Travel Ball is Killing Rec Ball

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Apr 6, 2019
20
3
Here, it's lacrosse and soccer that are killing rec softball.
The damage from soccer was already done 30 years ago.

Now, it's lacrosse moving in fast, sucking up players and chewing up fields.

Of course, lacrosse fields are designed to be interchangeable with soccer and even the old creaky giant football, but of course the lacrossista parents want their own fields and they usually want to cut them out of youth and rec softball fields.
 
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Apr 6, 2019
20
3
In my community (a Division 1 HS with 1200 students), I'm coaching the 14U team this season.
On our roster, we have 7 players from the 8th grade of the public middle school. They will make up the basis of the HS freshman class next year.
One player plays travel ball, the daughter of our rec club director. She's a B+ level pitcher -- dominant in rec, adequate in travel.
Two players, a pitcher and catcher, are plenty good enough to play travel ball, but they are also studs in other sports (basketball and volleyball).
We have six seventh graders, including my twin nieces (very fast utility players; they could play travel ball but they also play club volleyball) and two girls from an adjacent urban school system where softball essentially does not exist. We have two more or less random seventh graders who are basically just out to fool around.

There are no other girls in this age group playing travel ball anywhere. From the kids who were playing in 8U five years ago, they've lost about 50 percent to the other sports.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
When I was playing (30 or so years ago) if there was TB (baseball) I didn't know about it. I played LL and then Pony League before Legion. That said, when I was 13 my father decided that the competition in my town rec league (which was still LL affiliated) wasn't as good as the Pony League in the larger city a few miles away from the town I grew up and so I went and played there instead. I also had the choice of going to the HS in my town or one in that larger city since my father was a HS math teacher there. At that time the HS in the larger city had a basketball team which was a perennial powerhouse which played in a higher division with better competition which was one of the reasons I chose to go there.

Point is, seeking the best competition is something that has always gone on, the only difference now is the price of doing so can be prohibitive in some cases.
 
Jan 27, 2010
1,871
83
NJ
I am sitting here right now trying to figure out how we (upper-middle class family) will afford two out of town tournaments this summer, both of which require six night stays* and one of which requires airplane tickets across country for three of us. The price of travel ball is definitely an issue. And some teams do multiple summer trips requiring airfare; at least we can drive to one of ours.

*Stay to play tournaments, of course.
I don't know how old your player is but we often had 3-4 girls stay in a room with none of their parents. Yes, they were supervised but that cuts costs. DD usually traveled with only one parent to save on airfare and food. We did the CA, CO and FL tournaments that were often a week long and while DD was recruited, only one offer may have covered what I spent on TB if she played the full 4 years.
 
Jan 27, 2010
1,871
83
NJ
Anyone wanna refute the statement or tell me I’m wrong? Shame seeing all these sports for kids being ruined by travel teams. It’s not about how good the kids are for the majority of the teams it’s about who’s mommy and daddy can pay.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I coach REC softball and the issue is the great disparities in talent. I have 10YOs that can pitch 50 and hit rotationally. I also have a kid that never comes to practice and after 6 games has yet to swing at a pitch. She is usually outside of the box. If you are kid A, you want to play with other kid A types but you don't always get that in REC. Hardly ever. Now my favorite part of coaching REC is taking a kid that can't catch or hit and finding small successes but I can't begrudge the A type player that wants more.
 
May 27, 2013
2,332
113
So why would you stay with little league (a baseball organization) instead of starting an ASA, or whatever they call it now, league that is softball only?
The ASA league, where my DD started with when she was 7 and left for travel when she was 9, has their own fields at the parks while LL and PONY have their own leagues and parks in town as well.

Little League is baseball and softball. We stuck it out until dd’s 12U year because she truly enjoyed playing with her friends, the same girls she went to school with. Instead of taking the easier path of just leaving for a travel team, I stuck with the LL and tried to make positive changes, making it a better experience for all the girls.

Around here, our ASA league is made up of all travel teams.

We left LL after 12U for travel. They wanted me to form a Juniors’ team but I was tired of the BS.
 

marriard

Not lost - just no idea where I am
Oct 2, 2011
4,312
113
Florida
So why would you stay with little league (a baseball organization) instead of starting an ASA, or whatever they call it now, league that is softball only?

Locally we were in what was probably a very similar situation. Our city runs all the parks & has a Sports Commission (old boys network) that controls all the sports in the area. So between them they decide who gets to run the various sports, field allocation, etc, etc. So in our case, rec softball was included in rec baseball and run by the group that used LL. Softball was always treated as second class to the boys and we were basically told year after year that we should be grateful for the scraps they threw us (and genuinely were surpised that we were not) and we often told that if we compained they would just reassign the fields to baseball.

It has taken 8+ years of work and pain to get past the old boys network so we could get rec softball away from their control and into the control of the people who care about the girls directly.
 
Mar 21, 2019
137
28
Rec ball is for kids that have no skills. In our town you only play rec ball because you don't have the talent to play travel ball. Having coached both rec and travel as well as umpired both, rec has some of worst delusional parents when it comes to their kids skill level.

Yes she has no skills and I’m delusional.
 
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J.Galt

Banned
Feb 8, 2019
135
28
For the spring season, rec ball for HS-aged players isn't an option. HS rules (for us) require that a player on a HS roster cannot play on another team during the HS season. The result is that 14U league teams are only 7th-8th graders. There aren't enough players older than that (that aren't playing HS ball) to even make one team.


Same rule applies here but they have to make the HS roster. You're not making Varsity, JV or Frosh softball teams at the local HS here without a few years of competitive travel ball.
 

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