Travel Ball vs. Tourney Ball

[jazz10NE]

A break down from the Nebraska area. Most of our teams A-C play in a league with other teams. Our League at 12U in Lincoln had 18 teams from the area (up to 90 minutes away). We play 10 games plus a league tourney starting the end of April - early July. This year they are going to split the teams into 2 groups, A-B & B-C to allow for better/even competition during league play.

Most of the teams are 'town' teams. These are made up of girls from the same town or maybe 2/3 in the area. Larger 'cities' will have multiple organizations and the girls will bounce from one to the next each year looking for the greener pasture.

"A" clubs - practice year round 2-3 days, play Aug - Oct & Jan - July, indoors and travel 3-4 hours south. Play about 100 games, 16+ tournaments

"B" Clubs - Fall 6-10 practices, Start 1 a week in Jan then increase as weather allows. Play 10-13 tournaments & state. Maybe travel in region for 1 big tournament, play about 65 games

"C" Clubs - Fall 6-10 practices, Start in March as weather allows. Play 6-8 tournaments & state, play about 40 games

"D" or Rec - Practice starts in May, play other rec teams, maybe 1 tournament plus state. play about 20 games.

 

[marriard]

Whatever IT is, we should have leagues for travel teams, so that the quality can be maintained and you don't have to give your entire family's life up in the process.

I love being Florida where we have this. We play 2 travel leagues per year (Sunday leagues - 2 or 3 games per day), plus a bunch of tourneys either side of the league.

The other good news is there is ample travel teams in the area, that at the younger ages there really is no real reason to travel beyond the next county for tournaments. There is always a tournament option in ASA or USSSA every weekend.

(and most of the girls also play a rec league which is going on right now)

 

[Momo'sDad]

02Crush, that's cool that you guys play mainly 1-day events, which I think is especially great for younger players and for families who are transitioning from rec to travel in 10u and 12u.

Here in NorCal, we've got 3 primary levels with different layers within each:

Rec - Generally one league per town with multiple teams in each age division. Every kid who signs up is placed on a team and we play in the spring.

All-Stars/Select - This is competitive softball, but teams are made up of players from a single rec league, so sometimes we call it competitive rec. The summer is for All-Stars and we play 3-4 weekend tournaments against other all-star teams from towns within about an hour or 'B' teams that might be from up to 3 hours away. In the fall season, we play winterball, which offers 2 tournaments in addition to a 6-8 week schedule of Sunday doubleheaders against towns that are within 50-60 miles of here. There's an additional add-on tournament available just prior to Thanksgiving, but generally, only the best, most hardcore winterball teams will attend. I love this event. Winterball around here is usually more competitive than all-stars, because the best teams are hand-selected by the coaches, whereas all-stars has voting involved and you have to carry 14 players for all-stars. I'm not even going to say anything right now about how that voting often goes, as I am sure you can guess.

For both of these, we travel for games, but only have 1 overnight stay during the summer. In order to be eligible for all-stars or winterball, a player must participate in the spring league. Same for coaches.

Competitive - Teams are comprised of players from anywhere. Recruiting is cutthroat. Most 'A' teams will play 2-day tournaments exclusively, with the best playing ASA, PGF, or Triple Crown, while newer or lower-level programs might play in a weeknight league against similar programs and limit their tournament play primarily to NSA or U-Trip. Occasionally, a more established but struggling 'A' program in need of a morale boost will play an NSA event.

There are plenty of teams and events available in this area, so teams don't have to drive very far to face solid competition. To mix things up, however, the mid-level and up teams will pick a few out-of-area events a year and several will try to make a run at one of the several 'nationals' available to them. In this economy, however, we've got a lot more teams opting out of trips to faraway places. Besides, any NorCal team looking for a test only needs to hop on I-5 south and spend a couple weekends playing teams in SoCal.

This is year-round softball, with spring/summer and then fall seasons. Teams generally hold tryouts in August with the hopes of building a team that will play that fall and remain together through the following year's summer tournament season. After fall, though, there's generally player movement, so teams will hold tryouts again in December, with many still trying to fill roster spots in January and February.