Travel Ball is Killing Rec Ball

[Cougars]

Interesting read going through all these pages. I'm more of a lurker than a poster, so hopefully I don't offend too many here with this, but the amount of "travel snob" in this thread is a little crazy. Yes, there are high level teams, full of future college stars. However, that doesn't mean that the far greater number of "B" and "C" teams are watering down the prestige of "A" teams. The 2 aren't related.

Without any pride or shame, I'll say my daughters team is a "C" team. It's 12 girls that love playing softball and wanted to play/practice more than what "rec" offers. Nobody on the team, or their parents, are looking at this as some path to a college scholarship. The girls just want to play, and the parents have the ability to pay a little more than "rec" for a lot more softball. Team fees are about $900 for some amount of softball about 9 months of the year. Local "rec" league is about $200 for about 2 months.

Specific to travel killing rec, yes, the level of play in our rec league is very poor, and if some the local talent in the lower level travel teams were in it, the play would improve a little. However, I think the desire to want to play more is the biggest reason for leaving rec. Even if you could magically fill our rec league with 120 of the best softball players ever created, they are still only playing 15 or so games.

 

[uncdrew]

I guess I always knew that the TB scene was vibrant there, just surprised to hear how there are some public high schools with such close ties to these organizations that they are able to eliminate girls from consideration right from the get-go. But if you have that much talent floating around, I guess that's what happens.

Sports is just such a small world.

I help coach a small B-level 10U travel team and I feel like the local high schools, parents, and instructors in our community know every name and talent level of every girl on my team.

 

[Rick M]

Without any pride or shame, I'll say my daughters team is a "C" team. It's 12 girls that love playing softball and wanted to play/practice more than what "rec" offers.

This is what it's all about, regardless of where you play.

 

[whack]

Wow $200 for rec? That surely can’t be close to average cost for folks around the country. I’d look harder at travel ball too. Ours is $70 and she’ll play 25-32 games if they do all stars this year. 20 without it


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[Eric F]

Wow $200 for rec? That surely can’t be close to average cost for folks around the country. I’d look harder at travel ball too. Ours is $70 and she’ll play 25-32 games if they do all stars this year. 20 without it


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The rec league my DD played in is currently charging $175-$225 (depending on age group) for the spring season,

 

[cnardone]

Wow $200 for rec? That surely can’t be close to average cost for folks around the country. I’d look harder at travel ball too. Ours is $70 and she’ll play 25-32 games if they do all stars this year. 20 without it

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Yep. but I can get $20 back if I man the snack shack for an afternoon. We have a 14 game schedule. If you get rained out you most likely lose the game. I've lost 2 games (I was able to reschedule 3). I know other teams have not been as lucky as my team.

Playoffs is another 1-3 games and the all star team will get another 6 to 8 games depending on how well we do in our tournaments. So at max my daughter is getting 23 games.

 

[Westwind]

Interesting read going through all these pages. I'm more of a lurker than a poster, so hopefully I don't offend too many here with this, but the amount of "travel snob" in this thread is a little crazy. Yes, there are high level teams, full of future college stars. However, that doesn't mean that the far greater number of "B" and "C" teams are watering down the prestige of "A" teams. The 2 aren't related.

Without any pride or shame, I'll say my daughters team is a "C" team. It's 12 girls that love playing softball and wanted to play/practice more than what "rec" offers. Nobody on the team, or their parents, are looking at this as some path to a college scholarship. The girls just want to play, and the parents have the ability to pay a little more than "rec" for a lot more softball. Team fees are about $900 for some amount of softball about 9 months of the year. Local "rec" league is about $200 for about 2 months.

Specific to travel killing rec, yes, the level of play in our rec league is very poor, and if some the local talent in the lower level travel teams were in it, the play would improve a little. However, I think the desire to want to play more is the biggest reason for leaving rec. Even if you could magically fill our rec league with 120 of the best softball players ever created, they are still only playing 15 or so games.

Good post.

Every player wants something a little different from softball. We would all be better off if we understood that our own personal goals are not every one else’s goals.

It isn’t , and shouldn’t, be necessary to play at the highest level to have a lot of fun playing!

And rec is where nearly every player starts. It’s where people who don’t even realize they have coaching ability learn that they might have the talent to help players get better. It’s where future pitchers get their start.

To me, to keep the sport going, you need two things: pitchers and coaches. Lack of pitchers is what killed men’s softball. From what I see kids are starting to get the attitude that if they can’t be the best pitcher in the area, they feel like they not valuable as a pitcher. Too many quit pitching because of that, and that should be a red flashing warning sign for women’s softball.

I don’t have the answers. I do think the future of softball has to include rec to a large extent. There has to be a cheap, available alternative for any product to stay viable. And I think rec has to reconsider how they deliver their product, because putting up roadblocks to try to keep players is like shouting at the clouds. And if you keep doing what you have always done, you’ll keep getting what you always got.

 

[uncdrew]

Wow $200 for rec? That surely can’t be close to average cost for folks around the country. I’d look harder at travel ball too. Ours is $70 and she’ll play 25-32 games if they do all stars this year. 20 without it


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Ours is about $125 and extra fees for All Stars. Probably another $200-300.

 

[hummingbird]

Ours is about $125 and extra fees for All Stars. Probably another $200-300.

That is pretty much what we pay here.
If my DD could actually make a TB team, I'd be more than willing to shell out the fees! The journey continues I guess..

 

[Cougars]

Whether the rec fees are $100 or $200, my point was more about there not being a massive difference between the cost of rec and many B or C level travel teams. Don't get me wrong, $600-$800 is real money, but it can be manageable. I'm also not complaining about our rec league. My daughters played it through "10u". It's a well run organization.

I can't really comment about higher level teams that are doing actual travel to play. That is a different world than what we do. We are located in the Chicago area (although its probably similar for most larger urban areas). A "travel" team around here could play a tournament any weekend they wanted from mid-April to end of July without ever needing a hotel room, or driving much more than an hour. In fact, some of our weekday, rush hour, 6pm league games are harder to get to than a few of our weekend tournaments will be.

I'm sure it would be different for a team from a smaller town (regardless of level), where getting to a variety of tournaments might require multiple hours of driving just because of geography.