Has youth baseball in your town been ruined?

[HA2740]

The JRW superteam, got me thinking about how much I hate what youth baseball has become.

I'm 30 and when I played little league (not capital letter endorsed, but organized league ages 9-12), we played an in-house league. So all within the city from April through June, then we had a couple All-Star teams for each age that would play travel ball for 6-8 weeks after that.

That all changed once I was out of little league and we had school ball, and it turned into having 2+ teams from each age that played nothing but a travel schedule all spring and summer. I know this became the norm because when I was in college, I would umpire in the summer, and all I umpired were travel tournaments, where you had A, B, maybe C teams from each town, plus a few teams started because a dad got butthurt hisr son was left off a travel team or wouldn't get to play the position he wanted, so he cobbled together a team of kids and named them the Indy Mustangs, or the Indy Energy or some other phaggy name they then spend thousands of dollars to make logos and car-stickers for.

This absolutely sucked. Teens and high schoolers, the all-season travel is fine. But for ages 12 and under, it actually depressed me. First, the kids aren't even that into it. When they're scheduled to play 5 games in 4 days in the middle of the summer, they are exhausted by their second game Saturday and just want to go inside or to a pool. Second, it's killing participation. If you're age 10 and 24 of the your friends/best players in your town aren't even going to play in your league, you really want to play in your reject in-house league (the level of play in which will be really great given of those 24 players, probably 18 of them would've been the decent pitchers)? No, so you're going to stop playing and your league is going to dwindle. And the kids who make the travel teams and start taking baseball seriously aren't going to improve as much because there's no competition for their travel team spots; after a couple years, they'll start getting the by default.

I played up into HS, and some of the first guys my age to make varsity were the ones left off of all-star teams when we were little. And some of the kids who always made the all-star teams and played every inning of every game, stopped playing altogether before HS. I don't think that would play out that way if we were all kids again today, and I don't think I would've had all the same friends I did in HS. We went to a few different elementary schools and they way we met was playing baseball every summer.

I'm sure this is probably a complaint with all youth sports today, but I figured baseball is the one we can all be the most nostalgic about.

 

[tyrosy9]

As a HS baseball coach, yeah, all the travel ball can be frustrating. The town leagues at the younger ages has been decimated. Like you said, the most talented kids are spending their summers traveling all over playing tons of games. I've noticed (especially in the 7th and 8th grade this year), they'll wear their travel ball gear every other day and rarely school sponsored items. By the time they get to me, clearly the ones who've played tons of games against great competition stand out. I just wonder down the line how much of a headache some of the other coachs/parents will become a factor. So far though, all has been good.

 

[Bligedy]

Some high school coaches are part of the problem....

they want kids to specialize in specific sports and at specific positions at an early age. Ironically, that's the exact opposite of what college recruiters and/or pro scouts want them to do. In my town the high school coaches pick the travel coaches. Most of them are their former players who have no idea how to coach kids or deal with parents.

And travel kids play too many games and don't practice enough. So unless you are a member of one of the higher level programs that have top flight instruction/coaching you are just run out there to play games instead of learning how to play the game.

The average kid is better off playing REC ball and playing all kinds of positions instead of spending a summer playing right field on a travel team.

 

[tyrosy9]

Agree with that. There's a lot of guys out there nowadays pushing kids to specialize in one sport. It's too bad. Gives them no break or chance to rest anything.

 

[BGunn]

My son almost didn't play LL this year because of this.

He's a perennial all-star (not bragging) and every year we lose 1 or 2 all-stars to AAU/travel ball. The all-star team gets worse and worse. Luckily, he's decided to play but said he might turn down all-stars due to lack of talent on the roster. Had they all stayed together over the last few years they'd be a very good team. He's been asked to play travel ball and he's not ready to commit to one sport because he still likes to play basketball, football and soccer. He's only 10 and I've had people tell me if he doesn't commit to a sport soon he'll never been good enough to play high school ball. I always remind them that the team from Valley Sports in Louisville that won the LL world championship only had 1 boy that played high school ball. I refuse to believe that AAU is the only way to play high school ball.

Our league has mostly been plagued by butt-hurt Dads who keep creating crappy teams that cost too much money with very little to show for it other than depleting our town league of talent.

 

[rickyIU]

Not much to contribute other than to say my boss is obsessed.

Absolutely obsessed. He is his son's baseball coach, he's placed his son into year-round baseball, had his son get analyzed by some former professional, and he's created a website that tracks stats/video analysis for a city little league. His son is 10.

I hear him and his son fight over the phone at work daily b/c his son expresses no desire to go to these 3 day a week practices.

 

[GOIU]

Its every sport now-a-days

It's almost as if you don't focus on one sport by the time you're in fourth grade you're out of luck. My daughter is in fifth and plays all-star softball there are girls on her team that have private hitting and pitching coaches, CRAZY..

 

[HA2740]

Yeah and I'll say its 50/50 the kid is burned out of it before HS...

and all the time and money spent on this is of no use to the kid after age 14. Whereas if he exercises some moderation and sanity, maybe the kid doesn't eventually just equate baseball with chores and homework.

This post was edited on 2/11 3:15 PM by HA2740

 

[iucutter87]

Warm weather climates are tougher in my opinion

I run our local soccer club with recreational and competitive soccer teams. We live in a relatively same town [Venice, FL] and players are not districted and can play anywhere. It leads to club-hopping making it nearly impossible to build a team. Baseball and football are the main sports for the boys and volleyball and softball for the girls, so we lose so many of the best athletes because they play all sports year-round outdoors down here. The main sports are so demanding on the kids times that they choose what sport they are going to play by 10 years old.
I feel guilty when we recruit kids to our travel/competitive teams because they can't play other sports. The one good move we did make was we combined with the YMCA and put our Rec program on their timeline so the kids can play multiple sports if they choose to.

 

[rickyIU]

They can't play other sports during that time frame, or altogether?

Do you guys travel every single weekend, the entire year?

That sounds miserable for both kids and parents. I'm not sure why anybody would sign up for that.

 

[iucutter87]

Re: They can't play other sports during that time frame, or altogether?


No, but they play 8-9 months of the year

Football for example plays for about 6 months and then a lot of them play in a 7v7 season. They don't allow you to miss football practices to play soccer. Same for the girls with Volleyball.

Soccer they play
Club - August-October in club,
High School - October - January
Club - come back to club for Region/State completion February - March

Younger players start practice in August and finish playing in March.

Indiana has two seasons for their youth soccer and you can play both or one or the other. The seasons down here are continuous.

It sucks for the parents and the kids in my opinion.

 

[GOIU]

Too many parents think their kid

is going to go pro or at least get a college scholarship so they need to focus on one sport, which is bs and bad for the kids. Its not just a burnout thing it's bad for a kids body to concentrate on one sport.

 

[booyah31183]

My friend wrote this about the benefits of staying well-rounded

and the pitfalls of specializing too early.

Sports Should Be Child’s Play

 

[iucutter87]

Great Article..

We have chosen as a club not to merge with other clubs to form "Super" clubs. We have chosen to be the best "Venice" Soccer we can be and as a result kids that want to play, that love the game, and may not be "that" good can play. Our results have been pretty amazing because as stated before the All-Star at U10 may not be the best player at 15.

 

[crimsonlaw]

This specialization of sports at such young ages really pisses me off.

Hate it. Can't stand it. I wonder how many kids just play pick up. Growing up, we'd play pick up basketball, football, soccer, and baseball. We played tag. We made up games. We played JARTS (man that's a dangerous game isn't it?!?). We rode our bikes all around town.

 

[This Is Keanu Reeves]

"Perennial All-Star" at 10 years old.

That is pure gold.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[booyah31183]

I played soccer, track, basketball, tennis growing up

I also played a ton of pickup football, baseball and street hockey.

I dropped tennis in middle school, and then dropped basketball after my Sophomore year. I ended up running track in college and lost a lot of the explosiveness that made me so dangerous in track because I was no longer playing soccer year round.

I could dunk a basketball (just barely) in high school. When I got back from my first year of college focusing solely on running, I could barely touch the rim and had lost most of my lateral athleticism. I'd play pickup b-ball all summer and would be back to getting half of my forearm above the rim before heading back to school and then losing all of that again. Running & sprinting in a straight line will do that to you, I guess. I put some of the blame there on my college coaches & weight trainers.

This post was edited on 2/11 4:48 PM by booyah31183

 

[The Vid]

Most of these kids would probably be better off long term if they traded

all of it for a skateboard and a pack of Camels.

 

[booyah31183]

Seems like times have changed with child safety in general

I lived in a neighborhood with a bunch of kids and I just got up in the morning and was expected to be home for lunch, dinner and bedtime. We played every sport there is.

Does that happen anymore? My kids haven't reached the age yet where that would matter, but does that kind of environment exist anymore? I think people are more aware now about just how many crazy, effed up people are out there.

 

[BGunn]

Sorry I didn't spell that out

He's been an all star every year since he was 6 phucktard.

 

[iucutter87]

I agree Booyah


I grew up in a neighborhood just like you Booyah. I left at 7am and was back at dark. We played every sport and game we could think of. I grew up in Bloomington and we would ride our bikes to Cascades softball field and play baseball, we would go to Cascades Golf Course, Siebolt Field and played tackle football. Some of the best memories of my life.

In 2005 we moved into Centennial in Westfield, modeled after Celebration in Disney [smaller scale obviously]. Estridge sold is as "Family Living". We did not know anybody in the neighborhood because both parents worked and nobody was ever home. My son was 5 at the time. They had a baseball field, basketball court,, soccer fields, sledding hill, etc. and rarely did you see anybody using it.

Rarely do I see kids getting together to play pick up games, we lived to play.

 

[This Is Keanu Reeves]

Pardon me.

Didn't realize I was speaking to a star maker. Here's to Jr. building on his pre-pubescent legacy.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[kkott]

yep. I live in NC now and the middle schools are so squeezed for $$

that the School Board has made a sacrificial cow out of MS sports. They spend so little on it, that only a handful of the best MS athletes get 80% of all the spots. As you point out by high school and beyond, alot of those kids get passed, but not when you aren't developing those other kids. They also don't try and expand logical sports (ie. no cross country team. Newsflash: no sport is cheaper or more inclusive than RUNNING! If you have an inactivity problem with kids, why not try and get them to RUN?). Same in Track, they only allow 20 spots... again, why? You want kids to feel part of a team and run. Allow everyone to be on the team and practice (ie. run) but you only have 20 travel spots and only so many kids per race. Stupid.