.

We are still a town travel team. Every player was from our town the past two years. Tryouts were held recently and I believe they will be offering two places to kids outside of our town for the first time ever.

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We wanted to stay with Tri Cities Travel, which ironically is the team that received the state title when Jackie Robinson was booted. I guess our old travel team lost like 22-1 against Jackie Robinson in the title game. I just didn't want to have to play in house or 46/60 at 12 years old.

Our club team draws from a wider net. We've been with them for three years now, and it has worked out great. They have a converted barn for pitching and hitting tunnels so we don't have to pay for indoor space in the winter. The program is designed to get kids to play college ball. That's my son's goal.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

This is how I view it as well. And that fraction of 1% almost universally passes the eye test immediately. My daughter is 6 and just had her first taste of a swim team. Everyone for the most part looks the exact same except for 2 5 years olds on her team. I know nothing about swimming, but it didn't look right when they swam a lap. They easily were setting pool records for their age, then I noticed they would have been setting pool records for 7-8 age group as well. And they would have won every meet against the 9-10 year old boys. I have no clue at the level they should be at. All I know is they aren't destined for the normal league.

I think the biggest issue is the money that parents spend on travel teams. With that comes a sense of entitlement that would not exist if the child's participation was voluntary. I can only speak from what I have seen on the basketball side.

One of my friend's sons is already on his 3rd school because he can't accept that he just isn't good enough. Earlier this spring we spoke and he basically admitted that he'd spent a lot of money on AAU over the years and he wanted to see some return on his investment. Whenever we'd speak he'd always tell me that his son was playing well in AAU. Whenever I'd see him with his high school team he stunk. He was about a 10th man. Mind you had high school team is one of the better ones around but that mattered not because he felt his son should be playing.

He transferred his son during the summer in hopes of finding a better fit. His son will be a Senior. He has clung to the belief that 2 schools have blackballed his son rather than admit that he simply isn't that good. The travel team and personal trainer culture that permeates youth athletics has increased the level of entitlement held parents and their children.

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A lot of use of "I", "our" and "we" there.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

That happens on every team with parents having out sized opinions on their kids' ability. It was kind of funny this year because I had no less than five parents tell me their kid should be playing second base (their excuse why their kid couldn't make the throw from third or catch a fly ball). Well I wanted to tell them that second base is like right field- i.e. where you stick your weakest player. It is usually one of the smallest/slowest kids on the team.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

AAU is the worst I have experienced. I'm told hockey is the worst though.

We would have paid $250 for our son to play in house this year. We paid $725 for travel. Plus hotel and meals for a tourney my wife drove to in Omaha. We are blessed to be able to afford that. Some years ago we would not have been able to.

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