PSA Travel Ball

Ask an orthopedist.

Don’t care what you spend your money on, but the current get-in cost for youth sports is a problem. Travel ball generally hurts local recreational leagues which used to be the place everyone in a community could go and compete in. It’s a loss when the local little league park is no longer a community connection point.

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3-2 Dawg said:

Don’t care what you spend your money on, but the current get-in cost for youth sports is a problem. Travel ball generally hurts local recreational leagues which used to be the place everyone in a community could go and compete in. It’s a loss when the local little league park is no longer a community connection point.

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Easy solution to this.......play tackle football

Always looking for kids to play, and you won't have to worry about travel leagues until later, and even then, they are dumb and easily avoided

Funny how the sports with the least long term payoff are the ones who are most expensive at youth level

My 10 yr old is on an independent travel ball team. We don’t pay the coach anything other than uniform and tournament expenses. We play locally, and it has been a blast. Some of the games will get your heart pumping.

We played rec league until he was 8. At 8 years old half the team couldn’t catch or throw. We had to do something else. It was unwatchable.

It has been fun for us, and we don’t go overboard. We normally play 6 or 7 tournaments in the spring and 2 or 3 in the fall. We’re cutting the fall back now because of peewee football.

Travel ball is fine as long as you don’t take it too seriously and allow time for other interest and sports.

The de-emphasis on competing and competition killed rec league years ago. (Not keeping score bs) There is a happy medium. Rec league is too far on the let’s all just have fun end, and sometimes travel ball can be too far on the other end of the spectrum. But mostly it isn’t.

I dunno - I have hobbies and don't feel the need to defend them when folks shiit on them. If anything, it makes me a little glad more folks don't participate since that helps keep crowds and prices down.

How you spend your hard earned cash is how you spend it. I have never been around travel ball with the exception that I had a buddy that was a coach for a number of years. He was so happy to get out of it. I always kind of took that as as sign it was not very much fun. I do get to see all the crowds, and large tournaments at Shiloh Park. I have one question for the travel ball folks. Why are they out there out there until midnight on Sunday damn near every tournament? That has got to get old, right? I see tags from all over the place, and I think so you guys are driving back to Texas or Georgia tonight, and then doing it again the next weekend? That is a ton of commitment that I guess you have to respect.

Lucifer Morningstar said:

How you spend your hard earned cash is how you spend it. I have never been around travel ball with the exception that I had a buddy that was a coach for a number of years. He was so happy to get out of it. I always kind of took that as as sign it was not very much fun. I do get to see all the crowds, and large tournaments at Shiloh Park. I have one question for the travel ball folks. Why are they out there out there until midnight on Sunday damn near every tournament? That has got to get old, right? I see tags from all over the place, and I think so you guys are driving back to Texas or Georgia tonight, and then doing it again the next weekend? That is a ton of commitment that I guess you have to respect.

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The only ones I know of who might be at Shiloh pushing midnight on Sunday would be girls softball.

Bulldog45 said:

The only ones I know of who might be at Shiloh pushing midnight on Sunday would be girls softball.

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I am not arguing, but I have seen plenty of baseball and softball tournaments go very late over the years. I was just curious about it. I do not ever stop or anything I just drive by late on Sunday evenings, and they are still at it. And me being a football coach I keep very weird hours when in season so I am not knocking the commitment.

I think what gets some folks riled up is the fact that it involves kids.
It’s one thing for an adult to choose an expensive or time consuming hobby for themself. It’s another when there’s a developing child involved, who may or may not enjoy or benefit from the activity as much as the adult.

There are some folks who do seem to feel that travel ball is just this evil entity, and that’s unfortunate because it’s a great option an experience for some kids. But I just don’t accept the narrative that travel ball is required to be athletic or successful in a sport. So as with most things in life, there’s a balance to be had.

Most baseball are Saturday only at Shiloh unless they have to use it for overflow on a 2 day, at least that’s been my experience related to Grand Slam events. That’s also a reason you’ll see a lot of tags from out of the area. They’d prefer to come for a one day and be done with it as opposed to a 2 day.

Bulldog45 said:

The only ones I know of who might be at Shiloh pushing midnight on Sunday would be girls softball.

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Baseball does it often. When my son played a decade or so ago, USSSA was the only thing around and there weren’t near as many venues as there are now. His 10u team had a game at Shiloh one time that didn’t start until 11pm on a Saturday night and that was the FIRST game in bracket play.

That’s what happens when you have 20+ teams in every age group trying to play in these smaller venues with only a few fields available.

That’s what is so funny about people that complain about game times, missing church etc. these tournaments don’t care as long as they are getting 800-1000 fees from 100 teams per weekend plus gate fees.

I'm so glad my kids quit baseball...eternally grateful.

3-2 Dawg said:

Don’t care what you spend your money on, but the current get-in cost for youth sports is a problem. Travel ball generally hurts local recreational leagues which used to be the place everyone in a community could go and compete in. It’s a loss when the local little league park is no longer a community connection point.

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This is essentially my argument. My son is 19 now so, 10 to 12 years ago, we had to go the "travel ball" route because the rec league grew into uselessness. I say that as a veteran rec league volunteer coach with several tours of duty coaching his older sister's softball teams, then my son's t-ball and coach-pitch teams, plus flag football teams.
Coaching the baseball teams through coach-pitch was the ultimate limit. Trying to do it into kid pitch was more than I could face.
Several kids didn't touch a ball or bat except at practice - it was nerve-wracking to make sure they showed up for games because we'd be required to forfeit if a quorum wasn't there by game time, there was almost no way to teach kids who had no one to practice with at all at home. It made me very sad - but my kid and his buddies played in the yard all the time. Time just catching and throwing, batting and playing make a ton of difference and there's no way at all to learn it just in practice. As he developed, I took him to batting cages regularly and we worked on hitting and fielding - I couldn't make my son a martyr to a system that had changed. So we found travel teams and joined the soap operas that ensue.

Everything everyone says about travel ball, good and bad, is true. It made great memories I'll treasure forever, but it was expensive. We live in Tupelo and so drove regularly to Oxford and Southaven two weekends out of three to play the same teams we'd played in Tupelo. It was a lot. I miss it terribly now that it's gone. And in other ways, I'm glad to be well out of it.

PrimeDog said:

Baseball does it often. When my son played a decade or so ago, USSSA was the only thing around and there weren’t near as many venues as there are now. His 10u team had a game at Shiloh one time that didn’t start until 11pm on a Saturday night and that was the FIRST game in bracket play.

That’s what happens when you have 20+ teams in every age group trying to play in these smaller venues with only a few fields available.

That’s what is so funny about people that complain about game times, missing church etc. these tournaments don’t care as long as they are getting 800-1000 fees from 100 teams per weekend plus gate fees.

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Things have changed in the last decade, at least in the metro area. Latest start I’ve ever had was pushing 9:00 on a Saturday night after a fairly lengthy rain delay threw things off.

Entry fees for the tournaments in the metro don’t run 800-1000 either. More like 150-450.

dorndawg said:

I dunno - I have hobbies and don't feel the need to defend them when folks shiit on them. If anything, it makes me a little glad more folks don't participate since that helps keep crowds and prices down.

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True, travel ball defenders are touchy. I have much worse hobbies, drinking, gambling, deer hunting, Mississippi State sports, that cost more and there is much less return on investment, than travel ball, but I don’t care if others talk ls about them.

One issue with travel ball that’s always going to be an issue- no matter how elite a team is top to bottom, some kid has to play right field, some kid has to bat last, and some kids will have to sit the bench some. So with the tournament formats, there will always be kids who may be really solid players, but they get kind of lost in the shuffle on their specific team and don’t get to develop as much as they could if they were a lead player on a lesser team.

My son is an example. He’s in the second year of 8u. We turned down a few bottom level travel teams. Our rec league team is weaker than the last few years, with half the team being clueless. So I told him before the season he needed to be a good example for the other kids, and he’s stepped it up and become an alpha in the infield. On a travel team, he might have been a bottom feeder that just got stuck somewhere. So now if we do eventually go to travel ball, he’ll be more confident and better prepared.
It does help that I know what the crap I’m doing as far as teaching him, and I’m willing to put in the time with him on the side. Kids without involved dads are going to struggle without the lessons and extra practices.

Tractorman said:

I've never seen a subject get people riled up like travel baseball. I never see many people that were involved with travel get all upset, in fact, its quite the opposite. Most people involved say they made great memories and those were some of the best times of their life. The argument from the naysayers tend to be why are y'all spending all that money to drive 2 hours to play the same teams you just played to win a plastic ring or the like.

I don't see long threads bashing the fisherman for spending thousands of dollars and hours of travel to... fish. Or the crazy amount of money spent for all the gear required and securing land to duck hunt. How about that home down payment to go to Colorado and have some one guide you to a deer. Let's see some threads about how ridiculous it is to pay up front and monthly fees in order to hit some golf balls. Don't you think it is just crazy to spend 50k on a tractor and implements to maintain the 5 acres of land just purchased.

I could go on and on. The point is people have extra money to spend somewhere and nobody cares what other people do with their money, except travel ball. 'Tis funny to me, but, ultimately I think it is because all those other activities can be done by anyone no matter how bad you suck. But if your kid is not good at the travel ball sport, he/she won't find the field. And nothing pisses off parents/grandparents more than telling their offspring they just ain't good enough, hence travel ball is the devil.

PSA: Don't let what other people do with their time and money get you upset if it is not directly affecting you. Ultimately, people seek out a hobby that brings them pleasure. And more times than not the hobby is not very productive toward anything of substance as it is designed for personal pleasure and relief from everyday real world problems. Have a nice day and find yourself a hobby!

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That’s a lot of words say “my kid plays travel ball”.

PSA: Nobody ******* cares what you spend your money on.

Bulldog45 said:

Most baseball are Saturday only at Shiloh unless they have to use it for overflow on a 2 day, at least that’s been my experience related to Grand Slam events. That’s also a reason you’ll see a lot of tags from out of the area. They’d prefer to come for a one day and be done with it as opposed to a 2 day.

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Awesome.

Does anyone else have a "travel ball" league available?

In my neck of the woods we actually refer to it as club baseball as the catch all. You join a "club" or select team and pay $500-$2000 depending on the club, how much they play, etc. The local Cal Ripken leagues have select teams that play in it as well as the little league all stars "outlaw" teams.

We have a spring club league that plays a 12 game spring season mid March to early May with all games on weekends. Then they have an end of season playoff that might get you 3 more games, plus an all star game. It has age divisions from 8u up to 14u. The bigger age groups have a gold and silver tier that helps separate abilities.


Pretty cool overall. They also do a fall season with few less games and the summers are for tournaments. Here's a snippet of the standings. The teams highlighted in yellow are actually little league all star teams playing under a different banner outside of rec league. The ones in blue are Cal Ripken League select team teams.



The Cal Ripken team in the gold division is already qualified for this year's World Series in Branson and the Little League team highlighted yellow is like likely going to win state and be competitive in regionals.

Just thought it was a cool concept. It allows the kids to practice a bunch and play competitive baseball while school is in and then go knockout a few tournaments in the summer. I really like that they do an all star game too.

Bulldog45 said:

Things have changed in the last decade, at least in the metro area. Latest start I’ve ever had was pushing 9:00 on a Saturday night after a fairly lengthy rain delay threw things off.

Entry fees for the tournaments in the metro don’t run 800-1000 either. More like 150-450.

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My experience just living by it have been pretty much the same for the last decade. I have never stopped to ask if it is softball or baseball. So I do not know what league or tournament it is, but I can tell you they are much later than 9 on the reg. I will also say I have seen teams out there practicing, and in the cages at some pretty strange hours as well, but I would assume you take the time that you get on that. I would not know.

Tractorman said:

I've never seen a subject get people riled up like travel baseball. I never see many people that were involved with travel get all upset, in fact, its quite the opposite. Most people involved say they made great memories and those were some of the best times of their life. The argument from the naysayers tend to be why are y'all spending all that money to drive 2 hours to play the same teams you just played to win a plastic ring or the like.

I don't see long threads bashing the fisherman for spending thousands of dollars and hours of travel to... fish. Or the crazy amount of money spent for all the gear required and securing land to duck hunt. How about that home down payment to go to Colorado and have some one guide you to a deer. Let's see some threads about how ridiculous it is to pay up front and monthly fees in order to hit some golf balls. Don't you think it is just crazy to spend 50k on a tractor and implements to maintain the 5 acres of land just purchased.

I could go on and on. The point is people have extra money to spend somewhere and nobody cares what other people do with their money, except travel ball. 'Tis funny to me, but, ultimately I think it is because all those other activities can be done by anyone no matter how bad you suck. But if your kid is not good at the travel ball sport, he/she won't find the field. And nothing pisses off parents/grandparents more than telling their offspring they just ain't good enough, hence travel ball is the devil.

PSA: Don't let what other people do with their time and money get you upset if it is not directly affecting you. Ultimately, people seek out a hobby that brings them pleasure. And more times than not the hobby is not very productive toward anything of substance as it is designed for personal pleasure and relief from everyday real world problems. Have a nice day and find yourself a hobby!

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Mainly it's because it impacts kids. I don't think people really care about the money other than excluding kids and also hearing parents say stupid **** like they are doing it for scholarship money when they are playing baseball and based on the parent's athleticism there is ~ 0% chance they will get a scholarship to anything besides a JUCO that they could get paid for anyway. Although I do feel bad for the parents struggling to keep up because they don't want their child to miss out when it's just a situation where virtually nobody is better off other than the scammy tournament directors and coaches and almost everybody participating is worse off. The most extreme example I know of is somebody that got caught embezzling money. Not saying he was doing it to pay for travel ball, but that was the one acctivity where the spending seemed out of line with the income and the only thing that made us ask if he had family money or was running up debt. I hope he was dealing with something like a cocaine and hooker addition also so he doesn't have to tell people looking for restitution that he spent that money on travel ball and he's going to pay them the $100 a week they can garnish from his new job indefinitely.

But some other points that make travel ball a little different:
- Travel ball has killed one of the few remaining sources of community that crosses social classes. Kids playing rec always have at least one parent trying (or sometimes a grandparent or uncle/aunt trying), but they may not be in a great situation otherwise. The more they can be around functional families before they are teenagers, generally the better for everyone. I have had otherwise decent people basically acknowledge that they do travel to get away from kids that don't have parents working with them, and I get that from a selfish perspective, but damn it is depressing to hear people born into good situations view elementary age kids as a problem to be avoided rather a kid they could help. I get it for school. I'm not sending my kid to a dysfunctional school, even if it's elementary. But if so many people didn't have that attitude, there'd be like two, maybe three on a team in rec. It really isn't some incredible burden.
- I'm sure it happens, but I have not heard anybody talk about how their dad killed their love of fishing or hunting because of being forced to spend so much time on it when they were in elementary school. I hate our kids are missing out on the rec experience we got to have. We'd all go to the fields even when we didn't have games just to hang out. But I really hate that they are missing out while so many kids are also not having fun.
- Travel ball has helped kill free play. We are raising more kids incapable of being independent because practically every moment is scheduled and supervised.
- I guess this is just an expansion on the free play, but travel ball is just all consuming for a lot of people in general. No church unless it doesn't conflict with travel ball. No musical instrument; if you have practice four nights a week and tournaments on the weekend, who has time for that or any other hobbies? Or money leftover to pay for them for a lot of people. And they're trading off childhood and other potential interests in elementary school to keep a high school sports dream alive, which seems kind of pathetic, but it's really sad when you look at how few it's going to actually work out for. Most of our friends' kids are going to get competed out of sports when they get to high school and I'm a little curious as to what they are going to do with their time at that point. We spent every waking hour on sports in high school, and it was kind of pathetic in college that we spent all that time on something that we virtually completely dropped when we got to college. But while it possibly kept us from developing some interest or talents that would have made us more interesting and well rounded human beings that would also have given us something better to do in college than drink and party, it definitely cut down on the amount of time in high school we spent drinking, fighting, and fornicating, which is a completely different tradeoff from keeping kids from having free time in elementary school.

But again, I'm not blaming anybody in particular (well, maybe the travel ball coach pitch teams; the competition excuse is 17ing ridiculous when you are pitching to your own kid). It's mostly some people being dumbasses got the ball rolling and now everybody else is stuck with bad incentives. And maybe the people that say completely ****** things out loud. If you feel like incentives are causing you to do ****** things, just keep your mouth shut about it.

ETA: Missed a post. I'm also blaming the people that fundraise for travel ball. What the 17 is going through people's head. People that fundraise for their recreational activities are 17ing crazy. If it's a school team, sure, I'm in. But I cannot imagine the lack of shame of people raising money for travel ball. If you're too good for rec, you should damn sure be too good to beg. If little Johnny is good enough, somebody will pay him without you begging.

Herbert Nenninger said:

Kids without involved dads are going to struggle without the lessons and extra practices.

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It's nigh impossible to learn without at least other kids to be playing with. I coached kids who I was sure had never held a bat. Then the next practice, I was doubly sure they hadn't held a bat since the last one I'd handed them.

Not winning in rec league isn't a problem. Not having any idea what's going on in rec league is a problem.

It is weird that people who don’t participate in it have such strong opinions about it. I have not talked to many people who have kids in travel ball that hate it or regret it.

But let’s be honest, the whole set up does suck. It would be so much better if rec ball was still where everyone played. But those days are gone.

I know a guy that puts tournaments on. It's a tax free cash grab. I guess everyone wins, right?

People that can spend 10+ hours weekend after weekend at the ball fields are genuinely psychopathic. That’s my only take

Lost some good friends to travel ball.
My kids average at most sports and got asked to do one of the three travel ball clubs in our small town and we declined.
He likes to play soccer, fish, and read probably in that order.
He enjoys baseball but not passionate about it so we do rec and he has fun.
We’ll probably do a soccer club before jr high because that’s his favorite and one he’s doing best at.

dorndawg said:

I dunno - I have hobbies and don't feel the need to defend them when folks shiit on them. If anything, it makes me a little glad more folks don't participate since that helps keep crowds and prices down.

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I feel like this is the point at which PooPop would’ve chimed in with something about the elasticity of demand of leather whips

I understood travel ball when the players were the best of the best, but travel ball now is signing up whoever wants to play, regardless of talent level. As mentioned above, Little League and other recreational leagues are losing a lot of talent now that even the mediocre players are leaving. But I really don't have anything against travel ball. If the kid wants to do it and the parents want to pay, so be it. I will say that, as an umpire, travel ball parents tend to be worse than rec league parents (but not always) - I suppose that if you're paying that much so your kid can be on a travel team, you feel more entitled to voice your opinion.

dogmatic001 said:

It's nigh impossible to learn without at least other kids to be playing with. I coached kids who I was sure had never held a bat. Then the next practice, I was doubly sure they hadn't held a bat since the last one I'd handed them.

Not winning in rec league isn't a problem. Not having any idea what's going on in rec league is a problem.

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Yeah the maturity level and attention span of some of these kids is mind boggling.

“Ok, bud. Go to right center”.
“Where’s right center?”
“Behind the second baseman, in the grass (same place as the last 5 games) ”
“Where’s second base?”
“Right where I’m pointing, where George is”
“Who’s George?”
Oh dear goodness.

When our last game was starting, one kid threw a literal tantrum on the field because he didn’t want to get in the dugout because he ‘wasn’t done with his training’. Meanwhile my kid and another kid were discussing whether to pull a shift on a certain batter. It can be quite the dichotomy.

johnson86-1 said:

People that fundraise for their recreational activities are 17ing crazy. If it's a school team, sure, I'm in.

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17 the school team too, we all pay taxes

ronpolk said:

But let’s be honest, the whole set up does suck. It would be so much better if rec ball was still where everyone played. But those days are gone.

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I wish it was more of a uniform setup throughout youth, high school, college and pro. They all do it completely different.

Would help the game IMO. Obviously the youth/high school/college could take some hints from MLB 'development'. And MLB could take some hints from the success of tournament excitement. They need to pick what they want the sport to be, it kinda has an identity crisis.

Tractorman said:

I've never seen a subject get people riled up like travel baseball. I never see many people that were involved with travel get all upset, in fact, its quite the opposite. Most people involved say they made great memories and those were some of the best times of their life. The argument from the naysayers tend to be why are y'all spending all that money to drive 2 hours to play the same teams you just played to win a plastic ring or the like.

I don't see long threads bashing the fisherman for spending thousands of dollars and hours of travel to... fish. Or the crazy amount of money spent for all the gear required and securing land to duck hunt. How about that home down payment to go to Colorado and have some one guide you to a deer. Let's see some threads about how ridiculous it is to pay up front and monthly fees in order to hit some golf balls. Don't you think it is just crazy to spend 50k on a tractor and implements to maintain the 5 acres of land just purchased.

I could go on and on. The point is people have extra money to spend somewhere and nobody cares what other people do with their money, except travel ball. 'Tis funny to me, but, ultimately I think it is because all those other activities can be done by anyone no matter how bad you suck. But if your kid is not good at the travel ball sport, he/she won't find the field. And nothing pisses off parents/grandparents more than telling their offspring they just ain't good enough, hence travel ball is the devil.

PSA: Don't let what other people do with their time and money get you upset if it is not directly affecting you. Ultimately, people seek out a hobby that brings them pleasure. And more times than not the hobby is not very productive toward anything of substance as it is designed for personal pleasure and relief from everyday real world problems. Have a nice day and find yourself a hobby!

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Generally agree. But also generally, guys with a small wood working shop in the corner of the garage aren't pressuring and screaming at their 8 year old to "hold it straight when you put in the planer" because Dad would have been on "This Old House" if not for that elbow tweek he got in 10th grade shop class.

Pars said:

Lost some good friends to travel ball.
My kids average at most sports and got asked to do one of the three travel ball clubs in our small town and we declined.
He likes to play soccer, fish, and read probably in that order.
He enjoys baseball but not passionate about it so we do rec and he has fun.
We’ll probably do a soccer club before jr high because that’s his favorite and one he’s doing best at.

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I've been around both travel soccer and travel baseball and they are very un-alike. Sure, there is some jawing going on but I've yet to see a full on brawl break out between soccer parents or between a parent and a ref and I've never seen the police be called to a soccer field...I've seen all of that on travel baseball fields. I grew up loving baseball but the modern version of youth baseball draws redneck parents like gnats to a floodlight.

If your kids want to play travel ball and you can afford it, go for it.

ronpolk said:

It is weird that people who don’t participate in it have such strong opinions about it. I have not talked to many people who have kids in travel ball that hate it or regret it.

But let’s be honest, the whole set up does suck. It would be so much better if rec ball was still where everyone played. But those days are gone.

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I think a lot of people that are frustrated by travel ball (any sport) and don't participate are angry because they feel left out.... Not as in they are missing something, just out in the cold with no option. It's not unreasonable to think that you'd like to have your kid participate in a sport and not have to give up the rest of your (and your family's) life to facilitate it. So many folks don't have their kid play baseball/basketball/soccer after the youngest ages because of the time commitment. Which is sad. Almost everyone has to choose now .. multi sport athletes at a low, often brutally poor quality or give in to early specialization.