Can I get a travel ball history lesson?

[Quigs10]

This is 100% what happened in my area. We have lots of small towns that can put together 2 Little League teams on a good year. They travel to the nearby towns to play. The quality of ball was pretty strong.

Once travel ball started up in our area it didn't fill a void it created a vacuum. Top players left LL to play travel. That led to the middle of the road players becoming the top LL players, giving their parents the delusion that they were stars, so they left for travel ball teams. Shitty travel ball teams with lousy coaches and filled with mediocre players, but travel ball teams nonetheless . So the dominos continued to fall to the point that even bad LL players were joining bad travel teams.

The end result was a competitive Little League became complete garbage and a lot of areas teams couldn't field teams or they had to bring up coach pitch aged kids to fill their teams. And a lot of bad travel teams were created. So the travel ball surge killed Little League and the competitiveness of travel ball.

That to me is the saddest and most troubling part about both baseball and softball travel ball amd its destruction of the local Rec leagues. Kids bailing at 9, 10 11 yrs old and the leagues go to crap. I wish kids would stick around in theor local leagues as in our time ("back in the day") til 14 or 15. Then go play TB like we would with American Legion ball and with your HS teams in summer amd fall ball. But...I know that is loooong gone now.

Even HS ball is affected and thought of as less important than TB in many parts of the country. We've seen girls stop playing HS and focus on just TB...but it happens in all sports now. Soccer is the most Ive seen

 

[curiousgeorge123]

@pattar- absolutely right. And my dd’s did run track and played bb and vb for at least part of middle school. My comments are mostly from the point of view of a dude whose last dd is graduating hs this week.

There is also a big exception to my three sport athlete rant. It is the “1%er” type athlete that can play any sport she wants at the time. College coaches see a lot of these and I think they assume that the reason why they are good college athletes is they played three sports. It’s more like they were so athletic they could play anything they want and then pick up where they left off when the next sport starts. They are pretty rare. BUT... They have to have the gifts of athleticism AND the gift of a body that can hold up to the abuse. One of the most athletic kids I have ever seen in my life was a track star, a vb star, A bb star, could pitch a softball very competitively. It was like she could do anything and she was poetry in motion when you watched her play any sport. She made it to her sophomore year before her knee and right shoulder transformed her from a stand out student athlete into a stand out student. She wasn’t limited in what she could play. She couldn’t play at all. It was a shame.

I have always thought that she had one flaw: she could do anything and wanted to do everything. It’s too bad. If she would have focused on softball.... I think we would have been watching her on tv.

my experience has been injuries are FAR more likely to occur by overusing the same muscles in the same way year round...ie specialist.

 

[curiousgeorge123]

A scenario I have seen many times...

A local rec all-star team has a good run during their summer all-star season. Maybe they won a couple of tournaments, and did well at their State championships. Coaches are pumped up, parents are happy, the players love each other. Everyone is feeling good. Then, the coaches pop the idea of keeping those happy feeling going, and keeping the team together, by becoming a TB team. To keep costs down, they don't join up with a major TB org, they stay independent as "Coast City Cyclones" . Sounds great, Coach

They start playing friendlies and tournaments, and proceed to get curb-stomped...repeatedly. Welcome to TB! The happy buzz starts wearing off. A few parents decide their princesses need to be on a team that wins, so they pull the plug and go find a new team. Now, the Cyclones have some holes to fill. Very likely, the players that left were some of the better players on the team. The Cyclones don't exactly have a well-known name, and a pretty ugly track record. Attracting quality talent is not likely, but the coaches need to fill the roster so the team can keep playing, so they take anyone who is willing to write a check. Maybe the coaches are pretty good, and they help the better athletes become pretty good players, but the scenario repeats.

A lot more often than not, these types of teams don't last very long.

not sure what's wrong with this scenario...assuming the coach is "pretty good." those teams play because they are having fun working at the game not to get a college scholly. a lot of those kids will get the bug and work really hard to make a more competitive team. others may not and play "B/C" level with their friends and enjoy the game the or move on to other things. that's FINE. There are alot more B/C teams around that you can play locally and don't have to travel as much to keep costs down.

it seems the OP's premise is that only "A" level travel ball should exist. all other forms should dismantle immediately. we should want to grow the game and have options for kids at all levels. there is a very large group of players/families that want more than LL, but may not be ready for traveling for national events. B/C teams should not be looked down upon. they should be commended for giving a group of girls an opportunity to play.

 

[Rick M]

That to me is the saddest and most troubling part about both baseball and softball travel ball amd its destruction of the local Rec leagues. Kids bailing at 9, 10 11 yrs old and the leagues go to crap. I wish kids would stick around in theor local leagues as in our time ("back in the day") til 14 or 15.

There is a flip side to this, as well. DD and many of her friends play TB, on a bunch of different teams. Last spring, they came together for one last run at a rec state title. It was 12U, end of the line.

The other teams we played at 12U were furious at us. At our district final, as I was warming DD up, a parent from the other finalist stood behind me and exclaimed loudly, “Oh look, they brought their travel pitcher. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

There’s definitely an idea out there that rec is just for learning, and that once a kid has developed any level of skill they should move on. Honestly, there wasn’t any legit competition until the state tournament (where our team lost in the final). That state tournament was full of rec all star teams that played a solid travel schedule during the spring to get better.

That team from the district final? They would have gotten destroyed if they had qualified for states.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[uncdrew]

@pattar- absolutely right. And my dd’s did run track and played bb and vb for at least part of middle school. My comments are mostly from the point of view of a dude whose last dd is graduating hs this week.

There is also a big exception to my three sport athlete rant. It is the “1%er” type athlete that can play any sport she wants at the time. College coaches see a lot of these and I think they assume that the reason why they are good college athletes is they played three sports. It’s more like they were so athletic they could play anything they want and then pick up where they left off when the next sport starts. They are pretty rare. BUT... They have to have the gifts of athleticism AND the gift of a body that can hold up to the abuse. One of the most athletic kids I have ever seen in my life was a track star, a vb star, A bb star, could pitch a softball very competitively. It was like she could do anything and she was poetry in motion when you watched her play any sport. She made it to her sophomore year before her knee and right shoulder transformed her from a stand out student athlete into a stand out student. She wasn’t limited in what she could play. She couldn’t play at all. It was a shame.

I have always thought that she had one flaw: she could do anything and wanted to do everything. It’s too bad. If she would have focused on softball.... I think we would have been watching her on tv.

Do college coaches expect/like the same from guys? Does Clemson only recruit the QB who also plays baseball and soccer? I really doubt it. They recruit the best QB they can, regardless of almost any other factor.

And thinking back on my high school days, there were certainly guys on multiple varsity teams, but I don't feel they were recruitment any more than an equally talented boy playing a single sport.

 

[uncdrew]

Very good thread with some interesting thoughts. Personally, I think the growth of travel ball is a good thing for the most part. My only wish is that there was a better way to classify the teams. DD started playing travel ball at 12u. At that time, our TB team was made up mostly of the local all-stars. Looking back on it, I would classify the team as low B. At local tournaments we were competitive. When we traveled farther outside the area, we typically got pounded. Our players worked hard each year and we gradually improved. The players received far more practice and game experience than any local rec league could provide. By the time we made it to 16u we were now competitive at any tournament we attended. We started avoiding the local tournaments because there were times we were afraid someone from the other team would get hurt. Our goal all along was to win between 60% and 75% of our games. If we won more than 75%, we needed to increase our difficulty level. At the end, I would say our team was a low A or high B level.

The added experience is really what made the difference for us. DD's high school team only had one travel ball player (her). Most of the other local high schools ranged from 3 to 6 travel ball players. Those that had 9 or more were the cream of the crop and untouchable for high school teams like DD's. When we played against most of the other local high schools, we knew all of the better players. They either played for our TB team or for another local team that we were familiar with. I'm sure this is much different in higher population regions.

I remember the first travel team I coached. Girls were mostly 9 years old, getting ready for our first 10U travel ball tournament. We had about 6 practices and honestly I wanted more. I felt we'd show up and get destroyed by teams that had played together for years, had mostly 10 year olds, and just had more talent then the group that live in my zip code and we're on our team.

We won the tournament, destroying some teams. That was the day I realized "Travel Team" didn't mean the same thing as it did in 1984 when I was playing Travel Baseball.

 

[_MIA_]

Do college coaches expect/like the same from guys? Does Clemson only recruit the QB who also plays baseball and soccer? I really doubt it. They recruit the best QB they can, regardless of almost any other factor.

And thinking back on my high school days, there were certainly guys on multiple varsity teams, but I don't feel they were recruitment any more than an equally talented boy playing a single sport.

Regardless of what they say, I doubt a college softball coach would pass over the better SS because she only played softball for the lesser SS who played 3 sports. What college coaches probably really mean when they say such things is all other things equal, they would pick the best athlete. It just so happens that often this best athlete might play more than 1 sport because she could still be as good as that other shortstop while spending a bit less time playing the sport because she was a better athlete...

 

[FP26]

IMO most college coaches say they are in favor of multi-sport athletes because stating the opposite would be unpopular.

 

[_MIA_]

IMO most college coaches say they are in favor of multi-sport athletes because stating the opposite would be unpopular.

That too..

 

[PDM]

Travel ball has changed in definition a lot in the last twenty or so years. I respectfully ask how did we get here. Please read the whole post and understand that I mean no disrespect in the question, but if you only read half the post it may come off as disrespectful. That's not my intent. I'm trying to learn something. So please read with an open mind...

I was very active in softball. Then I went on a long hiatus. Then I had kids and got back in, and times had changed.

In my first go round travel teams were few and far between. The people playing were likely college players who had been sought out in some regard to join/try out.

Now everybody and their sister is on a travel ball team. I had a Dad question me about why I didn't ask his daughter to try out for the Little League All-Stars, because she was a travel ball player. She was the worst player on her Little League team, but had $800 worth of bats in her bag, and her dad was willing to write a check to any organization that would take her. She only lasted a season and then was forced to move on to the next sucker who'd take her dad's money, but someone always did. I live in a rural area and there at least 4 organizations drawing talent in a 30 mile radius. Most of the organizations have 2 teams at each age level.

So the fact that everyone is able to join a travel ball team, brings me to two conclusions:
A. There are a ton of rec leagues selling themselves as travel ball teams.
or
B. Travel ball teams have over expanded so far that anyone can create a team and everyone can play if the check cashes.

I realize this sounds insulting, and I don't mean it to. I know there are great organizations with elite players out there. They have great coaches and their players are going to D1 schools. I'm not trying to lump all teams together.

I want to know how we got here. I'm not trying to be argumentative I'm trying to learn, and since this board is full of softball junkies who can't get on a field, I'm hoping I can get a thoughtful history.

Is there some regulation of who can call themselves travel ball teams?

Could I just find 9 girls and call us a travel team, and challenge my neighbor to do the same?

How do "state" tournaments work? My friend's daughter played in multiple state tournaments. I assumed a state champion was supposed to determine who was the best team in your state (with different divisions of course.)

How do National tournaments work?

How did we get to so many governing bodies?


Thanks for taking the time to read this epic and for answering my questions.

This is something that I have hated to see and have commented on in several sports. It's about ego. Every kid wants to say they are on a travel team and every parent wants to brag about having a kid on a travel team. As a result, a lot of average kids don't develop and a lot of kids without well off parents are shut out of decent competition, and in some cases they are shut out of the sport entirely. It is ruining youth sports.