Travel ball is ruining kid’s arms, raising unrealistic expectations and generally elitism. Play park ball and play catch with little Johnny nearly every day. Go to the park on weekends and do some BP, hit some grounders and popups to your child around 6:00 am. Nobody’s at the park then. An hour of individual instruction and time with your kid is priceless. If you don’t know how to teach a kid baseball fundamentals either go on YouTube and learn the basics or take your kid to 3 or 4 sessions with a personal coach. Learn the routine and mimic what they do to get your kids lots of repetitions. More videos to help advance their skills.

Really, to each their own but travel ball holds no appeal to us.

Travel ball was invented to stroke parents egos. Was acquainted with a family through umpiring and Dad was there at 7 am just playing catch with his 12 year old. This kid grew to have "it" on the mound last time I called him behind the plate mid 90s fastball Wipeout slider solid OK changeup good fielder and better than average hitter. Dad insisted no more than one game on the mound per week. This young man spent 6 years in Mlb as a bullpen guy and thanked me profusely for helping him understand the strike zone(yeah it stunned me.)

Did he play for Vincent? I was sure pulling for them against Ariton.

No they are AIS

We played Patrician academy in AISA.

Man, I love it. Play ball!

I hate it when people talk about travel ball like every team, player, coach, and parent are the same. Travel ball isn’t ruining kids arms. Select parents and coaches are. Travel ball wasn’t invented to stroke parents egos, although for some parents it does. But you could say that about a ton of things. I’ve seen guys spend 75% of their paycheck on race car stuff. They will have a $150k race rig and don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. If that’s what they wanna do more power to them. It’s their life they can do what they wish. To each his own. But like I said it ain’t for everyone. Nothing is. But don’t make generally derogatory statements about something that isn’t necessarily true. If park ball fits your kid better than travel ball by all means do it. But don’t down the travel ball group just because it ain’t what you like.

I respectfully disagree. Travel ball has killed decent community leagues in the name of “better competition”. Realistically 99+% of kids won’t play past high school. With a healthy park league there’s decent competition and then the all stars mean something. Most of the travel ball teams are parents mad that there kid didn’t get what the parent thought they should so they get mad and form a travel team OR they are looking for Facebook photo ops for kids to show off a World Series ring. Because there are 100 World Series now.

And it’s not for college scholarships either because the money wasted on a little league baseball travel team could be a heck of a start towards a college fund and if they are good enough in high school a scout will pick them up.

Baseball in general is not for scholarships. Especially D1. There aren’t enough of them. JUCO is a different story somewhat. But you are right, parents who aren’t educated on baseball talent and how scholarships work all generally think their kid will play ball in college. They usually get educated about freshman or sophomore year if they are in a decent highschool program. I had a freshman parent tell me one year, but my son has always played short stop and batted in the 3 hole. I said yeah man so did every other kid on this team. You wanna know why he’s batting 7th? Because he’s to good to be batting 8th!

I do disagree about a “scout” finding a kid in Highschool. Colleges usually don’t have scouts. The coaches have to go watch kids play. So how would a non local JUCO coach find out about a kid in a little 2A county school? He won’t. The coach is first going to get on PBR or some other service and look at scouting reports from showcases. Then, after he is done with his own baseball season, and highschool season has been over for a month, he will find out where the kid is playing summer ball at and go watch him play. Then if he like him he will ask him to come visit the school and workout with the team one day. If he still likes him he will offer him a scholarship or invite him to walk on.

The pipeline has changed in the last 15 years.

I agree that small ball park leagues are dying. Youth baseball just changed is all. Same kids playing, they just don’t play at the park anymore. They play in tournaments. And parks are full of parents mad because they didn’t get their way as well. That’s just parents period. From youth to highschool the parents are the same. There’s good parents and bad parents.

Pwyse I’m in your corner with everything that you’ve said. I know when my son was playing (he played from when he 9-20yrs old) that was some of the best baseball I’ve ever seen. He played with a lot of the same guys and would be asked to fill in with different teams and made a ton of friends. His high school coach did more damage to the kids pitching arms than any travel team coach he played for. Sports are games of repetition. The more you play and compete at a higher level the better you get. Speaking of burn out. To avoid it the person playing has to be the judge as to when or how they want to do it. To this day my son still plays but on a different level, slower.

When my son first asked about baseball, I explained the fishing trips, camping trips, visits to see his grandparents, and Bible school that he would miss, and let him make the choice. He never played, and I never regretted the discussion.

Every parent has to make the right decisions regarding their own child. Try to leave your desires out of that process regarding sports.

It sounds like your son got the most important things from playing competitively. Lifelong friendships and life lessons.

Some highschool coaches put winning above everything. At some high level highschool programs if they don’t win they will be hunting a job. I’ve seen guys let a kid throw 90+ pitches and then catch the next game in a double header. I’m so glad the AHSAA went to an age appropriate pitch count. Arm care is getting more attention than it used to so a lot of these guys are starting to learn more about it which is key.

Also I didn’t know I had a corner. Monday morning can you give me a little mick pep talk and squirt some water in my face? Just to get ready for the week.

Make the most of it, and enjoy it as much as possible. Help your kid and the team with what you can. Make yourself comfortable with cooler, food, bevs, snacks, a tent if possible for shade, all the things.

These days will pass faster than you know it and be gone.

my son is 9 fixing to turn 10 in 4 days. he has been travel ball since he was 6 and he has loved every minute of it. we are in shelby co, but out travel team is in athens. 9U HITS Pinegar. Either my wife or I take him to practice once a week on Monday or Tuesday. The coach is top notch and is very understanding of the distance we travel to make practice and that if it is going to interfere with school and such we wont be there but that i will get the missed time with him at our local ball fields to make up for it. My son is asking me everyday are we going to the cages of fields to practice. The way i look at it is if he wants to go im taking him, if I ask and he says no then that is the end of the discussion. He is SS, pitcher and some 1B. The friends he has made with this current team will last a lifetime.

His last team that was in Shelby Co. about made him quite (coach). They were playing in a Halloween tournament and the coach wanted him to pitch, my son told him his are didn't feel right and he wasnt going to. Said coach proceeded to walk out to the mound and ask him what he said. He said he wasn't pitching cause his arm was not feeling well. (it was not injured) and coach went on to tell him " I dont give a f@&$ if your arm is bad you are pitching this game." this was said loud enough that the opposing team coaches head it. My son looked and said coach and simply put the ball at his feet and walked off the field after telling him he wasnt playing him anymore.

Luckily i wasnt able to attend that game or id have needed to have some bail money.

I’ve been watching the SEC Baseball tournament today. It got me thinking, how many of these kids were involved in travel ball? I’m guessing most were. I know only a select few make it to that level but it obviously helped hone their skills.
I never even played T ball, much less any organized baseball, but loved football and especially basketball, where I spent many a Summer at any basketball camp I could attend between Atlanta and New Orleans. Loved every minute of it, and learned a lot about basketball and especially how to be part of a team. That’s now transitioned into how to maneuver through life, in my community, as an employee, husband, father, leader. Doesn’t have to be sports, as you can find it in Scouts, FFA, Church youth groups, etc.
Don’t let a few bad Apples define you, and give it a bad name.
I say have fun parents, and kids…set a goal and swing for the fences!

I would bet my paycheck that every single kid on those teams played some level of travel ball or showcase ball. Very few of those kids are on a full baseball scholarship. Most have a partial or walk on. That’s why it is so important to do well in school if you want to play college baseball. You almost have to get a good academic scholarship if you don’t want to come out of pocket. I think D1 get like 12 baseball scholarships if I remember correctly and JUCO gets 24. I may be wrong in that I been out of the loop for a few years.