The "supply and demand" of players starts to level out @ 16U, but there is never enough top level pitching to go around. Girls that are still playing A-level TB at 16U are typically "hard core". Being a part of a marquee organization also become more important at the older age groups because of the recruiting process and showcases.
too few players or too many teams
- Thread starter Anthony Vertuccio
- Start date
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The Long Island Bandits 18U Black are looking for players to complete our roster. We are looking for a pitcher, catcher and infield/outfielders. We play a competitive college showcase schedule. Both coaches are previous college softball players.
Please contact me at fazzcicclibandits@gmail.com or Danielle at 516-707-2338
Please contact me at fazzcicclibandits@gmail.com or Danielle at 516-707-2338
This is very true... but for certain areas of the country and certain organizations. Let's be honest about the situation overall. Many people buy into the TB concept as a whole simply because they believe their DD is good enough to earn an athletic scholarship for softball at a college. Few realize that less than 1% make it to a D1 and not many more make it to D2 on a scholarship. On top of that, fewer still recognize the fact that there are different levels of TB. Those of us on here and many of the local SB forums recognize that fact, however, how many of the hundreds of thousands parents out there do not? Most of those feel that they are in the right place at the right time to get their DD recruited. In actuality, they aren't.
There are the top level organizations with a lot of the college contacts in the major D1 colleges. They also have many contacts in the smaller D1 and D2 markets. So you are right in the fact that being part of a marquee organization helps in certain aspects. But you have to realize that many players would not be recruited unless they themselves reached out in advance to those college coaches that recruited them.
As Out in Left Field said in another thread, as much as I hate to agree with her, once upon a time, Showcase teams were the All-Stars of the TB organization playing on one team and maybe, you might get an outside "stud" pitcher to play for that team. Now, with the plethora of "showcase" teams, you are lucky if you can field a decent team period. Just because someone plays on a team that travels to college showcases does not make them a top notch player, especially in todays market as much as we, as parents, would like to believe that.
A player would have to be truly elite in order for many to consider them a Showcase player, myself included.
I have no rose colored glasses on, My DD is not an elite player. Does she have the work ethic and potential? You Betcha. But she is not there yet. Quite honestly, it will take a lot more work for her to get there IMO. She has a big stick and eventually may get there catching skill wise if she continues to put the work in but, and this is a very big but, she has to continue to have the heart and physicalness ( if that is even a word) to put the hard work into it.
So to answer the OP, there are way too many teams IMO. Instead of facing the reality that their DD may only be a mediocre pitcher or catcher and the elite organizations are short-changing them by not wanting her, they go out and find a TB organization that will take a new team so that the organization can make even more money off of the parents and kids that think that TB, in and of itself, will get their DD that big D1 athletic scholarship.
I know that this is a pretty cynical point of view, but having been in the TB world for the last 6 years, this is what I have observed,
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- Dec 29, 2010
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Parents have to take the rose colored glasses off. They all say "my daughter loves softball yada yada". Basically, if your dd is not top 9 on Sunday for at least 3/4 games, they have to work on their skills to become better. Its rare to see a family stay with a team after a year of traveling and practice and their dd continues to sit on Sunday. Yes at times they are circumstances, we all have stories.
Those families who are not top 9 on Sundays, tend to become bitter, leave and either find another team or have the resources and clout to form a new organization/team.
Again, we all have stories, and can write a book of personal experiences of this crazy world of travel fastpitch.
Its rare to find that parent who listens to the criticism of their dds talents.
Those families who are not top 9 on Sundays, tend to become bitter, leave and either find another team or have the resources and clout to form a new organization/team.
Again, we all have stories, and can write a book of personal experiences of this crazy world of travel fastpitch.
Its rare to find that parent who listens to the criticism of their dds talents.
- Aug 12, 2014
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My DD doesn't at travel ball so this is the impressions of an outsider. Someone made the comment above about coaches looking for established players rather than coaching and improving their own players. I've been browsing our area softball website and that definitely seems to be the case, especially with pitchers. There are lots of posts from teams looking for players at specific positions, especially pitchers, and they'll have comments like "must have own pitching coach" and such. These seem to be fairly big organizations based from what I can tell - I've seen quite a few of them fielding teams in the rec leagues we play in - so the takeaway I get is that they are either trying to field too many teams or they aren't doing a very good job developing their players if they don't have enough they feel can play at the higher levels.
- Feb 7, 2013
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The bottom line is that players need to work on their game away from team practice. If you are relying on the team coaches to make your pitchers, catchers, batters etc great players, you will be waiting for a long, long time.
Are there too many travel ball teams? Probably, but parents and players need to do their homework and ask a lot of questions about what the travel ball team and organization truly offers its players.
I agree w/ the majority of your post, but not sure about this part. ... I don't think you can keep kids in travel ball that long unless they enjoy it. I think there are lots of kids in the 18U and 16U who don't intend to play in college but still enjoy travel ball. Some do it because they have to do that to compete on their high school teams. Others do it because they just still like playing.
Again, I agree w/ most all you're saying, but I don't think there are too many teams. I think there are that many girls that want to play 15+ tournaments a year regardless of the outcome. Are many unrealistic about college? Yes. But that doesn't mean they're going to turn 18 and say, "I just wasted the best 4 years of my life playing travel softball. I wish I had quit when I was 14.''
Agreed CB. On my team, there are only 3 girls that would like to play in college if at all possible. 4 others are playing so they can compete for starting positions on their HS Varsity this year. 3 more are playing because they love the game and I really don't know why the other 2 are playing but they have a great work ethic and are solid players.
It was more a commentary from my point of view how a lot of Dad/Moms who don't think their DD is treated fairly by other teams by not playing her as much as they think the coaches should be, go out and find an organization that is in it for the money only, and start their own team so DD can get the majority of the playing time they feel she deserves. Because many new teams have sprung up (it seems as if it's) almost overnight, the talent pool has become watered down around this area. It used to be that quality skill players such as Pitchers and Catchers would line up to tryout for the best teams in the area. Now, it seems to be reversed. The Travel teams, are lining up at their doors and I'm not even talking about the best pitchers in the area. I'm talking about the decent ones. Even worse around here are the Catchers. Good luck to you and your team if your #1 catcher leaves because usually the #2 catcher is a huge step below the #1 and you're truly lucky to have 2 catchers to begin with. If this is not the case in your area, your doing well. However, it seems to be spreading like a virus.
Again, we agree. However, let me give you an example. Say we have 100 girls that want to play in a softball game. Just one game mind you and we are the coaches for this 1 game. Out of that 100, we have a good pitcher, a pitcher that just started and has been taking lessons for 2 weeks, a good catcher, 16 good utility players and the rest of the girls have little or no SB experience whatsoever. Our team would be comprised of the good pitcher, good catcher and 10 of the quality utility players. That leaves 88 other players that want to play regardless of the outcome. However, even if they fielded another team, they would have a newbie pitcher, no catcher, 6 good utility players, and the rest of the team would be filled in with girls that have never played before. Now, 6 other teams are formed from the rest of the players and 4 decided that they don't want to play anymore. Would you say this is a lack of skilled position players or would you say that there are too many teams for the number of skilled position players available? Either way, what it comes down to is the point of view the situation is observed from.
As to the last part of your post. Sports are a wonderful thing for all of us whether we are young or old. As players, they hopefully learn about sportsmanship, discipline and competition as well as the many other wonderful life lessons that they entail. As they get older, hopefully they take these things and impart them to the next generation. Sports, IMO, is never a waste of time nor are other things such as art, literature, theater, music, etc. etc. All of these things make an individual the unique person they become as an adult. As long as they have fun doing it and learning from it, it will always be time well spent.
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Pretty good definition. Not sure about other regions, but if we eliminate teams that have parents as coaches, there would not be a team within 50 miles of my house.
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We would have quite a few left but most of them would be from the larger, older established organizations that, for the most part, play at the A/gold/elite levels. Parent coaches are a necessity in any sport at the younger ages and even through the HS years. Just make sure when you see a parent coaching a team it's for the right reasons as opposed to them coaching so that their DD could get a majority of the playing time since Teams A,B,X,Y and Z didn't play her more than 1-2 innings a game in RF and according to coach Daddy, she was the best SS that those teams had.
