7U or 8U???

[_MIA_]

For a softball forum there sure are a lot of people that dislike seeing young kids playing softball.

I don't think that is the case. It is just that once you get to 14U and above, it can start to get really expensive and if you don't need to spend extra money when they are 7 then why do it? If you can afford it knock yourself out but just realize that you could be spending 5K-10K a year once they hit 14U...

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Why are there even 7U or 8U tournaments or teams? Shouldn't they just be doing fun scrimmages or league games? What happened to Little League??

Coach,

I live east of you on LI, and we have some towns with good Little Leagues still. The problem is when TB starts to take from the LL pool of talent and causes the LL to fall apart. That's what causes the HS teams in our area to have such a disparity in talent.

My HS team has four legitimate hitters and a fifth who makes contact and gets on base. The next four batters in the lineup are K machines who never played anything but LL and MS ball prior to playing varsity. We spend thousands a year on lessons and travel, so a HS can be hard to watch when you have players who are only there to have fun and goof off with friends.

I always used to think we had a soccer and lacrosse problem, but the legendary former Hofstra coach, Bill Edwards, told me we have a coaching problem. Too many dopey dads teaching poor mechanics or not even running practices really does hurt development.

P.S. my older daughter was recruited by coach Fazzolare this year. She ultimately chose a different school, though. Go Rams!

 

[Beeg]

Why are there even 7U or 8U tournaments or teams? Shouldn't they just be doing fun scrimmages or league games? What happened to Little League??

When our daughter was in 7U, the regular league games were too slow for her. She wanted more.

We researched and found a local 8U travel team that needed a guest player in the summer. She played 2 tournaments with them. We were new to softball since DD was our only child, and we were impressed with the skills and high level of competition at that age! After playing the 2 tournaments, DD was hooked. (It helped that they won the 2nd one even though they were losing 0-11 by 3rd inning and rallied back to win 21-14.)

The next year, we moved and she joined a highly competitive 8U team. So yes, even at 8U, there are kids who love to play at this higher level. I think without it, she'd be bored with softball long ago.

Also, we ran out of things to teach her in batting, and we ended up hiring a batting coach. This was 10 years ago, long before it was a norm to pay for private lessons for a 7-yr old. The coach looked at us like we were crazy parents who wanted to waste money. However, after DD's first swing, she looked at me and apologized. She said DD definitely had a great swing, and it was definitely good for her to learned to swing correctly now before she developed bad habits.

Trust me, I am a cheapskate. We wouldn't be spending this crazy money if it were for this kid wanting to play at a higher level. We figured it is the one thing she enjoyed to do and gets her out of the house, why not?

 

[NJZoo]

There really aren't a lot of 8U tournaments in our area. Our local town travel team hosts a Memorial Day Tournament every year and they used to have a division for their 8U team that would usually have 4 or 5 teams entered. But I don't think they've had 8U the past few years because there aren't as many 8U teams as their used to be. Most club organizations start at 10U, and the town travel teams that have 8U usually aren't going to travel more than 30 min for a game. Plus, 8U in our area is coach pitch, so it's not so cut throat...lots of dads throwing no hitters against their own teams