Select players playing rec ball – does your league ban it?

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May 2, 2018
200
63
Central Virginia
This opinion is based on experience from my area only (central VA).

This is exactly why rec leagues are hurting now. Why put a rule to limit quality players from playing rec? Having only 2-3 girls on a rec team that can even catch/throw a ball let alone pitch makes girls that can play want to leave rec. Rules like that are silly.
 
Feb 20, 2019
109
28
I've heard of this being an issue, but our local rec league does not have any specific prohibition against travel players participating. Now the parents from other towns, when their team gets crushed, that's a different story...

As @playball4 said, if you're a travel player who wants to keep playing in the local league, playing up an age level is the way to go. DD was a second-year 12 this past spring, but played rec at 14U.

Well, I just registered her to play on a 12U rec team in a neighboring city that doesn't restrict select players from pitching. It's a 30-minute drive vs. a 5-minute drive but we'll manage. I considered putting her in 14U (since she plays on a 14U select/travel team already), but they only have three teams playing and figured it would get old playing against the same two teams all season. If this goes well, we'll try 14U in the spring. Hopefully, they'll have more teams then.

Thank you to everyone for your responses. Please keep them coming as I think it's a good gauge for how organizations across the country differ on their opinions of rec vs. select level players. Personally, I think there is plenty of room for both.
 
Feb 20, 2019
109
28
This opinion is based on experience from my area only (central VA).

This is exactly why rec leagues are hurting now. Why put a rule to limit quality players from playing rec? Having only 2-3 girls on a rec team that can even catch/throw a ball let alone pitch makes girls that can play want to leave rec. Rules like that are silly.

Wholeheartedly agree with you. I watched a 12U rec pitcher throw 32 consecutive balls in one inning last season. She walked the bases loaded and walked in 5 runs. The coach refused to take her out and, mercifully, the inning ended on the 5 run limit per inning.

You could see the frustration on the face of every batter, defensive player and parent. Even the umpire was frustrated and dying to call a strike, but no pitch came anywhere close to the strike zone.

How does this benefit anyone? Yet, this is the same league that will not allow select pitchers to pitch in rec play.
 
Aug 12, 2014
644
43
Our rec leagues have no restrictions, but the problem is we get complete travel teams joining. So there ends up being a huge competitive imbalance in the leagues - we get a couple of travel teams, some good rec teams, and some inexperienced rec teams.
 
May 2, 2018
200
63
Central Virginia
Our rec leagues have no restrictions, but the problem is we get complete travel teams joining. So there ends up being a huge competitive imbalance in the leagues - we get a couple of travel teams, some good rec teams, and some inexperienced rec teams.

That is an issue within your league. There has to be a draft to split talent amongst the teams. Travel teams using rec as a warm up/feel good League is also no good.
 
Jul 14, 2017
181
28
Rec rules vary greatly by town. Some towns play amongst their own teams, while other towns play against each other.

Most rec leagues need travel players in order to roster teams. In my own town, travel players were required to play rec until they started MS ball.

My daughter played on a local travel team and even though we weren’t a resident for that town, she was allowed to play for their rec league. However, when the time for Districts/All Stars came along, my daughter was not eligible to play as a non-resident.


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May 29, 2015
3,731
113
When I ran a rec league, we went back and forth on this.

A player playing “travel ball” doesn’t inherently mean anything by itself (other than mom and/or dad are willing to spend money).

We were willing to let players play, but reserved the right to step in if a team started to “load up”. We basically said as long as the travel players were spreading out amongst the teams, we would stay out of it.

We had coaches that would try to manipulate things (declare a parent a “coach”, tell kids to sign up after the draft but not until their team was up for the next spot, etc.) and we did have to step in a few times.

One thing we did not allow was what heman mentioned above. We did not allow teams to join the league (all players into the draft) and if we caught wind of a coach wanting to take a team to travel ball the next year (or actually playing TB with that team), we split the team up and stripped the coach from the team (not during the season, of course).

Another thing we did not allow was using subs from outside of our organization. You could “call up” a younger player, but you couldn’t bring in your own.

Towards the end of my tenure, we were trying to work with other towns/programs to put together a PONY program that had both rec and “travel” that we could control better.
 
Jul 14, 2018
982
93
Wholeheartedly agree with you. I watched a 12U rec pitcher throw 32 consecutive balls in one inning last season. She walked the bases loaded and walked in 5 runs. The coach refused to take her out and, mercifully, the inning ended on the 5 run limit per inning.

You could see the frustration on the face of every batter, defensive player and parent. Even the umpire was frustrated and dying to call a strike, but no pitch came anywhere close to the strike zone.

How does this benefit anyone? Yet, this is the same league that will not allow select pitchers to pitch in rec play.

We struggled with this a little bit. Local rec leagues need players, and DD kept playing (and I kept coaching) because we wanted to support softball in our community. Today's rec teammate could be tomorrow's high school teammate.

Anyway, while DD was officially on the 14U team, the 12U team often needed extra players so she would fill in. We'd give the regular rec players priority in the circle, but invariably at some point they would lose the strike zone and it would turn into a walk-fest. So DD would swap out with them and strike out the side.

The other team's parents would grumble, but what's the alternative? Nobody is getting anything out of an eight-walk inning with a half dozen wild pitches thrown in.

One of the towns we play regularly knew we had a good team, so they would recruit travel pitchers to guest for them when they played us. And it was great! The games were close, DD got to see some quality pitching, and who cares if you lose a rec game?
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Our rec league has many players trying out the sport for the first time, across all ages.

If our travel girls played rec, it would be a large imbalance and I too worry about injuries. My daughter knocked someone out just throwing the ball back in from the outfield once.

The travel coaches can put the rule in their team contract if they so desire. The other issue is conflicts. Girls will miss almost half the rec games if they also play Travel.
 

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