If they need the practice, then practice. Beating up on inferrior teams only teaches them that they can play sloppy ball and still win.
Should a Select Team play Rec Ball?
- Thread starter bmwpeno
- Start date
Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch
Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.
Ours is a larger town, but without the TB girls (mostly C level, a few better), the rec league would die out quickly. In fact, it seems to be dying out as more and more TB girls jump ship.
For example, DD #3's fall ball team has only 9 girls on it, and they play with 4 outfielders! That means, every game this season they will be playing shorthanded. Fall ball here for 12u includes the older half of 10u playing up. However, not many 7th graders playing this fall. Not sure why. DD #3 has an early January birthday, so we expected her to be the oldest girl on her team. We didn't realize that every other girl on the team is more than a year younger than her.
So, there is a safety aspect. The coach needs to find a catcher who can catch DD #3 without getting hurt. We tried to arrange things so that DD #3 would play on the same team as one of her TB catchers, but the folks running things thought that would be unfair to put the best P and the best C on the same team.
Fortunately, there are some TB girls playing, some played on an 11u team this summer, a few played on a 10u team this summer. Without the TB girls, they wouldn't have enough girls for their usual 4 teams, and the quality of play would really stink. These are girls who played C level teams, not elite A teams.
Our local fall ball league has options at 12U: rec (which I coach) and "travel". Rec is what it says, developmental and non-competitive. I have told the parents and the girls that our games will be nothing more than extra practice time for developing softball smarts. We practice once per week due to school being in session and time sucks. My goal is to develop habits and introduce drills that the girls can perform in the off season. My team is 100% ad hoc, with 4 playing up from 10U (2 of them are 9yo).
My AC from our all star team partnered with the HC of the other AS team and put together a top AS roster full of girls at or very close to TB level. Ad hoc, they've never played together before, but still will be very good. They are in the rec division. I have already told my parents that when we face them, it will be ugly.
Dropping an actual TB team into a developmental rec league is crap. It doesn't help the TB girls, and will likely injure one or more rec girls, plus it will likely cause at least a few rec girls to not want to play any more. As a parent, I'd pull the HC aside privately and express my concerns in no uncertain terms. If he didn't budge, I'd go to the league.
My AC from our all star team partnered with the HC of the other AS team and put together a top AS roster full of girls at or very close to TB level. Ad hoc, they've never played together before, but still will be very good. They are in the rec division. I have already told my parents that when we face them, it will be ugly.
Dropping an actual TB team into a developmental rec league is crap. It doesn't help the TB girls, and will likely injure one or more rec girls, plus it will likely cause at least a few rec girls to not want to play any more. As a parent, I'd pull the HC aside privately and express my concerns in no uncertain terms. If he didn't budge, I'd go to the league.
Last edited:
I just finished an 8U REC tournament with only REC players most of whom have played together for two years and was accused of bringing in a travel ball (called select around here) player. They didn't believe me when I told them the girl had only ever played boys 6U rec baseball and 8U softball. They questioned some of the parents about who she played for other than us, including the girls mother.
We played the tournament with only our normal rec players and one pickup player... a 5 year old 6U girl in order to give us 9.
I can only imagine if a travel team played in the league the kind of problems it would cause, we had a lot of grief over a really good girl who only ever played rec ball and started pitching in March.
(to be fair she played her best game ever against this team and threw really hard... but she was kinda angry over getting a strike called when she was at bat that actually hit the plate!, so her velocity was up near 40mph, I radared one at 42)
But around here that would not fly, rec leagues are for rec players... and they even get upset if they are too good.
We played the tournament with only our normal rec players and one pickup player... a 5 year old 6U girl in order to give us 9.
I can only imagine if a travel team played in the league the kind of problems it would cause, we had a lot of grief over a really good girl who only ever played rec ball and started pitching in March.
(to be fair she played her best game ever against this team and threw really hard... but she was kinda angry over getting a strike called when she was at bat that actually hit the plate!, so her velocity was up near 40mph, I radared one at 42)
But around here that would not fly, rec leagues are for rec players... and they even get upset if they are too good.
Most people need excuses to cope with reality. They don't want to admit that your kids may be more talented or was simply coached better. In my case it was a lot more often. I practiced my youngest dds 10u rec team three days a week with private pitching and bp's at my house once a week. There were two travel teams in the league that beat most of us up weekly. It wasnt a problem with them until we beat one of them at the end of the season. They beat us in the playoffs and we finished third. I was accused of bringing in ringers and cheating to beat them. What a load of crap coming from the travel parents! Truth was, they sucked by travel team standards. They just needed to play somewhere they didn't get beat regularly.
In the end I believe the rec teams benefitted by seeing better pitching, batting and especially base running. Monkey see, monkey do! They learn the most from each other and their opponents!
In the end I believe the rec teams benefitted by seeing better pitching, batting and especially base running. Monkey see, monkey do! They learn the most from each other and their opponents!
8U Rec. is a little bit different. Around here the players do not have a lot of options unless they want to play up an age group. I also do not think anyone has any idea what to expect. Like you mentioned a player practicing for a few months or over the winter has a good chance of coming in and dominating.
Another Team we played had a player that missed some games because she flew somewhere to try out for some sort of 10U national team. She could only pitch 2 innings so you just needed to survive it and get to one of their other really good pitchers.
Another Team we played had a player that missed some games because she flew somewhere to try out for some sort of 10U national team. She could only pitch 2 innings so you just needed to survive it and get to one of their other really good pitchers.
- Aug 12, 2014
- 652
- 43
It depends how big the gap is. If you have a good comp team playing against a rec team where half the girls have never played before, it doesn't help anyone.
8U Rec. is a little bit different. Around here the players do not have a lot of options unless they want to play up an age group. I also do not think anyone has any idea what to expect. Like you mentioned a player practicing for a few months or over the winter has a good chance of coming in and dominating.
Another Team we played had a player that missed some games because she flew somewhere to try out for some sort of 10U national team. She could only pitch 2 innings so you just needed to survive it and get to one of their other really good pitchers.
Physically, playing up for her would not be a problem, but I can't see her in a 10U dugout with girls up to 11 years old, she is 8, and still cries every now and then when she strikes out. I think we can do young girls a disservice if we don't consider the social aspects at all. Its the same reason I wish one of our best hitters should have considered 6U for one more year (age wise she could have played two more years of 6U, she was 5 wen she joined our 8U team). She can play no doubt, at least hitting wse, and the other girls are nice to her, but she has nothing in common with the 7,8, and 9 year olds on the team.
- May 21, 2012
- 70
- 0
Speaking from experience - my dd played rec 7-8 against other towns, 14u travel, and 12u club this past year. My daughter is a pitcher and rec allowed her to practice 43 feet but they went undefeated. The rec players got very little action so no one learned. 14u she was not dedicated to and mean while it was unfair to the team. 12u club - that's where she learned the most and was challenged but the coach only called screw or curve balls. She practiced her other pitches on rec or travel. We also noticed she started playing down after playing rec. overall - it was a horrible decision to play everything. This year we are only playing 14u club and 16u fall travel (but club is limiting the 16u travel play - we may make 2 games). Don't play rec!!!
On another note - someone mentioned my daughter playing freshman softball next year. I was like no... That would be the rec players... That would defeat the purpose of club. Again - I can't have her play down... I never even thought of freshman ball. Her goal is varsity... All this time - I believe that's what the town is lining her up for by playing 16u. And there wouldn't be a catcher to catch her on the freshman team. I'm thinking I wouldn't let her play... Does that make me a snob? Although I do love the freshman coach just not the level of play.
On another note - someone mentioned my daughter playing freshman softball next year. I was like no... That would be the rec players... That would defeat the purpose of club. Again - I can't have her play down... I never even thought of freshman ball. Her goal is varsity... All this time - I believe that's what the town is lining her up for by playing 16u. And there wouldn't be a catcher to catch her on the freshman team. I'm thinking I wouldn't let her play... Does that make me a snob? Although I do love the freshman coach just not the level of play.
