- Feb 7, 2013
- 3,188
- 48
DISCLAIMER: I have been wanting to chronicle my experiences with the travel ball scene for a while now, and since we are done with the current season, I will give you my thoughts and impressions: the good, the bad, the ugly. While I am changing a few names and places to protect the innocent, everything I write will be true to the facts and will reflect my sincere emotions and thoughts on the season as I have experienced it. I hope this information will shed some light on travel softball life and will elicit some deep thoughts from those who are currently going through the process, have played travel ball in the past, or those that are considering the move to more competitive travel softball.
Location: Southern California
The Player: 12YO DD (Pitcher/OF/1B). Throws and Bats right-handed.
Prior Experience: DD has played softball since she was 5YO. Played 6U - 12U (1st year) for a fairly competitive recreation leagues in the Los Angeles area. Since she was 7YO, has been selected to an all-star team every year including a high finish at ASA Nationals and two fall seasons playing on a tournament team.
Instruction: DD started taking pitching lessons at 7YO and hitting lessons at 8YO. She has continued with lessons, off and one, for the past 6 years. 4 different PCs and 3 different hitting coaches (don’t judge me!)
Coaches: Head Coach and Assistant Coach were new to the organization and are primarily rec. coaches with one year of travel ball experience before this fateful season.
August 2014
After 8 full seasons, DD decides that she is done with rec ball (and frankly I am done with the daddy ball coaches and politics). She would like to tryout for a travel ball team. I research some travel ball team options in the area and we decide that "SoCal Gold" (not its real name) might be a good fit. The organization is relatively small but has been around for more than 10 years and has a decent reputation in the area and comes highly recommended by several people whose opinions I respect (or at least did respect).
During this same time, a former coach of DDs (I was an AC) would like to form his own travel ball team from players who disbanded from a 1st year 12U team the previous year and wants DD and me to be part of it. I respectively declined as I have officially retired from coaching and the team was going to be very disorganized and thrown together at the last moment anyways. Not the experience I wanted for my daughter’s first entry into travel ball (little did I know what was in store for us).
Tryouts
The tryouts for SoCal Gold last about 3 hours each day, over 2 days. My DD has played with or competed against many of these players over the years. The players are run through a variety of drills and skills: A) conditioning, B) warm-ups C), throwing, D) catching, E) fielding. The tryout is run by many members of the organization, including the "upper classman" players in 14U and 18U.
Only about 18 players are trying out which sort of surprises me. I assumed we would have 30+ players being from such a large, metropolitan city but there were several tryouts for other teams the week before and apparently there is much competition for talent at this age, players get offers immediately and need to decide within days.
There are 4 pitchers and 5 catchers at tryouts. The pitcher/catcher batteries warm-up together and ultimately pitch to the other players. The coaches have radar guns and take notes occasionally. 3 of the 4 pitchers look solid and since DD is a pitcher, I am rightfully a little concerned. The 4th pitcher is less experienced and has a hard time throwing with any real accuracy or velocity. When not pitching, DD plays some 1st base and outfield. She looks like she is holding her own against her peers. On a couple of occasions, I had to catch myself from not saying anything during tryouts. For example, when it was my DDs time to pitch, she was standing at the 43 foot pitching plate (12U is 40 feet) and I was concerned that she would be at a disadvantage to the other pitchers before her who pitched at 40 feet. Luckily before the first pitch, the coaches noticed the issue and corrected her. Whew! Disaster averted! (this moment of keeping my mouth shut will suit me well over the next 12 months).
So tryouts are complete on the second day and the players breakdown all of the equipment. The parents are standing around not knowing what is next. Are the coaches going to tip their hand of what they thought of the players? Nope, all they said was that some of the players will be notified sometime next week. The next day, I get a call from the assistant coach who lets me know that DD is being offered a position on the team. While thrilled, I have some concerns that the head coach's DD is also a pitcher and we all know this is not an ideal situation for the other pitchers on the team. I let the AC know my concerns and he assures me that daddy ball will not be happening on this team. I told him that is good to hear and that all I want is for my DD to be able to "compete" for playing time. I let him know that we appreciate the offer and have one more tryout but we will get back to him shortly. Quickly, DD decides this is the team she wants to play for and I call the coach back the next day and we accept their offer. 13 players join the team and the other 5 from tryouts are cut, including a close friend of DDs. We are excited however that several of the players that also accepted are family friends from our local rec. league.
Fall 2014
In general, the team will practice 3x a week (a team practice for 2 hours during the week, an optional conditioning practice for 1 hour, and a Sunday practice for 4 hours). When not practicing on Sunday, the team will either play a doubleheader scrimmage with a local team, a 4-game friendly which is normally 1 hour drive away or more, or a TCS/PGF qualifier tournament.
The first practice is 4 hours. Lots of conditioning and drills. DD seems ok with the rigors of travel ball practices. There are only two coaches and the players will run much of the drills themselves. In fact, the practices are well run and organized and the coaches have lots of good information and are fairly softball knowledgeable. However, the thought of another parent helping would probably result in the loss of your right arm.
One of our first friendlies, is an organizational workout by the largest TB org in the nation (we’ll call them the SoCal Flat Crackers (“FC)) at Big League Dreams. BLD are great parks for softball since all the fields are MLB replica fields and they serve alcohol! Few things better on a Sunday than drinking a draft beer, in an air-conditioned restaurant, watching your DD play softball while simultaneously seeing NFL games displayed on flat screen TVs. I could get used to this, but I digress…
The first thing that strikes me is that there are about 40 teams from the same FC organization. Since we are only playing FC teams this weekend, I’m thinking we have no chance to win as our team has been around for all of one month. Well, as luck would have it, the teams we played were basically rec teams that recently moved up to travel ball (kinda like our team). We went 4 – 0 that weekend, and the coaches were proud. However, we quickly came back down to reality during our first tournament where we went 2-2 and did not make it past the quarter finals. As a side note, all the players tried on sample cleats to be ordered and delivered to us in 4-6 weeks (10 months later we are still waiting for those damn cleats). We are told they are on back order but we find out that they ordered metal cleats (we are 12U) so they are no good to us.
One interesting note about the games is, for every error the team makes, all the players have to run poles (basically the length of the outfield foul poles) right after the game. Furthermore, the coaches have lots to say after the game and will hold the players “hostage” for 20 – 30 mins after every single game no matter if its 100 degrees out and we have been at the fields for 8 hours, it doesn’t matter. What do these coaches possibly have to say that couldn’t or wasn’t said during the game?
Location: Southern California
The Player: 12YO DD (Pitcher/OF/1B). Throws and Bats right-handed.
Prior Experience: DD has played softball since she was 5YO. Played 6U - 12U (1st year) for a fairly competitive recreation leagues in the Los Angeles area. Since she was 7YO, has been selected to an all-star team every year including a high finish at ASA Nationals and two fall seasons playing on a tournament team.
Instruction: DD started taking pitching lessons at 7YO and hitting lessons at 8YO. She has continued with lessons, off and one, for the past 6 years. 4 different PCs and 3 different hitting coaches (don’t judge me!)
Coaches: Head Coach and Assistant Coach were new to the organization and are primarily rec. coaches with one year of travel ball experience before this fateful season.
August 2014
After 8 full seasons, DD decides that she is done with rec ball (and frankly I am done with the daddy ball coaches and politics). She would like to tryout for a travel ball team. I research some travel ball team options in the area and we decide that "SoCal Gold" (not its real name) might be a good fit. The organization is relatively small but has been around for more than 10 years and has a decent reputation in the area and comes highly recommended by several people whose opinions I respect (or at least did respect).
During this same time, a former coach of DDs (I was an AC) would like to form his own travel ball team from players who disbanded from a 1st year 12U team the previous year and wants DD and me to be part of it. I respectively declined as I have officially retired from coaching and the team was going to be very disorganized and thrown together at the last moment anyways. Not the experience I wanted for my daughter’s first entry into travel ball (little did I know what was in store for us).
Tryouts
The tryouts for SoCal Gold last about 3 hours each day, over 2 days. My DD has played with or competed against many of these players over the years. The players are run through a variety of drills and skills: A) conditioning, B) warm-ups C), throwing, D) catching, E) fielding. The tryout is run by many members of the organization, including the "upper classman" players in 14U and 18U.
Only about 18 players are trying out which sort of surprises me. I assumed we would have 30+ players being from such a large, metropolitan city but there were several tryouts for other teams the week before and apparently there is much competition for talent at this age, players get offers immediately and need to decide within days.
There are 4 pitchers and 5 catchers at tryouts. The pitcher/catcher batteries warm-up together and ultimately pitch to the other players. The coaches have radar guns and take notes occasionally. 3 of the 4 pitchers look solid and since DD is a pitcher, I am rightfully a little concerned. The 4th pitcher is less experienced and has a hard time throwing with any real accuracy or velocity. When not pitching, DD plays some 1st base and outfield. She looks like she is holding her own against her peers. On a couple of occasions, I had to catch myself from not saying anything during tryouts. For example, when it was my DDs time to pitch, she was standing at the 43 foot pitching plate (12U is 40 feet) and I was concerned that she would be at a disadvantage to the other pitchers before her who pitched at 40 feet. Luckily before the first pitch, the coaches noticed the issue and corrected her. Whew! Disaster averted! (this moment of keeping my mouth shut will suit me well over the next 12 months).
So tryouts are complete on the second day and the players breakdown all of the equipment. The parents are standing around not knowing what is next. Are the coaches going to tip their hand of what they thought of the players? Nope, all they said was that some of the players will be notified sometime next week. The next day, I get a call from the assistant coach who lets me know that DD is being offered a position on the team. While thrilled, I have some concerns that the head coach's DD is also a pitcher and we all know this is not an ideal situation for the other pitchers on the team. I let the AC know my concerns and he assures me that daddy ball will not be happening on this team. I told him that is good to hear and that all I want is for my DD to be able to "compete" for playing time. I let him know that we appreciate the offer and have one more tryout but we will get back to him shortly. Quickly, DD decides this is the team she wants to play for and I call the coach back the next day and we accept their offer. 13 players join the team and the other 5 from tryouts are cut, including a close friend of DDs. We are excited however that several of the players that also accepted are family friends from our local rec. league.
Fall 2014
In general, the team will practice 3x a week (a team practice for 2 hours during the week, an optional conditioning practice for 1 hour, and a Sunday practice for 4 hours). When not practicing on Sunday, the team will either play a doubleheader scrimmage with a local team, a 4-game friendly which is normally 1 hour drive away or more, or a TCS/PGF qualifier tournament.
The first practice is 4 hours. Lots of conditioning and drills. DD seems ok with the rigors of travel ball practices. There are only two coaches and the players will run much of the drills themselves. In fact, the practices are well run and organized and the coaches have lots of good information and are fairly softball knowledgeable. However, the thought of another parent helping would probably result in the loss of your right arm.
One of our first friendlies, is an organizational workout by the largest TB org in the nation (we’ll call them the SoCal Flat Crackers (“FC)) at Big League Dreams. BLD are great parks for softball since all the fields are MLB replica fields and they serve alcohol! Few things better on a Sunday than drinking a draft beer, in an air-conditioned restaurant, watching your DD play softball while simultaneously seeing NFL games displayed on flat screen TVs. I could get used to this, but I digress…
The first thing that strikes me is that there are about 40 teams from the same FC organization. Since we are only playing FC teams this weekend, I’m thinking we have no chance to win as our team has been around for all of one month. Well, as luck would have it, the teams we played were basically rec teams that recently moved up to travel ball (kinda like our team). We went 4 – 0 that weekend, and the coaches were proud. However, we quickly came back down to reality during our first tournament where we went 2-2 and did not make it past the quarter finals. As a side note, all the players tried on sample cleats to be ordered and delivered to us in 4-6 weeks (10 months later we are still waiting for those damn cleats). We are told they are on back order but we find out that they ordered metal cleats (we are 12U) so they are no good to us.
One interesting note about the games is, for every error the team makes, all the players have to run poles (basically the length of the outfield foul poles) right after the game. Furthermore, the coaches have lots to say after the game and will hold the players “hostage” for 20 – 30 mins after every single game no matter if its 100 degrees out and we have been at the fields for 8 hours, it doesn’t matter. What do these coaches possibly have to say that couldn’t or wasn’t said during the game?
