Interesting audio book about Travel Softball by Michael Lewis

[benjey]

Thought this was a really good look at the travel softball scene and youth sports in general. Written by Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, Blindside, The Big Short, and many many others.

Playing to Win

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. When New York Times best-selling author and journalist Michael Lewis got involved in his kids’ local softball league, it all seemed so wholesome and simple. Ten years later, his family looked back to find that they had spent thousands of dollars - ...

www.audible.com

It is only available as an audiobook but you can do a free trial to listen for free.

One sad note, his DD who he chronicles in the book died earlier this year in an auto accident.

 

[Strike2]

It does look interesting. I listened to the sample, and it summarizes a decade of apparently very overdone practice, play, and travel, and the author's wife reaching the conclusion of "no more". It's almost presented as something that happened to the family instead of being the result of a series of conscious choices. Spending weeks (or even months) out of the year and thousands of dollars traveling all over creation to play ball is no accident.

 

[jdint]

Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes. The major players aren’t the ones on the field - they’re the ones stripping the pockets of unwitting parents to the tune of billions of dollars a year

I wonder what the percentage of us TB parents are actual "unwitting parents?" I mean it's pretty easy to figure out what the deal is unless your extremely gullible, or just not too bright I guess. I'm sure plenty of these unwitting parents exist, I just think the assertion is pretty overblown based on my experience.

 

[tomorrow]

I guess I am "parent lacking wit". I was completely clueless to the amount of time, money and dedication required for TB.

Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes. The major players aren’t the ones on the field - they’re the ones stripping the pockets of unwitting parents to the tune of billions of dollars a year

I wonder what the percentage of us TB parents are actual "unwitting parents?" I mean it's pretty easy to figure out what the deal is unless your extremely gullible, or just not too bright I guess. I'm sure plenty of these unwitting parents exist, I just think the assertion is pretty overblown based on my experience.

 

[benjey]

Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes. The major players aren’t the ones on the field - they’re the ones stripping the pockets of unwitting parents to the tune of billions of dollars a year

I wonder what the percentage of us TB parents are actual "unwitting parents?" I mean it's pretty easy to figure out what the deal is unless your extremely gullible, or just not too bright I guess. I'm sure plenty of these unwitting parents exist, I just think the assertion is pretty overblown based on my experience.

I think being on this site alone suggests you are more educated than the average TB parent. In my experience there are a very high percentage of TB parents who don't know what they are in for or understand the economics involved. I do think many would still participate even if they did understand the economics

 

[Rolling Hard]

All that travel is simply unnecessary. Parents are unwitting and afraid to ask questions. Before you know it, Coach puts out schedule for spring/summer and they feel they have to go along. They are lead to believe that their DD must be on a certain team and attend certain events in order to have a chance at the Almightly D1 Level. It is all a racket. The org tells the coaches what tourneys and showcases they need to go attend. Head of Org. is getting kickback. Stay to Play BS. Most Coaches enjoy the travel, dining and drinking on the teams dime. Parents racking up credit card debt to pay for TB is irresponsible.

Parents need to push back, ask questions and say no! There is absolutely zero reason for a 12u or even 14u team to travel out of So Cal to play ball. Maybe once or twice a year, preferable drivable destination, for the experience/fun is acceptable. But believing it is necessary to have 12 y/o player get on a plane 8 or 9 times a year for EXPOSURE is plain stupid. Exposure! Yes that's the word these Coaches use when fleecing their parents.

And when their DD wants to quit the game when she is 15 years old they wonder why.

 

[Orange Socks]

All that travel is simply unnecessary. Parents are unwitting and afraid to ask questions. Before you know it, Coach puts out schedule for spring/summer and they feel they have to go along. They are lead to believe that their DD must be on a certain team and attend certain events in order to have a chance at the Almightly D1 Level. It is all a racket. The org tells the coaches what tourneys and showcases they need to go attend. Head of Org. is getting kickback. Stay to Play bullshit. Most Coaches enjoy the travel, dining and drinking on the teams dime. Parents racking up credit card debt to pay for TB is irresponsible.

Parents need to push back, ask questions and say no! There is absolutely zero reason for a 12u or even 14u team to travel out of So Cal to play ball. Maybe once or twice a year, preferable drivable destination, for the experience/fun is acceptable. But believing it is necessary to have 12 y/o player get on a plane 8 or 9 times a year for EXPOSURE is plain stupid. Exposure! Yes that's the word these Coaches use when fleecing their parents.

And when their DD wants to quit the game when she is 15 years old they wonder why.

I agree. We were fortunate that our TB coach did not schedule anything out of the area for the Fall seasons as there was no reason to. He totally understood. I have to admit that I enjoyed travelling around country with my kid and the families during the summer and miss it today. I liked being able to watch my kid compete with teams outside of our area and around the country. Otherwise, we would just play the same 10-15 Gold teams every weekend especially at 18U. At the younger ages it seemed there were just more teams to play and different levels of competition. Now I just travel to watch the kid play other college teams within reasonable driving distances. We were fortunate that I was able to stash away enough money in her 529 plan to make it all work.

I mentioned this earlier. DD got a summer intern offer at the World's Largest HVAC manufacturing plant and the head finance guy's kid plays college ball too. Coincidence that she got an offer??? I try not wonder how my kid would have turned out if she wasn't kept busy with softball. She was very mischievous and pushed her boundaries often.

 

[pyaeger98]

Parents/DD have to have honest conversations about their goals (academic, athletic and financial). She played for a high level travel team, but played on one of their more "regional" teams. Even if she had D1 talent, that would not have been an academic fit for her (school + softball). The one time at 16's she wavered on whether or not to play in college, we said that was fine, but we weren't going to continue to pay for the high level college prep team . Plenty of other less expensive options. She thought long and hard and decided she did want to play in college and from that point her commitment never wavered. My DD never had any interest in playing outside of about a 4hr area from home. About once a year, the team would travel to a higher level tournament (CO, NJ), but otherwise we played about 1/2 local and 1/2 within a 6hr driving distance. All of the schools around here are mostly smaller D2's or D3's. She wanted to go to a little bit larger school with a pre-med program (10K students or so), so that eliminated all the D2's in the neighboring state (our state has 0 D2's). She put in the recruiting work, and we did official and unofficial visits to 7-8 schools, and in the end she had a few offers to choose from. She could have probably played D2, but found her perfect fit at a D3 a couple hours away. So far so good, and it appears she will get some good playing time as a freshman. She'll likely go to grad school so she can go to one of those D1's later on. Was it a good financial investment in terms of softball? Nope, but for the dad/dd/parents/coach bonding and softball moments we had along the way, worth every penny.

 

[jdint]

All that travel is simply unnecessary. Parents are unwitting and afraid to ask questions. Before you know it, Coach puts out schedule for spring/summer and they feel they have to go along. They are lead to believe that their DD must be on a certain team and attend certain events in order to have a chance at the Almightly D1 Level. It is all a racket. The org tells the coaches what tourneys and showcases they need to go attend. Head of Org. is getting kickback. Stay to Play BS. Most Coaches enjoy the travel, dining and drinking on the teams dime. Parents racking up credit card debt to pay for TB is irresponsible.

Parents need to push back, ask questions and say no! There is absolutely zero reason for a 12u or even 14u team to travel out of So Cal to play ball. Maybe once or twice a year, preferable drivable destination, for the experience/fun is acceptable. But believing it is necessary to have 12 y/o player get on a plane 8 or 9 times a year for EXPOSURE is plain stupid. Exposure! Yes that's the word these Coaches use when fleecing their parents.

And when their DD wants to quit the game when she is 15 years old they wonder why.

While I agree with what you are saying (especially stay to play), how hard is this to figure out? I get maybe the first year, if you are totally new to the situation, it might catch you by surprise, but after that it's on you. We do it because we want to dot it. It's fun. We enjoy it. I've never felt "fleeced" because I know what I'm signing up for. A scholarship isn't even something we actively think about. If it happens, it happens. I'll be way more excited than DD since I will get to watch more softball.

Being from the Midwest, I don't see many teams getting on a plane 8 or 9 times a year at 12 years old. There are a couple around St. Louis that travel more to play .PGF tournaments, but nothing like that. In fact, I don't think the Bandits at any age travel that extensively, so if your team is.....find a different team.

 

[Westwind]

If you live in the Midwest, you are going to have to travel some. You are going to have to stay in hotels- shouldn’t have to fly much unless you want to.

There are good events within driving distance for us- Kansas City has decent stuff, Scenic City, Colorado events etc., even Peoria. We always drove to Colorado even though it was 14-16 hours. Didn’t have to rent a car that way and I always framed it as an adventure. Dd got a lot of miles in the drivers seat as a permitted 15 year old on those trips.

There are also good events in Chicago/nw Indiana area, I really did not care for playing there. Don’t know why. Didn’t like the vibe I guess.

If I lived in SoCal, I would question traveling too. Why go anywhere except Colorado and maybe ATL? And flying from SoCal to a major air hub has to be pretty cheap, no?