Am I doing the right thing?

So to recap my first dilemma that brought me to this forum, our rec. ball sign-ups were picked through and split into 1 team and 1 travel team. Thus the leftovers don't get to play any games just 3 innings of scrimmage on Thursdays and another scrimmage game on Saturdays mixed with the travel kids. The travel kids do their tourneys on Sundays.

We were told they would do everything they could to find our "B" team some games with neighboring leagues and nothing has come of it. They pitch only the two travel kids, throwing an inning or two of Thursday and Saturdays to other kids who have taken lessons. So we have been playing for a full month and my DD has only pitched 2 innings total--not allowed to warm up either time. Initially they were in the field working on stuff as the games went on and now the 3 coaches are pretty much on the sidelines just talking to each other.

My older daughter has now decided to try out for basketball and hang up her cleats after a 4 season effort. My younger DD is still with it and is taking both pitching and hitting lessons. None of the pitchers get much over the plate so no one is hitting at all. Maybe 5 hits a full game total. So no one is really getting any fielding or hitting practice now either.

We are going to finish the season, but I don't feel like I need to hold my kids back from things like sleepovers, basketball practice and girl scouts to practice the travel team for their Sunday games. I feel like we did commit, but so did the league and they have really let us down.

What are your thoughts??

GG

One is your league sounds messed up, I think I would have split the talent into 2 Teams and gone from there Hard to know for sure without knowing all the details but my DD would not be in this league if there is any other option at all in the area. She did not sign up to watch other players play, if she wanted to do that we can join a TB Team.

As far as pitching I think most people on here have gone through what your DD is going through both on the getting circle time and the bad pitcher side.

As far as getting circle time, keep working on it. As she gets better she will get more circle time unless there are some political Issues then you need to move leagues.

10U was the first time DD played all player pitch with no coach/ machine backup, some games were brutal. She moved to 12U the next year which was much better.

The way you are describing it my DD’s personal life would take priority over SB, her choice though.

I wouldn't say messed up as much as grand expectations. The 10U All Star team won the highest level it could in the spring and they decided "Hey, we now need a 10U travel team." What they didn't take into account was how many kids don't play fall ball and that half of that All-star team moved up to 12U. We just don't feel like we really owe them anything. Especially since we aren't really even on a "team" at all. AND I am really ok with my DD not pitching much, but she isn't hitting or fielding much either because of how weak the pitchers are overall(including my own DD). I just feel like they didn't stick to fall ball being instructional like our league always advertises. I would rather spend out time practicing at home and with private lessons. We would get way more done and I wouldn't just seethe sitting there watching the train wreck two days a week.

BUT, as with all teams and leagues, there are a lot of politics and drama so I don't want to get black balled for the spring because we blew this Fall off either. Counting down the days.

I think that travel and rec can coexist if done right but this isn't it. As James said they should have divided the teams up evenly and played each other. Our old league (we have left) would play a lot of inter league in the fall so you played other teams. If they wanted to have a travel team let them practice one night a week but let the non travel kids play real and fair games. I believe you try and honor your commitment as best you can. I wouldn't miss my DD's best friends birthday for a practice, but if I commit, I try and play. I would also recommend if you don't have pitchers to play a couple of scrimmages with coach pitch. We played a fall ball season a couple of years ago and did a lot of playing during our practices and the kids really learned about how to actually play in the games. Still need a lot of drills, but I believe we learned more in those scrimmages than we did the entire spring.

Softball is sooooooooo daaang competitive.Especially here in SoCal. Even when its supposed to be "training and development" during the fall, coaches want blood on the field. Just the nature of the beast.

My dd is doing baseball for the fall. So much more relaxed. I also took another girl from my team to play baseball. Even she said its so sloooow.


Just be patient. Things happen for a reason.

My experience in lower level rec ball if your kid isnt learning to pitch or catch. its pointless.

See if she can switch to a fall baseball team in her league. My DD played on one in the spring and had a really good time.

GG - don't let a short fall season of daddy ball derail your DDs desire to get better. Set some short term goals that she (you) want her to accomplish by spring and work towards those goals. I promise you that if your DD takes weekly pitching lessons and practices 3x a week for the next 4 - 6 months she will see plenty of time in the circle come spring season. I also believe that you cannot dabble in pitching, you either commit to it fully and do all of the necessary preparation or you choose another position. I told this story before but when my DD was 7yo and wanted to pitch in the fall (first yr 8U where kid pitch is allowed) the manager made all kinds of excuses why my DD should not get circle time. She was #4 pitcher and the first few games she got one inning of work. As the season progressed, she took regular lessons and worked hard on her pitching to get more consistent. By the end of the fall season she was the #1 pitcher on her team, was the starter on her spring team, and made the all-star team that summer as the youngest kid on the team. The point of the story is that my DD had two choices, one was to give up on her dream to pitch or two to work hard and earn the position. She choose the later. A former NFL player once said, "you can get bitter or you can get better", its up to you.

Is there any other league in your area? It sounds like your league is a mess.

If you are going to stick with softball you need to decide if you want to jump ship to an org that has a real year round program or if you want to just do spring/summer with this org and something else in the fall because this org obviously isn't set up to run a real fall program.

I can't tell you which is right for you and your DDs that's something you'll need to decide for yourself.

My older DD just likes to play rec softball in the spring. My younger DD does the spring/summer gig. In 2 or 3 years she'll decide if she wants to with full time travel, stick with what she is doing now or go on to something else.