# of Travel Teams

[_MIA_]

She's not getting better.

We don't think she actually likes softball.

That is a chicken and egg scenario tbh. Doing all of that without seeing improvement can make it tough to actually like the game..being good at something is fun. Sometimes at the end of the day a kid just doesn't have any natural talent..doesn't make them a horrible person

 

[canyonjoe]

In baseball and softball it's pretty simple. The ones who play (or practice) more are better. Just developing the hand eye to hit is something that takes rep after rep. Once in a while you'll find a kid who just happens to be a great athlete and can really shorten the learning curve, but even that kid will lose out to a really talented athlete who practices. As others have said we used to play all the times in the neighborhood with anything we could. 1 on 1 2 on 2,etc. We used to have games in the evening under the streetlight. Pretty much every kid from my neighborhood could play. When you went to little league you could tell the kids who didn't play much. With that said I would have love to play travel ball as a kid. It's unlikely that my mother could have afforded it but I would have given up basketball and football to play year round if I could have.

 

[schwabach]

For sure, and that's what I'm trying to do. Blend the lessons and instruction with goofing around with friends and working hard outside of practice/lessons.

We have one friend who gets his daughter hitting lessons, fielding lessons, pitching lessons. Every day she's in a lesson it seems.

She's not getting better.

We don't think she actually likes softball.

So many kids will put up with this to please Dad. It's not good. I am, in this regard, glad that my daughter would make it abundantly clear when she didn't enjoy something.

 

[Cammom11]

My daughter plays for a team in PA but we’re in NY. This exact thread was just on the local NY Fastpitch page (I’m in the area but closer to PA).

I then had this conversation with two of my cousins who’s daughters play travel softball. The one is in NJ and the other is in Long Island. The one in NJ has a high school aged daughter and was lamenting the changes from 6 years ago. Me and my other cousin only have 12us and we don’t know anything else.

I agree with what some other people have it’s about popularity, demand outstripped availability as the sport has become more popular. I also think that it will go through growing pains in a lot of places in the country until it reaches an equilibrium. Where the demand matches availability and teams will get to differentiate themselves more.


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[mikfish711]

Dont dismiss the travel orgs that are handing out teams like Halloween candy. Where I am, there seem to be more teams than kids.

 

[Jdeesso]

Dd kept playing rec while doing travel. I wish more travel kids would keep playing rec. It helps coaches and teammates. Just because you travel doesn’t mean you can’t play some ball through the week. It also keeps reps up for the weekends. Support your local club before it’s gone.

Couldn’t agree more. In the middle of this now. My DD plays 10u travel and moving up to 1st ur 12u and wasn’t able to play with her rec team last spring with all her good school friends (they don’t play travel). I wish we had done both travel and rec. Totally different experiences but both very important. IMO


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