Todem
Footballguy
My wife, son and I talk about all our travel experiences to this day. We had so much fun doing our one big summer tourney with the other families. We also had a blast winning the 13U and 14U league titles in the two leagues we played in….beating on paper better teams…..that was the sweetest part.First off by and large Travel Ball is an absolute racket. It has diluted the talent so much that it has diluted itself. It is no longer the elite players playing against elite players. It has also destroyed rec ball because if you have any talent at all whatsoever you will not improve at all playing rec ball. Rec ball has become 85% daisy pickers that are only there because their parents are making them play a sport with the other 15% being new kids with some ability that will quickly realize they are getting nothing out of rec ball.
That is all a generalization as I am sure there are some rec leagues that are in big enough areas that can survive and be ok for kids with solid skills where they can improve somewhat.
I will also say that all Travel Teams are not created equal and you must do your homework on all teams in your area to choose the program that is right for you. There are terrible ones out there like described in the OP that may fit for some but not all (paying full price for practice only and no opportunity to play in games and then making travel mandatory for tourney's you won't play in is ridiculous). That being said, there are quality programs out there. There are also a ton of daddy ball teams as well. You need to do your due diligence to find the right fit for you. They are out there.....you just need to find them.
In my area we are relatively small. Our Little League had maybe 4 teams per age group when my son was playing. His 9 yr old season he was drafted to the Majors (typically for 11-12 years old - the LL World Series age group is what most people will recognize). He was good enough to play with the 11-12 yr olds in our area and did well. There were nine other 9-yr olds that were also drafted to the Majors that year and they all held their own. At the end of that season the league entered a 9-10 yr old All Star team into the LL district tournament and we took those ten 9-yr olds and few other 10 yr olds. We won one game and lost the next two and it was the first all star game a team from our district had won in many years. After seeing these players play me and another dad asked the parents if they wanted to do a couple tournaments to finish out the summer. We decided to play three tournaments that were in our area (maybe 45 minutes to an hour away). These players progressed more in these three tournaments than they did in the entirety of the LL season. That was how diluted the "rec ball" league was in our area.
After we finished those three tournaments the parents decided to ask us to give up rec ball and just do travel ball with this team. We weren't part of any organization or Baseball Mill. Just an area team that had a good crop of 9 yr olds. We split the costs evenly among all players. Got an insurance policy (relatively cheap), had access to a community field (free), and started it up. We began practicing in Feb and played into August. We averaged 2 tournaments a month (so we had two weekends off a month). We practiced 2-3 times a week for that time frame. We stopped in August so kids could do football/soccer/baseketball/etc.
We also played everyone evenly and rotated positions so every player knew how to play every position. Obviously as they got older and developed skills that narrowed in a bit but never really below 2 or 3 positions per player. It was important to us to develop total players.
We played about 50 games a season and the boys quickly improved. The idea was to have this group go to HS together (they were all in the same HS area) and we could develop them to be ready for HS. We kept the team together (for the most part, had a few stop and added a few as well as some fill ins when people weren't available). Then when we got to HS 75% decided to go to the rival HS because they were "better". My son and a couple other kids stayed and went where they were supposed to. They played Varsity as freshman (the other's that left did not play Varsity until junior year) and we lost to them two times (once freshman year and once sophomore year) when we played head to head over the next four years. Our team ended up winning lead both Junior and Senior years and went to the State Finals their junior year while the other "better" team did not. It was very satisfying. hahahaha.
Anyway, all that to say that you can make travel ball make sense for you. It's not all bad and terrible but you have to do your due diligence and find a program/team that matches your goals and desires. They are out there.
Our costs were $500 a year to cover uniforms, insurance, and tourney fees. We rarely traveled over 1 hr away but did go on overnight trips 2 or 3 times a year just to get away and see some other teams as well as to have fun staying in a hotel, swimming, seeing sites etc. We treated them as family vacations with your 10 closest friends. All the families had great times. We never signed up for an overnight tourney without having everyone agreeing to it ahead of time so they were planned.
My son is now playing at a D2 school in Colorado. Four of the other kids are playing at a local JC in California. Not bad to have half the kids succeed enough to play college ball in some manor.
We played probably between tournaments and league games around 50 a year. We played September thru Thanksgiving. Then February thru June sometimes into very early July. Yes Travel ball was a
Commitment. And we had 12 committed players….and cut a few along the way like I mentioned. But the core group all went on to play high school and then of that 9 player core I was able to help 5 of them realize their college baseball aspirations including my son.
It was a satisfying experience. I was asked to coach again this past summer high school showcase ball and graciously passed. But I did go out to the tryouts and spoke to all the players and parents on what it takes to become a collegiate ball player and the amount of work it takes for both the player and parents. Also what not to do…..there is so much exploitation these days….it’s sad.
My son was just hired to coach this summer for high school showcase. He will be an assistant coach with his former summer coach (and a close personel friend of mine who coached travel and high school showcase with me). He is excited for that….getting paid to coach baseball on his summer break.
He will have a blast. He will have a 2026 team.
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