They already have 8U machine pitch travel teams here in OK along with t-ball. Not sure how much they actually "travel" but they play tournaments 2 or 3 times a month etc...Kind of ridiculous if you ask me but hey whatever floats some parents boats. My DD played rec for 4 years before moving to travel ball at 10U (she was 8 but played up on a kid pitch first year 10U team). She was ready for kid pitch and the rec league kid pitching was bad (as you can expect)..she would have been lucky to see 2 or 3 strikes a game to swing at . Her rec team played a MP "tournament" and she enjoyed the whole tournament atmosphere so we asked her if she wanted to play TB and she said yes. I have a 4 year old son who will start playing rec at some point and we will make the best decision for him regarding moving on to TB when/if that time comes.
"Machine pitch travel..." OMG. C'mon, people!
It's interesting to see how rec softball is structured in different parts of the country. In So Cal, 8U rec has hybrid player/coach pitch for the first half of the season, and then it's all player pitch for the second half and league tournament. 8U All-Stars is all player pitch. Until I knew better, I thought this was common across the country. I've been thoroughly stunned to learn that some areas continue with machine pitch through 10U.