Should travel ball pitchers be allowed to play Rec All-Stars?

[bwalk63]

I am going to throw my 2 cents worth in here. I come from a town of 5000 people. We have always had some good quality softball players. My DD is 14 and plays travel ball, is one of the better players, there are about 15 other girls that also play Travel ball ranging from ages 10-16. My DD is the only one who plays rec ball. We were told by the H.S. coach a couple years ago that she should only play Travel as she would not be as good a player if she did both. Bull is what I say. She plays for fun with her friends that are not travel ball caliber and gets work at hitting some slower pitchers and some good travel pitchers from other towns as well, she also can work on positions she might not play as much for travel ball. But the big thing I see is that because so few good players are playing rec ball here, the rec system is getting smaller and smaller, and girls that might eventually be good are not even playing because we cant compete against the bigger towns. Except we do because my DD is a pitcher and she pitches when we play the better teams. What she tells me is she wants to have fun and support her home town and that her team mates need players like her. But she is the only one who is stepping up. Sometimes kids surprise me by doing what is right and not what others say they should be doing. I really believe that in the end rec ball teams will get smaller and smaller because kids are only thinking of themselves instead of helping and teaching others by example. This is just my opinion.

 

[abbygale]

My daughter tired of the martyr role rather quickly once she got to play with others that would get after it. Different strokes....

 

[Amy in AZ.]

I think it is up to your DD.
My daughter announced as a Freshman that she was done with rec. When players are 12-14 YO and can't field, throw or catch a fly ball, she thought she was wasting her time.

I was glad, because I saw instances when a girl wasn't able to play her position and it almost got my daughter hurt.

 

[Ken Krause]

Years ago, after a couple of successful years of TB pitching, my oldest daughter decided she wanted to be the big fish in the little pond and pitch in the local rec league as well as on our TB team. She quickly found the rec games boring, and her coach messed up her pitching when he told her to slow down her pitches during BP so the girls could hit it.

The last straw was a hot day when she had rolled up a bunch of Ks. A popup was hit toward the first baseman and she let it drop rather than take a chance on getting hurt by attempting to catch it. She finally realized she was wasting her time and that was the end of rec ball.

 

[halskinner]

I dont want anyone to misconstrue my last post to think I am giving thumbs down to rec leagues. NOT AT ALL. However, most rec leagues are treated as 'Training camps' for travel ball. Not unlike how a Junior varsity team is a 'Feeder Pool' for the Varsity coaches to pick from at any time. Little league softball programs are treated the same way. By travel ball teams.

My hat is off to those rec league and LL coaches. If not for their commitment to starting out the young beginners, softball in this country in be in a world of hurt for upcoming players. I have always dreamed of travel coaches AND young travel players taking some time to go out and work WITH the rec leaguers as this IS their upcoming travel players they are looking at.

If you took Mike Candrea and put him in charge of working with an 8u team of BRAND new players, he would probably pull his hair out. With all due respect to Mike and his accomplishments as a coach, I dont think he could handle THAT challenge. Most upper age level coaches couldnt.

I KNOW from persomal experience that not all pitching instructors, especially the male instructors, can handle working with the very youngest students. They just cant handle bringing their experience level down to their understanding level.

My hats are off to the coaches that do work with the youngest beginners, our sport owe you folks a great debt.

Rec coaches - "You bow to NOONE".

Coach Hal

 

[lhowser]

My experience is that my dd's play travel and rec.

Our community has an excellent Little League. It is where I was introduced to fastpitch. My oldest daughter started playing LL at 11. She faced a flame thrower that no one could hit (this pitcher graduated from high school last year and was probably as good of a fastpitch player as our state has ever seen. Starting pitcher for D-1 state high school champ last year and runner-up for ASA 18U in Vegas last summer). Yes, you guessed it, her team easily won the championship in rec ball each year but we didn't throw up our hands and say unfair or she shouldn't be in the league. We used it as motivation. Her skill level elevated the determination of many players and parents in our town. Sure there was and is to this day a great disparity in skill levels but the LL draft system allows you to mix things up pretty well.

Fast forward to DD #2. She and a handful of girls in our hometown fell in love with the game watching the older girls play. In particular the travel star. Our rec league grew and last summer we had a blast taking a group of kids who play travel and LL to the LL Junior World Series where we played in the finals on ESPN. All of the teams there had kids playing travel and Rec LL. I had the privlege of coaching most of these girls in LL and travel and 3 of them as Freshman started on last years D-1 High School Chamionship team.

Many Rec ball players get a taste and want more if there are good players around them. As a LL coach I have always tried to help the lesser skilled players earn individual success. When we win all 13 kids feel they are a part of it...not just the 2 or 3 travel studs.

We have loved participating in both and I feel our Rec league is better for it.

 

[fastpitch]

lhowser makes a good point. seeing better players can inspire girls to get better. thats how my dd started pitching. she saw one of the older girls who played travel just dominating in little league and said to me... that's what i want to do... a couple of years later and hundreds of hours of practice, now she is that girl that parents tell me inspires their daughters to want to be better. being in and seeing a higher level of play raises the girls that want to play's level.

see my post on raising a nation of wimps. not everyone needs to get a trophy. Banning travel ball pitchers from rec all stars is simply some rec all stars dad trying to ensure DD gets a trophy. if they want the trophy... work harder than the next person.

 

[SoCalDad]

lhowser makes a good point. seeing better players can inspire girls to get better. thats how my dd started pitching. she saw one of the older girls who played travel just dominating in little league and said to me... that's what i want to do...

I can't agree with you more. As I have previously posted my DD is playing Rec All-Stars one last season as she ages out this year. Despite some early issues with parents when she first returned those problems have gone away and my DD has become a role model for the younger divisions. Twice a week at the end of my all-star practice I keep my pitchers and catchers an extra 30 minutes to work exclusively on pitching and catching. The 8U and 10U practices end earlier and a handful of the girls asked their parents if they could hang around to watch my girls practice. At first they just hung out on the fence and watched. After speaking with several of the younger parents I arranged 1 day a week where my girls stay an additional 30 minutes and hold a pitching and catching clinic for these younger players. These younger pitchers became very motivated and my league had 3 teams (8U, 10U and 14U) playing in this past Sunday's championship games for the first time ever. Pitching got us into these games and the motivation and support the younger players got from the older players attributed to that success.

I didn't realize how much these younger girls appreciated the older girls until the championship game this past Sunday. We were the last game of the day and about a dozen of the 8U and 10U girls stayed to watch us play. In the middle of the second inning my DD threw her first change up and the girls started cheering with a song they had made up: "She changed on you, she changed on you, you thought you knew but you were fooled, she changed on you, she changed on you". The smile on my DDs face was priceless and a memory I will never forget.

 

[SoCalSoftballdad]

lhowser makes a good point. seeing better players can inspire girls to get better. thats how my dd started pitching. she saw one of the older girls who played travel just dominating in little league and said to me... that's what i want to do... a couple of years later and hundreds of hours of practice, now she is that girl that parents tell me inspires their daughters to want to be better. being in and seeing a higher level of play raises the girls that want to play's level.

see my post on raising a nation of wimps. not everyone needs to get a trophy. Banning travel ball pitchers from rec all stars is simply some rec all stars dad trying to ensure DD gets a trophy. if they want the trophy... work harder than the next person.

To your first point, did it occur to you guys that the opposite effect might happen where rec ball players might get very discouraged (not inspired) because of a dominating TB pitcher who they might only see a couple of times each summer? If you want rec players to observe better play, why not have the TB coach and a few TB players host a pitching and fielding clinic for the rec league?

To your second point about the trophy, you might consider its actually the TB pitcher's dad/mom and the coach of that team that allows this farce to take place so they can get the hardware.

Since pichers can dominate a game like no other position, I would be in favor of allowing a few travel ball players on each all-star rec team but not allowing them to pitch. This would bring parity and fairness to the process and allow for more competitive games. There really is a valid reason why its called "recreational" softball and ASA created a travel ball program for the players who wanted to play with higher caliber competition.

 

[halskinner]

To your first point, did it occur to you guys that the opposite effect might happen where rec ball players might get very discouraged (not inspired) because of a dominating TB pitcher who they might only see a couple of times each summer? If you want rec players to observe better play, why not have the TB coach and a few TB players host a pitching and fielding clinic for the rec league?

To your second point about the trophy, you might consider its actually the TB pitcher's dad/mom and the coach of that team that allows this farce to take place so they can get the hardware.

Since pichers can dominate a game like no other position, I would be in favor of allowing a few travel ball players on each all-star rec team but not allowing them to pitch. This would bring parity and fairness to the process and allow for more competitive games. There really is a valid reason why its called "recreational" softball and ASA created a travel ball program for the players who wanted to play with higher caliber competition.

"Since pichers can dominate a game like no other position, I would be in favor of allowing a few travel ball players on each all-star rec team but not allowing them to pitch."

Hang on now. bring some travel ball players down to rec league will have those players smashing the rec league pitchers pitchers? Isnt that kind of exactly opposite of what you are trying to prevent by not letting the travel ball pitchers pitch in rec league???