Travel Ball inquiry response vibe

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Jun 8, 2016
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8U (DD is actually 7 at the moment and will turn 8 in Sept) DD looking to play travel ball as local rec is horrible. Don't necessarily need a powerhouse team, nor one that associated with a large organization, just one that my DD doesn't have to worry about hurting somebody when she plays catch, have kids on her team who have similar love of softball and a team that plays against decent competition.

Anyway local softball board had a post about a team needing players and the specifics regarding timeline was good e.g. practices geared towards moving to 10U kid pitch in spring but Summer and Fall tourneys would still be machine pitch. This is what I thought would be best for my daughter as she has yet to play kid pitch and although Dad throws windmill to her I would like her to work on that some more before moving to kid pitch tourneys. Anyway, I sent a PM saying we were interested and then asked what this team had done in the Spring and Summer. Response to my inquiry was the following(redacted where necessary):


"My daughter played for *****(travel ball org in area) and league in *****. We left the *****(travel ball org) because of differences with the coach. Currently, we are starting over with the **** (new team name) and hoping to get enough girls that want to play in a positive environment. We are done with the coaches who kill the girls spirits because they want the trophy more than the girls do. We'd love to have you come to a practice, no tryouts, just girls who want to play ball and dedicated parents. We practice on Mondays and Wednesday at 6pm in ******. The practice field is behind the bus barns which is on the road just north of the high school all the way back into the bus maintenance entrance. My husbands name is ***, feel free to text him anytime with questions *******."

If I wanted to be cynical it sounds like the parents were unhappy with playing time and quit in order that their kid my playing time, which at 8U is perhaps understandable. My first thought is to not to commit to anything but have my DD go to a few practices and see for myself if the kids she will be playing with will be at least more competitive than her rec teammates.

Looking for some insight from parents with more experience than I with the travel ball scene.
 
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Jul 3, 2013
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Focus more on finding positive, developmental coaching than finding a team that has better players.
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
At 8U the players should be playing all over the place, even in TB she might need to be careful with her throws unless she jumps up an age group or 2.

Going to a practice or 2 is a great way to get to know a team, at 8U there will probably be more parents thier then players. :)

(I have a different opinion then most here, 10U was awful. It was the 1st time pitchers were on thier own, some really long games. If we had to do it over again even though she is a pitcher's so it was great for her I think she would have played slow pitch until 12U. 12U for some reason was so much better then 10u. Batters did not wait for a walk, seemed like they were all Swinging. Each age group up seems to get better.)
 
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Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Thanks for the response so far and I agree with everything that has been said. We will likely go to the practice tomorrow night and go from there. Any suggestions on
what types of questions I should ask?

One thing I am worried about is the team's ability to have enough players to field a team for the rest of this year and going forward.
I asked the contact about how many kids do they need at this point in order to have enough to enter tourneys and the answer was "I'm not sure an exact number right now, it seems to change weekly..."

Anyway we'll see how it goes tomorrow night.
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
I am not sure I would ask any questions other then thier general plan and cost which seem to be up in the air right now. I do not want to see players stading around with nothing to do.

Be nice to see them play a game too. Is this team a vehicle for thier DD? She plays SS and bats 3rd all the Time? If your DD is not in conflict with thier DD, no issue. If she is you might have an issue.

Pitchers are the most critical position in SB, be nice to get a peek at them too.
 
Feb 15, 2017
391
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At 8U the players should be playing all over the place, .....)

I think this should be the case at 10U too, where they play "real" softball for the first time. Too many teams chase plastic and only teach each kid one position or maybe 2.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
I am not sure I would ask any questions other then thier general plan and cost which seem to be up in the air right now. I do not want to see players stading around with nothing to do.

Be nice to see them play a game too. Is this team a vehicle for thier DD? She plays SS and bats 3rd all the Time? If your DD is not in conflict with thier DD, no issue. If she is you might have an issue.

Pitchers are the most critical position in SB, be nice to get a peek at them too.

Thanks. Agree with your questions and also agree that they probably won't know cost other than uniforms. Probably be a tourney by tourney deal for the time being until the team
is "firmly" established. In terms of seeing them play a game, like I said I am not sure they even have enough to field a team at the moment.
However I have been around sports long enough such that I can probably figure out if this is Daddy ball pretty quick.
To be honest, I would actually like to see my DD play somewhere besides SS since she has played only that position since T-ball. I haven't coached any of these teams
and didn't feel it appropriate to tell them to move her from SS from time to time. I played only SS up till college(except for a couple of games at 3B in HS after I blew out my ACL and before I had surgery on it) . Then in college they decided, and I found
out, that my arm wasn't strong enough and they moved me to 2B. Trying to learn not to charge every ball and turn the DP at 2nd was a pain in the rear and I would like my kid to
not have to experience the same thing (at 2B or somewhere else) :p

That team won't be moving up to kid pitch till the spring but I hope they already do have some kids who are working on pitching. Hopefully they have them throw at practice. I honestly
don't want my DD to pitch..I am an emotional wreck already during games and all she is playing is SS ..:p
 
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Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
At 8u we had coach backup, no walks.

DD could not throw a Strike to save her life but she was the best fielder. For us anyways the P seemed to field more balls then any other 2 positions combined.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
At 8u we had coach backup, no walks.

DD could not throw a Strike to save her life but she was the best fielder. For us anyways the P seemed to field more balls then any other 2 positions combined.

DD played 8U machine pitch rec and there are 8U TB tourneys that are MP as well. There are also 8U tourneys which are all kid pitch. I have not seen any of those (8U kid pitch) but the 10U kid pitch I went and "scouted" at last week's TB tourney my DD played in wasn't bad. Albeit I only saw 2 games but while there were some walks the pitchers in general had pretty good command. However I think these were A level teams in our area so it may not be the case in general. 10U kid pitch Rec in my town is a mess from what I have seen...
 
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