travel ball is killing baseball

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Data Shows Travel Teams Killing Youth Sports

The increasing popularity in elite youth travel teams have youth sports facing a decline. Imagine your child wants to play baseball, do you place them in their local recreational league, with volunteer coaches, or on a travel team with trained coaches? Many parents are choosing the popular travel teams, with hopes of their child developing into a star player.

The decision to choose travel ball is causing not only a major decrease in youth sports leagues, but also a major divide. The cost of playing on travel teams have skyrocketed. “Sports in America have separated into sport-haves and have-nots,” said Tom Farrey (@TomFarrey), executive director of Aspen’s Sports & Society program. “All that matters is if kids come from a family that has resources. If you don’t have money, it’s hard to play.”

This divide is turning the middle and lower class families away from youth sports due to not having funds to support their child. The travel teams are turning into a true business. “The cost for parents is steep. At the high end, families can spend more than 10% of their income on registration fees, travel, camps and equipment.” According to WinterGreen Research the U.S. youth-sports industry is now a $15.3 billion market. This includes the travel teams, specialized private coaching, and the organizations that run the travel teams. 

Many media companies and businesses are now capitalizing on this industry. Companies are now streaming youth games, creating apps that can market young athletes and schedule their games. Dicks Sporting Goods and NBC have both recently bought companies that build online scheduling, track athletes, and promote them on social media.

On the other side there are still many companies who have seen how the travel team industry has effected youth sports. “Almost 45 percent of children ages 6 to 12 played a team sport regularly in 2008,” according to Aspen data. “Now only about 37 percent of children do.”

The biggest push to stop the decline of youth sports comes from Project Play 2020. This is coordinated by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, and includes stakeholders such as MLB, the NBA, U.S. Olympic Committee, NBC Sports Group, and Nike. Their goal is to come together to “reverse trends driven largely by a shift away from volunteer and school-based community sports in favor of club-fueled travel sports.”

Project Play has two main goals for their first year: improve training for youth coaches and encourage children to continue playing multiple sports instead of specializing in one. Project Play is hoping that they will make an impact since they are the first coordinated effort in attempting to stop the decline of youth sports.

Jermaine Curtis, Minor League Baseball player, has also stepped up to battle the decline of youth sports. After reading an article explaining that “between 2009 to 2011, $3.5 billion was cut from schools' sports budgets, and an estimated 27 percent of U.S. public high schools will not have any sports by the year 2020 if the current trends continue,” he knew he had to do something. He does not know where he would be today without the game of baseball.

Curtis created “Pros Cave” a program that raises money and awareness to youth sports. He uses social media to interview fellow players and auction off memorabilia to raise money that is then donated to sportsmatter.org. Curtis has now added personal letters to youth athletes to his program and has launched www.ProsCave.com.

The decline of youth sports is a real issue in America, and it is caused by the popularity and growth of elite travel teams. This has caused a new divide in local sports. “There’s been this presumption that youth sports are exploding in this country and private clubs and trainers will pick up the slack,” Farrey said. “For kids with resources, they have. But families without resources are getting left behind.” The business side of travel sports continues to grow, but companies and athletes are coming together to save the youth sports that they love. It will be interesting to see where youth sports will be in 5 years. 

Bogage, J. (2017, September 6). Youth sports study: Declining participation, rising costs and unqualified coaches. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/recruiting-insider/wp/2017/09/06/youth-sports-study-declining-participation-rising-costs-and-unqualified-coaches/?utm_term=.834a0e53c112

Feltman, A. (2017, August 24). Jermaine Curtis and Pros Cave Want to Save Youth Sports. Retrieved from https://www.minorleagueball.com/2017/8/24/16195152/jermaine-curtis-pros-cave-want-to-save-youth-sports

Gregory, S. (2017, August 24). How Kids’ Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry. Retrieved from http://time.com/magazine/us/4913681/september-4th-2017-vol-190-no-9-u-s/

Golden , J. (2015, July 29). Youth sports: Kids' athletics are in danger. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/29/youth-sports-kids-athletics-are-in-danger.html

King, B. (2017, September 4). Sports stakeholders join forces in effort to stem decline in youth sports participation. Retrieved from http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2017/09/04/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Project-Play.aspx

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Travel Baseball Causing More Than The Death of Little League

Expensive travel baseball isn't just killing little league baseball. it's killing baseball..

I don’t usually read things that are in America . It’s a Jesuit-based publication with a political slant that does not agree with mine. But a story did cross my timeline about something near and dear to my heart: baseball.

When I was a kid, I played baseball under the Little League umbrella from age 8 through age 12. Once I got to be 13, we left Havenwood Little League to create our own team and I played with that team through age 15, when I stopped playing. 1

But today, Havenwood Little League does not exist. In 2002, Havenwood Little League merged with Riviera Beach Little League and two other local baseball programs in Pasadena and became the Pasadena Baseball Club. Outside of Little League Baseball.

The piece in America by John W. Miller posits that America “sold out Little League” through the widespread adoption of high-dollar travel baseball :

“I need you to take him.” The father on the phone was upset. If his 10-year-old son did not make the team at the $2,500-per-season private baseball club where I coached, the boy would lose friends and the family’s routines would be upended, he argued. They would have to drive to another suburb for ball games. Looking for a deeper, more forceful argument, the dad added: “This team is our community.” The privatization of American youth sports over the past 40 years is one of those revolutions of late-stage capitalism that should shock us more than it does. We have commodified the play of millions of children into  a $19.2 billion business , weakening volunteer-based programs that promise affordable sports for all children. It is a trend mirrored by our schools, hospitals and military. Once-proud public institutions are being privatized, with many unintended consequences. For millions of American families, paying private for-profit clubs—euphemistically termed “travel teams”—thousands of dollars a year to organize athletic games for their children is now an unquestioned way of life that shapes family routines, work schedules and commutes. That is why I was sympathetic to the angry dad’s argument and, in the end, took his son for the team. (Also, the boy could really hit. Alas, the father refused to make him work on defense, explaining: “I am not a fielding dad.”)

Obviously, I don’t buy into the idea of “late-stage capitalism”. Late-stage capitalism is a Marxist construct used by socialists to explain away capitalism and the failures of socialism.

But this, which I encourage you to read in its entirety, is a very damning piece about the state of baseball in America.

Is travel baseball killing Little League in America? The closest Little League organization to Pasadena now is in Davidsonville, 23 miles away. The Broadneck, Brooklyn Park, Glen Burnie, Harundale, Havenwood, Lake Shore, and Marley Little Leagues are all no longer associated with Little League. But most of them still play, in one way or another.

But this issue goes far beyond Little League Baseball organizationally.

Miller highlights this as a problem:

The result: In the United States, baseball is becoming a mostly white country-club sport for upper-class families to consume, like a snorkeling vacation or a round of golf. “The way it’s going, all pro players are going to be rich, white kids from the suburbs, or [they will be] Dominican or Venezuelan,” one major league front office analyst told me.

And that’s a problem for baseball at every level, all the way up to the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball. And this, more than anything else, is the problem with the continued growth and success of baseball.

It’s not the uniforms, it’s not bat flips or the lack thereof, it’s not the shift, it’s not the pace of play. It’s about the fact that fewer and fewer kids are playing baseball every year.

Let’s think about two sports; Golf and NASCAR. Those two sports may not seem very similar. But they have more similarities than you think there are.

Golf has, traditionally, been a sport played by upper-class white guys. Most professional golfers look the same. They sound the same. They play the same. It’s not a coincidence that two of the most iconic golfers of the last thirty years, John Daly and Tiger Woods, were nothing like their peers in their own ways. Golf attracts high dollar, high roller sponsors. Think brands like Mercedes-Benz.

Now think about NASCAR. NASCAR started as bootleggers in the 1940’s and 1950’s trying to see who had the fastest car. For decades, NASCAR was a working class, southern sport. But over the years, the cost of entry has become more and more expensive. Kids racing go-karts and more expensive vehicles as they get older. The demographics of NASCAR drivers has changed dramatically. While many are still from the south, many are from upper-middle to upper-class backgrounds, with their appropriate support systems.

Is it any wonder that race sponsors like Goody’s and Virginia National Bank have been replaced by Bluegreen Vacations, Ally, or Bank of America?

Yes, Major League Baseball has its RBI Program to return baseball to urban fields. It has been somewhat successful in some respects in that some of its alumni like Carl Crawford, C.C. Sabathia and the Upton Brothers have become big league players. And there are eight Urban Youth Academies providing year-round instruction in the game .

But it hasn’t been enough to revive baseball completely in inner cities to what it once was. And it certainly does nothing to address the issue of middle and working-class suburban residents and the expense involved in playing the game at a high level.

It’s no coincidence that the top two picks in the 2022 MLB Draft, the Orioles Jackson Holliday and the Diamondbacks Druw Jones, were sons of superstar Major League players.

Mr. Greene, who is currently a minor league coordinator and coach for the Milwaukee Brewers, said what troubles him is not pushy parents, showboating players or bullying coaches. It is this simple fact: Baseball is no longer a game that is for everybody. “It’s become a white elitist sport,” Mr. Greene told me. “It’s a fading game.” In Florida, some high-level programs now cost over $10,000 a season. “I know families who’ve mortgaged their homes so their kids can play baseball,” he said.

Please don’t mortgage your home on a dream that your kid might be good enough to go pro.

I disagree with the idea that the sport is entirely a “white elitist sport.” After all, scores of players are of Latin American descent, including some of the game’s top superstars. And that can, partially, explain Major League Baseball’s lack of investment in the game in America. Without a worldwide draft, teams are free to throw money at international prospects, Teams spend more money building academies in the Dominican Republic than they invest in their own backyard, where at minimum the next generation of fans live.

Until more teams see value in helping the game at home, this problem for the entire sport will continue.

But it also comes back to another thing: family and community. This is the saddest quote of the entire piece, one I mentioned earlier:

Alas, the father refused to make him work on defense, explaining: “I am not a fielding dad.”

Is there a sadder quote? A dad refusing to help his son become a baseball player because he’s not “a fielding dad?”

Baseball exists not just because of the community's love of the game. But it is, quite literally, passed down from generation to generation. I wrote about this for Camden Chat in 2016 :

Orioles baseball will not be the most important thing that we teach our daughter about. Nonetheless it's something that I hope that I can enjoy with her (and any future kids, too) for the rest of our lives, much as I still enjoy talking and watching baseball with my parents to this day. A fun, family-friendly, reasonably affordable activity you can do with the kids? What better way exists. For us, the Orioles will always be a family affair.

Guess what; we still talk about baseball. Our two kids old enough to know what baseball is love the Orioles. Our eldest, now six, is in her second year of playing though she has moved over to softball. There have been times when our kids insisted that the entire family wear Orioles stuff.

They did not come out of the womb knowing about baseball. It was something that we passed on to them. Just like my folks did. And something that we will continue to do playing baseball, watching baseball, playing catch, playing wiffle ball, etc.

After all, there’s a reason why the closing scene of Field of Dreams is so poignant.

Is there a solution to all of this? Well, the genie of privatized baseball cannot be put back in the bottle. That ship has sailed and, realistically, there is too much money to be made. 2 Is there saving Little League? Who knows; organizationally they still seem to be doing pretty well overseas and a U.S. team won three of the last four Little League World Series featuring international teams. 3

But heavens know there has to be a way to save the sport of baseball. Travel baseball may be making people a lot of money but, in the long run, it may be killing the golden goose.

Spoiler: I wasn’t good enough to keep playing.

And if I had any skill to make some of that money working in baseball, I wouldn’t have a day job.

2021 featured all American teams. Because COVID

Ready for more?

Travel Baseball: Pros and Cons

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Travel ball is one of the most popular forms of competitive baseball in the United States, and it is only growing in popularity. It can start as young as six years old and go all the way up to 18.

Travel ball consists of teams that are independent of any amateur league, school, or organization that travel to tournaments locally, regionally, and/or nationally to compete against other travel teams.

As more kids each year are taking advantage of travel ball opportunities, more and more parents are considering travel ball as an option for their child to improve his baseball skills. Before committing to travel ball though, one must weigh the pros and cons.

Pro: Competition

Travel ball teams are notoriously more competitive than rec league and sometimes even high school teams . Because travel ball teams are able to recruit the best of the best in their city, state, or region, teams are typically more talented.

This allows players to play with peers who share their passion and talents for the game. Also, it gives them the opportunity to play against peers with equal or greater skill than themselves. This allows them to push themselves to become better players.

Players who typically dominate rec leagues and high school games should consider travel ball as an option to play against better competition.

At the youth level, parents sometimes opt to play a full season of travel ball and skip little league altogether. This can be controversial as some believe that doing this is unfair to the community leagues, but it often benefits the player and challenges him to improve.

At the high school level, players often use travel ball to supplement their high school season. They play in the summer and sometimes fall when their high school team is not in season. Very rarely does a high school player opt to only play travel ball.

For players who struggle in little league or high school, travel ball may not be the best option as the competition may be too much for them. Their confidence in their abilities may suffer making it counterproductive.

For any amateur player looking to play with and against better players, travel ball is a great opportunity to do so.

Pro: Exposure

One of the main reasons many high school baseball players with hopes of playing college ball decide to play travel ball outside of their high school seasons is the exposure they may get because of it.

Most of the time, college and high school baseball seasons overlap leaving little time for college recruiters to get out and see players. High school travel ball normally takes place during the summer while colleges are not in season. This gives them more opportunities to be seen.

Also, many high level travel teams have systems in place to afford players the best opportunity to earn interest from college coaches. Many travel coaches have connections with college recruiting coordinators, so they often reach out on their players’ behalf to get them on recruiters’ radars.

More competitive travel teams also play in a lot of tournaments hosted by companies such as Prep Baseball Report and Perfect Game. These are scouting services devoted to helping high school players find colleges and for colleges to find talented prep players .

At these tournaments, players’ stats and measurables are recorded and added to their recruiting profile for college coaches to see. They also sometimes record videos that they share on social media.

Playing travel ball is not the only way to gain exposure in front of college coaches, but it is one of the more effective ways to play in front of recruiting coordinators.

Pro: Relationship Building

Travel ball also has non-baseball-related advantages.

Travel teams are normally made up of players from different areas of a particular city, state, or region. This affords young kids the opportunities to develop friendships with other kids outside of their hometown.

This allows them to broaden their horizons and experience things outside of the perspective of their hometown. Sometimes, players will form lifelong friendships with kids they never would have met outside of travel ball.

Not to mention the relationships that can be formed from a parent’s point of view. Sometimes, the adults of the children on the team can form lifelong friendships that otherwise may have never had a chance to develop.

Pro/Con: Playing Time

Yes, believe it or not, playing time is both a pro and a con when it comes to playing travel ball.

The positive side of it is that playing time is easier to come by in travel ball. Teams are often made up of anywhere between 9-12 kids to ensure that everyone gets enough playing time .

For coaches, it is important to evaluate the talent level of both your team and the players on your team. Ideally, they should all be about equal in talent level with maybe a few outliers who clearly have more talent than the others.

If a team has nine players that are head and shoulders above the talent level of the remaining two or three players, it will be difficult for a coach to get those two or three players in the game therefore leaving an unequal amount of playing time.

Parents let their children play travel ball in hopes that they will develop their skills, and those skills can only be developed through ample playing time. Most of the time, travel ball teams offer players that opportunity.

On the negative side of things, some people believe that this creates a false sense of security in young players. As competition against other teams is increased through travel ball, competition in playing time is decreased.

Some high school coaches feel that their players expect to start every game regardless of their talent level or their work ethic thanks to travel ball. This even leaks into the minds of their parents as well.

When they go from playing on travel teams where playing time is guaranteed to playing for their high school team where the best nine players get to play, they have a much more difficult time accepting a role as a bench player.

To combat this, travel coaches should make both players and parents aware that while their child may be guaranteed playing time on his travel team, that will not be the case in high school . While this may not solve every problem, it may help clear up any misconceptions.

Con: Coaching

Some travel teams have coaches with lots of playing and coaching experience and take their job as coaches very seriously in helping to develop players’ skill sets.

However, one of the biggest complaints about travel ball is that there is often not enough focus on player development . Coaches just put together lineups and let the kids play.

Sometimes, as is the case in younger levels of travel ball, coaches are parents who may not know as much about the game but are willing to spend time organizing practices and tournaments for the kids.

Also, parent-coaches can sometimes muddy the waters when it comes to playing time. If others feel the coach’s son is getting special treatment, it could cause friction among the team.

Any parent who volunteers his time to coach a travel team should be commended, but he should be prepared for complaints from other parents if his child gets more playing time than other players. It doesn’t always happen, but it is certainly a possibility.

To combat this, some travel teams hire a third party to come in and coach the team. These are often younger coaches who are looking for extra income and ways to get started in coaching.

There are some great travel team coaches out there, but for every good coach, there are many more who struggle.

Probably the biggest complaint about travel ball is the cost to play.

Travel baseball costs on average about $3,700 per year. It is not unusual for parents to pay close to $10,000 for their child to play on a travel team.

Before complaining about the cost, remember that travel teams are not affiliated with any leagues or organizations, so they are on their own when it comes to uniforms, equipment, tournament fees, umpires, coaches (sometimes), hotels, etc.

The typical travel team is not for the family who struggles to pay the bills each month. However, there are travel organizations with sponsorships that pay for most everything for the players. The only downfall is that these teams are typically exclusive to players with elite talent.

Some teams opt for fundraising efforts to charge parents as little as possible for their players to play on a travel team. Either way, parents should expect to fork up some money for their child to play travel ball.

Con: Length of Season

Another criticism about travel ball is the number of games the teams play. Some youth travel ball teams start in early April and play every weekend all the way up until Labor Day weekend.

If a team followed that schedule and played at least three games each weekend, that would be 66 games over five months . Three games is the minimum most teams play in a weekend. It is sometimes as many as six or seven.

This is the reason many kids get burned out on the sport before they even reach high school. They simply play too many games too early in life.

High school summer teams usually don’t start until June because of the high school spring season, but they are notorious for playing anywhere between three and five games per weekend the whole months of June and July and even some of August.

That’s about 8-10 weeks worth of games and can be anywhere from 30-50 games on top of whatever their high school teams played.

Not only can playing that many games lead to early burnout, it also puts young players at a higher risk for injury — especially pitchers.

Related Questions:

How does travel ball compare to little league.

Little League is an organization that was founded in 1939 that operates in more than 80 countries. It is the governing body for many community run youth leagues for ages 6-12. Travel ball is not an organization itself. Tournaments are run by individuals or groups that are not tied to Little League at all.

Travel ball is typically viewed as more competitive than Little League as teams are not restricted to playing against their local competition. Also, travel ball begins at age six and can be played all the way up until age 18.

How do I choose a travel ball team?

When choosing a travel ball team, players and parents should have in mind what it is they hope to get out of playing travel ball. Then, they should take that list and try to find a team that can provide them those opportunities.

Some teams require players to try out for their team while others simply use word of mouth recommendations from people they trust when finding the players that are fit for their team.

What age should I start a travel team?

Travel teams can start as early as six years old and go all the way up to 18 years old. Six is pretty young to start playing on travel teams, but many people do it.

Instead of using age as a determining factor for starting travel, ask this question: “Am I serious about baseball, and am I ready to take my game to the next level?” If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then it may be time to look for a travel team.

When should I leave a travel team?

Leaving a travel team is something that should be avoided because players do not want to get a reputation for jumping from team to team.

However, there are times when it is necessary. If the team is not providing a player with the opportunities to get better, it may be time to leave that team. It is also best not to leave the team in the middle of the season as that leaves them in a bind trying to fill the vacant spot .

See Also : BBCOR vs. USSSA: Here Are Difference What is the Average Velocity of a Division 1 Pitcher? How Long Do High School Baseball Games Last?

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What Gets Lost as Little Leagues Get Smaller

By Nicholas Dawidoff

On a windy April Saturday in Hamden, Connecticut, where I live, I watched a blur of kids test their baseball skills, in preparation for the Little League season. My son was among them; I’d volunteered to be a coach this year. On the following Monday evening, I was to join the other coaches to pick the teams.

I’d had one previous experience with the drafting of players. In 2011, while writing a book about the inner life of an N.F.L. team, I’d watched the New York Jets prepare for the draft. That year, Jets scouts traversed the country, observing and meeting college players and talking with coaches, professors, acquaintances, and sometimes law enforcement. They prepared five thousand thick reports on twelve hundred prospects, searching for hidden truths and the secrets of young souls, overvaluing those things that they most valued about themselves, and crossing their fingers.

In Hamden, my “scouting notes” were on the level of “fast” and “fun.” Hoping to elevate my drafting acumen before Monday night, I went home and called some of my old subjects from the Jets for advice. The former Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum, who now runs a football think tank that he founded, warned, preëmptively, “You’re gonna go with your heart instead of your head.” The team’s former defensive coördinator Mike Pettine, who later became the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, said, “Pick kids that love baseball—not playing because of Dad. Avoid kids with overly involved parents.” Anthony Lynn, a running-backs coach who subsequently spent several years as the head coach of the San Diego Chargers, recalled his own “Friday Night Lights” childhood as a star athlete in small-town Texas, where his closest friend was named Rocky. Lynn made it clear that he still held it against his town’s Little League that he and Rocky had not been teammates. “White Sox drafted me,” Lynn said. “Astros took him. I was in tears. First draft we ever had in our town. We showed up outside the school. Everybody was waiting. Afterward, we were bawling. Lot of crying.” Lynn had very specific counsel. “You draft team chemistry,” he said. “I was hell on the White Sox coach that year. I wouldn’t pitch”—that is, until his coach’s wife brought baked goods one day. “She won me over with brownies,” he said. “We made the playoffs. I pitched and talked shit to my best friend, Rocky, the whole time!”

Listening to Lynn reminisce in this way brought back to me similarly atmospheric features of my own years in uniform, growing up in New Haven—not quite the baseball itself so much as surprising things people said and did at the games. There was the batter who religiously crossed himself before he hit, leading one pitcher to do the same, just so they were even. The way we talked more at school in anticipation of upcoming games than we did after the score was decided. The interesting-sounding businesses—a hot-dog wholesaler, a tropical-fish store, a carting company—that sponsored teams, lending them a mystique that made us, at eleven and twelve, feel halfway complicit in their missions. The distinctive ways people found to wear their uniforms. (The best player in our league kept one pant leg high up, at his knee, the other lower, at his shin, and soon others adopted the fashion.) The kid who borrowed my prized new wooden bat and immediately broke it, while hitting a single. Later, he approached me, and I expected him to apologize, but instead he said, “If the bat had been better, I would have hit a home run.”

I’d grown up with a single mom, and I used to notice all the dads in the stands watching their sons play. Mostly, we kids knew our neighborhoods. But, through baseball, I met kids whom I otherwise wouldn’t have, kids from all over New Haven. The games opened up the city, revealed how things and people were.

Hamden, which, in the nineteen-thirties, became the home of Thornton Wilder, who wrote “Our Town,” was once a picket-fence streetcar suburb of New Haven. It was home to many Yale faculty members, but it also had blue-collar neighborhoods, interior villages, ample farmland, and a kid named Donald Hall, the country’s future Poet Laureate, who later published a prose collection titled “ Fathers Playing Catch with Sons .” In the fifties, Hamden was remade in the model of white suburban exodus by new highways and parkways. Hamden was both its own town and a transitional place, not exactly a distinct entity so much as a continuation of New Haven, one among a region of towns and suburbs that gave way to the countryside. It was then almost totally white; it had the state’s first suburban shopping center and, as of 1953, a youth-sports league that called itself the Hamden Fathers’ Baseball Association. (The paternal nomenclature remains.) One son of Hamden at the time was Joe Castiglione, whose congenial tenor has been familiar to Boston Red Sox followers since 1983 , when he became the team’s play-by-play radio broadcaster. Describing balls and strikes or relating the sweetness of the strawberries he buys at his local market, Castiglione sounds like someone talking across a back-yard fence to his neighbor.

Hamden has continued to reflect America’s changing suburbs: these days, twenty-seven per cent of its residents are African-American, and around one in seven were born in a country other than the United States. Many residents of Hamden are engaged, as much of the country is, in community self-examination . Grappling with any single issue, such as zoning reform or a desire for more affordable housing, is complex; at public hearings, school meetings, and online, speaking of one thing inevitably leads to discussions of other things, like education reform, and the city’s budget difficulties, and problems of employment and opportunity and taxation—an interrelated thicket of process that is as spirited and fraught as the times. The town’s vibrant culture of small businesses, from Kelly’s Cone Connection to East Side Flooring, is still represented on the uniform shirts of young baseball players. The demographics are diverse, yet the town is segregated by neighborhood. In this way, Hamden reminds me of the New Haven I grew up in, a pulsing, varied city, where people tended to stay in their own homogenous communities. But there were ways not to do that, to get to know a little bit of everybody, and one way was Little League.

In our draft room were the league’s affable commissioner, Carl, and my fellow-coaches, who answered to Doc and John and Mayor Curt. (He really is the mayor.) The evening was a simple, completely inexpert exercise in apolitical comity. None of us knew all the players, so, in the later rounds, there was information-pooling on the level of “He’s my best friend’s kid” and “His favorite color is green.” Everybody shared Pettine’s aversion to dadly over-involvement, and could recall past paternal cases of sign-stealing from behind home plate, fathers arriving at games in altered states and screaming contumely for six innings, and even a man who accosted his son’s coach to say “My kid is playing way too much. We’ve gotta win!”

During years past, Hamden had filled two complete and abundantly rostered leagues. Now we were drafting to field four teams in one league. Quite a few of the better young players from our growing town of sixty thousand people no longer play in our league. They were already committed year-round to another sport, or they had opted to play travel ball.

All over the country, local town leagues, not only in baseball but also in soccer and basketball and other youth sports, face diminishing enrollments , as more and more kids sign on to the country’s thousands and thousands of travel programs—intensive experiences that feature expert instruction from former collegians, a lengthy schedule of games against opponents from far-flung locales, excellent facilities, shimmering uniforms and uniform-adjacent swag, and a pre-professional seriousness about the game that preaches hard work and devotion to practice. Also available, in the interest of these creeds, are skills clinics, private lessons, special strength-and-conditioning days. Youth sports is a booming business that brings in fifteen billion dollars per year. For many parents, the financial and time commitments are transactional, investments in the grail of a college athletic scholarship or, who knows, maybe even a career in Houston or Chicago with the real Astros or White Sox.

Travel sports seem of our time, not simply in their aspirational striving to purchase an edge, to get ahead, but in the way they create inequity and separation within the culture. Most people don’t have thousands of dollars to invest season after season in a nine-year-old third baseman. On a municipal level, most towns cannot compete with the lush facilities of the travel enterprises, which are often situated in wealthy white suburbs.

My own child begged to join a travel baseball program, and, during COVID , when at first there were no other options for him, we let him try it; he had to contribute by working jobs in the neighborhood. He loved being part of his team, and his play grew more advanced, but he disliked all the weekend time in cars, disliked games that ended close to 10 P.M. with a drive home still to follow; he didn’t really know his coaches, and seemed far harder on himself when things didn’t go well than he was in Little League. In the town league, there was one beginner kid every year who took much of the season to get their first hit, and when they finally did the rest of the team was jubilant—they went a kind of nuts that my son called “a release of magical happiness.” The travel teams didn’t have that.

There is an iconic quality to being a child on a field dressed in a uniform, and that heightened early experience is surely why so many kids who play organized sports remember for life something that a coach told them. Kids like coaches who have both expectations and the ability to help them improve; in times of struggle and failure, what most kids seem to want from their coaches is for them not to make a big deal out of it, not to demoralize them by saying something brutally memorable. Anthony Lynn, who remembers his Little League days so vividly, told me that he thinks travel ball is cynical. “Everyone’s selling ‘the dream gonna happen,’ and people are making a killing, millions of dollars off dreams that will never happen,” he said. Statistically, he has a point. Only some two per cent of all high-school athletes will play high-level college sports. On another emotional level, what Lynn and many others worry about is that so many kids are being positioned to have their hearts broken, raising their own and their parents’ hopes, buying into an assumption that if they just applied themselves enough they’d hit the big time.

For generations of Americans, it’s been a national rite of passage, an early lesson in mortality: the revelation that you won’t, after all, be a major-leaguer. Typically, there was self-discovery in this, a quiet settling-in that you were never going to stand out at shortstop in Wrigley Field. With travel sports, though, it could feel less like the way it goes for almost all of us than a personal inadequacy. If, after all that preparation, you failed to win a scholarship to play Division I college ball, it was your fault. Travel ball, for all its seductions, seems more likely to ruin the pleasure in baseball for a kid, with the pressure it imposes, than to make the kid like baseball more.

My own sense of the kinds of distorted values that are expressed when adults become too competitive about games between children reached an apogee when I heard about a nine-and-under-age-group travel game in which a Hamden team played against one from Madison, Connecticut. The Hamden team could field only eight players, owing to injuries and COVID exposure. Still, they travelled forty minutes to show up and play—using only two outfielders. Summoning an obscure rule, the Madison coach decided that the game would go forward only if Hamden agreed that every time the ninth batting position came around an automatic out would be recorded against them. With two outs in the last inning, Madison, ahead in a close game, insured victory by intentionally walking Hamden’s eighth batter, thus ending the game with the automatic out.

Within the Hamden draft room, the other coaches and I were not as alert to the strategic bottom line. We lacked data of the sort the Jets possessed. But what became evident was that we had a form of analytics of our own. We collectively knew about our community. Plain to us, as to every Little League coach, is that who we were drafting was, in a sense, the town, and that by drafting players we’d know the town better, and so would they. As the season’s gone on, that’s proved to be true. On our teams are the children of nurses and doctors, electricians and mechanics, professors and librarians, guys who work in corrections and in sales, Mayor Curt and an elementary-school custodian—a little league of everybody.

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clock This article was published more than  9 years ago

Opinion Stealing home: How travel teams are eroding community baseball

David Mendell, a freelance writer and former reporter for the Chicago Tribune, coaches Oak Park Youth Baseball outside Chicago.

The shortstop ranged nimbly to his right, scooped up a sharp grounder and unleashed a strong throw to first base. Seeing the athletic play by my son, a burly fellow leaned against the chain-link fence.

"You've got a nice little ballplayer there," the man, Mike Adams, told me. "You should think about getting him into a full-time travel program. The sooner, the better."

I was a neophyte in the byzantine world of youth baseball, and Adams's husky voice carried the resonance of a father who had logged many hours behind caged dugouts. Yet I had to chuckle. "Mike," I said, "Nate's just 9. Full-time travel baseball, really?"

In the past three years, as an assistant coach with the youth baseball organization in Oak Park, Ill., and as manager of one of its part-time travel teams, I've watched more than a dozen kids my son's age follow the route suggested by Adams. Lured by a chance to compete at a more elite level, they've left local baseball for various full-time travel teams in Chicago's suburbs. Full-time travel baseball means many more practices and many more games — many of them far away. To rise in rankings and win tournaments, some teams, especially in warm climates, play nearly year-round, competing in as many as 120 games per year, more than most minor league players.

Travel ball is not new — it's been around for a couple of decades. But participation in full-time travel baseball has exploded in recent years. For example, in 2000, Atlanta's first All-American Wood Bat Classic tournament opened with about a dozen teams. This Memorial Day weekend, nearly 100 squads from half a dozen states will descend on fields throughout metropolitan Atlanta to participate. The players range in age from 8 to 14. Rebecca Davis, executive director of the Atlanta-based Youth Amateur Travel Sports Association, estimates that there are tens of thousands of travel teams in Georgia and Florida alone. "The fast growth absolutely blindsided us," she conceded. "Those days of rec ball and local Little League, or just going to the park and playing ball — those days are nonexistent. They're gone. Now, it's all about travel."

That’s an overstatement. Yes, Little League enrollment has declined 20 percent since its peak in 1997, from 3 million to 2.4 million. But 2.4 million players hardly suggests that community leagues are disappearing. And many young travel team players also play on their local teams.

Still, it’s true that the playing field for youth baseball has changed dramatically since Little League was founded 75 years ago. And with the loss of so many players and their families to travel teams, our community league games have lost a certain sense of community.

Carl Stotz started Little League as a program that would teach sportsmanship and teamwork to preteen boys in his home town, Williamsport, Pa. The first game was played on June 6, 1939, when Lundy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy. The local business sponsorships helped keep participation costs low and root the teams in their communities. To this day, defined areas from which each local league can draw prevent teams from poaching good players from one another.

Travel ball, by contrast, is not cheap — participation fees average about $2,000 per player per year. And teams may invite players from anywhere in the region. Since tournaments and games are usually in other towns, players and their parents must spend many hours commuting.

Some travel ballplayers resemble professional athletes: Year by year, they go from one travel team to another, switching teammates and uniforms, with the name splashed across the front of the jersey usually signifying something other than their home town.

“Where’s the local pride gone?” asked Tim Dennehy, pitching coach for Oak Park-River Forest High School’s varsity team. “By the time my teammates and I got to high school, we were like family. We were already a team, picking each other up, playing for our community. Now, guys arrive from a bunch of different teams, and they know guys in the other dugout better than they know each other.”

There have been concerns about the competitiveness fostered by youth baseball since Little League was in its infancy. As far back as 1957, Sports Illustrated wrote : "The two basic arguments which strike at the roots of Little League pop up year after year: it puts too much competitive pressure on the children; it brings out the monster in too many parents and adult leaders."

That description reminds me of my part-time travel team’s first tournament victory in July 2012. The pugnacious coaching dad of the opposing team was so angered by an intentional walk I called, in hopes of setting up a double play, that he refused his second-place trophies and verbally threatened one of my assistant coaches. (I’ll admit that it was probably poor form to intentionally walk a 10-year-old.)

But full-time travel teams encourage pressure, and negative character traits, of a higher order.

Dennehy, who pitched in the Yankees system, worries that they are breeding a more selfish mind-set, with some players far more concerned about their individual statistics than team performance. Their teams, after all, are ever changing.

And, of course, the whole system is based on the idea that travel teams offer elite athletes more professional coaching and more competitive play. While the expansion of travel ball may have diluted the level of competition somewhat, it’s indisputable that travel players, who log so many more hours at the ballfield, tend to pick up both fundamentals and sophisticated skills at earlier ages. They’re graduating from youth play to high school throwing pitches at a higher velocity than ever, and fielding and hitting with more proficiency than in eras past.

But Stephen Keener, president and chief executive of Little League International, questions whether travel ball is the key to something more. “There’s this belief that a travel team and a higher level of competitive play will propel a child to a higher place. That belief is misguided,” he told me. “There is something to be said for high-quality instruction, but at the end of the day, the player and his personal desire and his athletic ability will determine how far he goes in baseball.”

As a parent, though, it’s hard to resist the implications of the travel-team Web sites listing alumni who have gone on to college and pro teams. Who wouldn’t want to give their child the best chance at success?

But there are physical and emotional costs.

Major League Baseball officials are looking at why higher numbers of budding pitching stars, such as Stephen Strasburg and Jose Fernandez, have suffered severe arm injuries in their early 20s. To a youth-coaching dad like myself, the answer is plain: overuse at young ages.

“I’m doing more and more operations on younger and younger arms every year,” said Timothy Kremchek, head physician for the Cincinnati Reds, who specializes in Tommy John arm surgeries. “These kids are being overused and abused. They are playing on too many different teams and throwing too many breaking pitches. It’s something we know about, but the abuse goes on. The parents are chasing some sort of dream. It makes me sick.”

Kremchek has been instrumental in instituting pitch limits and banning breaking pitches in youth baseball in Ohio. And teams affiliated with Little League Baseball have implemented pitch limits nationwide, which is a start. Still, as Keener notes, many Little League participants also play on travel teams outside their local leagues, while others are on full-time teams, making it impossible for governing bodies to police how much baseball a kid is playing each year.

Travel ball also amplifies the risk of mental burnout.

“For too many kids, the genesis of a kid’s passion for playing baseball is being lost in the full-time travel movement,” laments Jim Donovan, a Chicago area baseball instructor and former University of Illinois second baseman. “It really troubles me when parents and coaches intervene in the process to the extent that kids just aren’t enjoying the game anymore. And believe me, I see this all the time — kids who grab their gear bags, and the bags look so heavy on their shoulders, you know? And the kid’s face, it just looks blank.

“The games have become so serious, and so many kids aren’t enjoying it. It just breaks my heart when I see a kid reacting like that to the game that I love so much and have put so much faith in.”

My son is now 12 and, although we’ve toyed with the idea of full-time travel ball, he has stuck with our local league (which is community-based but not affiliated with Little League) and part-time travel, progressing nicely as a shortstop and pitcher. Primarily, he wanted to keep playing with his friends. He was also deterred by the intense schedule of practices and games. “The travel kids are always talking about how much they practice, like every day, even in the winter,” Nathan told me. “If I went to a travel team, I think my pitching arm would fall off.”

I’m glad he’s stayed, because I think the most significant missing element in professionally coached travel ball is the father-son experience. No other American sport seems to bond fathers and sons as securely as baseball. There’s something about the pacing of the game, the long season, the buildup to dramatic late-inning heroics on steamy summer days and nights.

Take the trophy ceremony on one of those hot nights in 2012. As I was passing out the first-place hardware to my players, lined up down the first base line, my son’s turn arrived. I had fist-bumped each player before him. But when Nate jogged up to me, I seized him in a bear hug. A lump formed in my throat that surely was visible from the parking lot.

All the work that we had logged in the batting cages and on the practice fields rushed through my head, as did the sacrifices to my career and aging body. As a tear rolled down my left cheek, Nathan looked up at me and said: “Dad, you gotta let go now. Everybody’s watching us.” I could have held my 10-year-old boy in that hug forever. No amount of paid coaching could buy that moment.

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Travel Ball at Fault for Little League's Decline?

Worldwide  participation in Little League baseball and softball has dropped  1.5 to 3 percent annually from its peak participation levels in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to Kevin Fountain, Little League International’s director of media relations. The effects of that decline are being felt coast to coast — from Washington to Connecticut and everywhere in between. And travel sports are being viewed as the villain of the piece.

“People started doing this travel ball thing, and that’s sort of led to the slow death of the rec league,” Adam Osborne, baseball coach at Clarke Central High School in Athens, Ga., told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution   in May.

Indeed, travel ball participation has increased, in large part because it provides players with more opportunities to improve their skills and be seen by scouts and college coaches. And with more adults in the (possibly doomed) hunt for a scholarship (and hoping for a pro career for their kids) , it's likely the trend will continue.

It also is a more costly alternative for families. Nevertheless travel ball has eaten into participation numbers in the Southeast Region of Little League, which consists of Georgia, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. In 2007, the region boasted more than 47,000 baseball players between the ages of 9 and 12. In 2017, there were less than 27,000, according to the Journal-Constitution.

Other regions cite similar declines. According to numbers provided by Everett Little League in Washington to the  Everett Herald , baseball and softball participation among players ages 4 to 12 fell 24 percent between 2015 and 2019.

“I don’t really see Little League losing a ton of numbers,” Ed Lundberg, president of District 1 for all Little League charters in Snohomish County, Wash., told the Herald . “There’s sort of ebbs and flows with families and communities. We have some leagues that are dropping down a bit, and we have some leagues with younger kids that are growing quite a bit. It’s really hard to say Little League or baseball or softball is losing interest.”

The Courant reports that coaches and administrators maintain that youth baseball “is far from doomed … and that player enthusiasm remains as high as ever. But they also acknowledge the challenges of sustaining leagues whose numbers are down, often steeply, from former peaks.”

For their part, event organizers may want to consider ways to in which to spark greater participation at their own local levels. The merging of Little League organizations in recent years has proven successful in some communities and helped save the sport. Other communities are lowering registration fees or encouraging more female participation.

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Travel Baseball Pros And Cons

• May 3, 2023

For children, travel baseball is the key to the world of high-level college play . If you want your kid to excel in this sport or if your child shows serious interest in it, youth travel baseball is worth a shot.

With that said, what is travel baseball exactly, and how does it differ from other forms of youth baseball? Read on to find out!

What Is Travel Baseball?

Travel baseball is a form of youth baseball that is played away from a team’s immediate area . Travel teams may travel to another city or state to participate in baseball travel tournaments.

Generally, travel baseball is viewed as an intermediary step between Little League baseball and high school or college-level baseball . Travel baseball is usually much more competitive than recreational baseball leagues like Little League. Besides that, youth travel baseball allows for more exposure for a young baseball player, potentially providing a big boost to a child’s baseball career.

Travel baseball vs. Little League

The Little League embodies traditional youth baseball where children have fun rather than become engulfed in the tough training world of more “serious” youth baseball environments (like travel baseball).

Kids may start playing in the Little League from as young as age 4 . LL games are very rarely held outside a local area , and in this league, children will be learning the basics of hitting, pitching, and other essential baseball concepts.

Little League was traditionally an intermediary stage between recreational youth play and middle to high school baseball . Back in the day, sticking to the Little League and other recreational programs was enough to prepare young players for high school- and then college-grade baseball.

These days, this is no longer the case . Middle school programs are now either subpar or non-existent. Little League is a viable alternative to recreational baseball, but when it comes to building the basis for elite-level competition, it pales in comparison with travel baseball.

With all that in mind, let’s conclude this section with these two points:

• For professional-level development, travel baseball would be a logical next step for children aged 11 to 12 .
• Recreational leagues like Little League or local adult baseball leagues are a great choice for non-competitive baseball players who want to have fun and don’t want to make their life revolve around baseball.

The Benefits Of Travel Baseball For Aspiring Players

My overview of travel baseball and its benefits was kind of vague so far. Now, let’s look at the specific benefits of playing at travel teams compared to rec baseball.

More exposure

I’d say that exposure is the biggest advantage of travel baseball . Getting yourself in front of the right people is important for a child’s long-term success in this sport – travel baseball allows you to leverage this.

At the very least, travel baseball gives children the opportunity to show their worth to high-level college baseball coaches who may have substantial influence in the sport . College scouts also often attend travel baseball meetings. In case your child has what it takes to succeed in baseball, a scout will identify their talent and perhaps give your kid a chance to establish themselves at a higher level.

More competition and thus motivation

Players in travel baseball are better-versed in baseball and are more competitive than rec players . This is actually a good thing – young players will have someone to look up to and will be more motivated to improve .

Children will also learn to face and hopefully overcome challenges that they wouldn’t encounter in recreational baseball. Fierce competition from better players forces weaker athletes to adapt – this is arguably the best aspect of travel baseball, though I still think that exposure is its  #1 benefit.

Better coaching

Travel baseball team coaches are typically more competent than their colleagues at recreational leagues . Although travel baseball coaches will put more strain on a young player than a rec coach, the results will accordingly be considerably better.

Not only that, but travel baseball teams often employ former professional coaches who may have strong networks in basebal l. Such coaches not only know how to make a skillful player but also may be able to connect athletes with other teams.

More eye-opening experiences

And finally, travel baseball is laden with eye-opening experiences . 

People – and even more so kids – often don’t realize that there is an unexplored world beyond the limited horizon they have become so accustomed to . Throughout their travel baseball engagement, children will be able to meet people with different backgrounds, characters, and views of sport and life in general. 

Some encounters with other players will help your kid appreciate sportsmanship, while others will teach them how to ignore fan hate and how to stand up for themselves.

The immense load of the sport itself will also help children get used to investing effort to get results and make them understand that life has its ups and downs .

The Disadvantages Of Travel Baseball

Travel baseball is far from perfect – it has a few disadvantages that parents ought to know about:

• It’s really expensive. Traveling costs can rack up to $5,000 or even $10,000 a year, though in most cases, families seem to spend around $2,500.
• It’s stressful for parents. Parents will have to plan ahead to accommodate their children’s play schedule. Frequent travel can put a toll on any parent, not to mention the financial dent it makes in parents’ wallets.
• Mental and physical strain on children. Tougher and more frequent workouts will undoubtedly produce better players, but they also strain children considerably – both mentally and physically.
• Not everybody will make it in travel baseball. Travel baseball is highly competitive, and usually, only the best players find a place in a travel baseball team. Not everybody will thus make it in this sport.

With commitment, skill, and some luck, travel baseball can be a gateway into professional sport. However, before you decide to have your child join a travel baseball team, you must consider its advantages and disadvantages – both for you and your kid.

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What To Consider When Looking For A Travel Baseball Team

Now, I’ll outline a few things that you should be looking for in a travel baseball team – in case you are thinking about it as a future for your child.

Costs are going to be the #1 consideration for most parents.

I can’t tell exactly how much you’ll have to spend on entry fees, travel, and equipment – but it will most likely be under $2,500 per year. But depending on certain factors (more about these below), your costs may climb higher – in 2011, CBS News reported on parents who paid $4,000 for their kids’ participation in travel baseball .

You won’t find accurate cost estimates easily – you’ll have to dig deep for that. But one thing is certain – bigger teams with higher-quality coaches are going to cost you more.

To hopefully set you in the right direction, here are some major factors that will affect how hard travel baseball will hit your pocket.

• Your location. Teams based in rural areas will have to travel often and far. In contrast, travel baseball teams in important baseball hubs – like California – won’t have to drive or fly to another city or state too often.
• Whether the team will provide equipment. Bigger and more successful teams may have sponsorships with baseball gear brands. In these teams, players get their equipment for free or at a significantly reduced cost.
• Access to baseball facilities. Some teams have to rent baseball facilities to train. Needless to say, rent is going to be covered from your own pocket – whether in part or entirely. With teams that have their own facilities or train only at public fields, this will not be a concern.
• Coach compensation. Some teams pay small compensation to their coaches or cover their travel costs. Again, a team with such a model will transfer the responsibility for covering compensation to you. This will increase annual fees, but paid coaches are also likely to do their job better.

Travel tournaments in which the team participates. Teams participating in higher-level tournaments will have to pay higher entry fees. More competitive and “serious” teams are therefore going to cost you more.

What about coaches ? Some people may, unfortunately, overlook this crucial aspect.

Here are a few questions that you need to find an answer to regarding coaches:

• Does the coach encourage their players?
• Does the coach give tips and advice tailored to the player’s personal strengths and weaknesses?
• How does the coach handle mistakes? Do they scream at players?
• Does the coach treat all players equally? Or maybe they have favorites in the team?

Don’t become captivated by clean facilities and promises of success in the sport – you may overlook jerk coaches if you do.

3. Location

Your location will matter if your child wants to compete at the highest level in the future.

The thing is that major baseball states like California, Florida, Georgia, or Louisiana have plenty of elite travel baseball teams to choose from . You won’t have to travel far from home to find a worthy team for your kid.

On the other hand, in areas where baseball isn’t that popular, you may have few to no options . Even if there is a baseball team in such a place, it probably isn’t a super-competitive team with excellent baseball coaches.

Suppose your kid is unlucky enough to both want to play competitively and live in a baseball-less area. In that case, you’ll have to travel to another city or perhaps even state to find the opportunities you or your child desire . Not only is travel time-consuming, but it is also costly. You will have to make compromises – either play in a low-grade team or spend time and money to travel to another area.

4. The reputation of the team

The reputation of the team matters as well – for the athletic future of your child. If your kid plays in a team known for unfair plays, they may have trouble getting into a better team down the line.

Beating bad sports habits out of a baseball player can be challenging, and unless coaches are dealing with remarkable talent, they’ll prefer to work with someone who has the right foundation for their team’s goals and values.

5. Competitiveness and skill level

Is your kid looking just to have fun? In that case, more relaxed, less competitive Baseball travel teams would be ideal. Children who don’t intend to reach exceptional heights in baseball will feel out of place in a super-competitive team where everybody works at their limit.

In contrast, if your kid is ready to compete seriously, a more “upper-class” team with skilled players and a demanding coach will immensely motivate them.

In the end, youth travel baseball provides entry to competitive high school and college baseball. Consequently, it gives children a chance to try themselves in competitive play.

Travel baseball is a costly endeavor, and it requires plenty of planning and compromises on your part. Weigh the pros and cons and try to determine what would be the right choice for your child – more light-hearted, recreational leagues, or an astronomically competitive travel team.

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What is travel ball Part I

• Post author By Baseballcentral Blog
• Post date January 23, 2022
• No Comments on What is travel ball Part I

For lots of baseball families, the transition from Little League to travel ball can be stressful.  In this 2 part series, we will try to address some of the most common concerns and answer the all important question:  is travel ball right for my son (and my family)? What is Travel Ball? Let’s start at the beginning and define what travel ball is and how it works.  In this video, former pro Matt Antonelli does a great job giving a quick overview of what travel ball is. https://youtu.be/PrSBQXHS_EA

There are literally thousands of travel ball teams out there, and their popularity has skyrocketed over the past 20 years. As recently as the 90s, travel baseball was a limited part of the game, mostly in big baseball states like Texas and Florida. But now, joining a travel team is seen by many as a necessary evil for top-tier players.  Whereas most Little League teams are part of local rec organizations, travel ball tournaments – especially for older guys – are managed by national showcase orgs. A few of the largest and most well-known are USSSA (USA Speciality Sports Organization) aka U-Trip, Perfect Game (PG), Prep-Baseball Report (PBR), and locally here Oklahoma, OK Kids. While all of these are considered travel ball organizations, they are very different. (We’ll address that in a later post). Anyone can start a travel team regardless of experience. A lot of teams are started by parents, but high school coachers, former players (like college athletes) or even college coaches can start a team . Travel teams can be a stand-alone team that has no affiliation with any group, but more often they are part of academy organizations that have teams at all ages, like OKC Sandlot or PWP in Tulsa for example. An emerging trend is national travel teams that have multiple teams in a single age group and across multiple states like Dallas Tigers or Banditos. How do travel tournaments work?

Most travel ball tournaments take place on the weekend.  Most will start on Saturday morning, but may start as early as Friday depending on how many teams are entered. While tournaments can theoretically be held anywhere, most are at multi-field ball parks in easily-accessible metro areas like OKC, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Dallas. But ask anyone that’s been in the game long enough and they may tell you some of the best tournaments are in small towns like Elk City, Perry, and Ardmore. Depending on the number of teams entered in a particular age group, many tournaments start with pool play and move into bracket play. Bracket play can be single or double elimination and most tournaments offer a minimum game guarantee (e.g. 3GG = 2 pool play games + 1 bracket game). Depending on how a team competes on any given weekend, families should be prepared to play 3 to 8 games. (Yes, this could mean staying an extra night depending on how late games go or driving back at 2:00am – speaking from experience!)   Each individual team or organization will decide how many tournaments they enter in a season. If you are a new travel ball coach and trying to decide how many tournaments your team should enter you may want to think about age of your team their overall skill, desire to compete, and perhaps most importantly, the support you have from parents and caregivers. Travel ball can be a significant investment of both time and money so it’s important to understand if parents are all-in or not.  In our next post we address the top things to consider when choosing a travel team.

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Travel Baseball: The Ultimate Guide for Parents and Players

Table of Contents

What is travel baseball, what to look for in a travel baseball team, travel baseball vs. little league, travel baseball pros and cons , criticisms and controversy, is travel baseball worth it.

For many families, the transition from Little League to travel baseball comes with stress, anxiety and questions about what to look for in a team and what to expect from the experience — not to mention the question of whether making the switch from a more laid-back rec ball program to a more competitive (and expensive) travel club is the right decision in the first place.

In this post, we’re going to go over everything you need to know about getting started with youth travel baseball. We’ll help you answer the questions above and determine whether travel baseball is a good fit for your son or daughter. 

If you have a softball player in the family, you may also want to check out our article “ What to Look For in a Travel Softball Team ,” which covers some of the same information from a softball perspective and dives deep into my personal experience as an elite-level amateur player and college recruiting prospect.

Table of Contents :

• How to Choose a Travel Baseball Team
• Travel Baseball Pros and Cons
• Is Travel Baseball Worth It?  

First, it’s important to understand what a travel baseball team is and how travel baseball is organized. 

There are tens of thousands of travel baseball teams around the country, and their popularity has exploded over the past two decades. As recently as the 1990s, travel baseball was a niche experience limited mostly to elite players in baseball-rich areas like Texas and California. Today, participation is seen by many as a near necessity for talented players to develop their skills and hone their game against the best competition they can find. 

Whereas Little League is the dominant organization when it comes to recreational youth baseball, there are multiple organizations throughout the country that host hundreds of travel tournaments each year. Some of the biggest and most popular are USSSA (United States Speciality Sports Association), AAU (Amateur Athletic Union), Triple Crown Sports , and Perfect Game . Travel baseball teams often participate in tournaments organized by more than one of those organizations. 

A team can be started by anyone. Many are formed by parents, but many others are formed by high school and former college coaches. Depending on their organizational goals, some programs have just one team that participates in one age bracket (such as 10 and under), while some are run like businesses and have teams that compete in every age group. 

Some huge organizations, such as California Baseball Academy (CBA), even have multiple teams within the same age group, located in multiple cities. CBA has teams not only in California, but also in Nevada, Texas, Utah and the southeast. High-level programs like that are often known for attracting top talent, for training recruits into elite players, and for feeding those players into nearby colleges and universities. 

Travel Baseball Competition Structure

Virtually all travel baseball games are played on weekends in a tournament format. Those tournaments can theoretically be held anywhere, but are frequently held at multi-field facilities in easily-accessible travel hubs. For example, many Florida tournaments are held in Orlando because it’s in the relative center of the state, it has plenty of hotel rooms, and it’s home to many great baseball facilities. The farther you live away from such a hub, the more you should expect to travel. 

Most tournaments begin with pool play, meaning that teams are guaranteed a number of games before heading into single elimination. A team can expect to play anywhere from three to eight games over the course of a two-day or three-day tournament, depending on how they perform.

There is no set number of tournaments a team must participate in. Each team decides which tournaments to enter on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration factors such as age level, skill level, and cost. In general, two tournaments per month can be seen as about average, although higher-level teams may play more frequently. 

Most organizations run regional and national championships, which are invite-only. For example, USSSA hosts “qualifier” tournaments, where the winner of the championship game (and sometimes the runner up) can earn a bid to the USSSA national tournament.

Additionally, beginning at age 14, some teams start participating in “college exposure tournaments,” where college scouts come from across the country to watch and evaluate prospects. These tournaments are typically more expensive than regular tournaments, and are often farther away.

How to Join a Travel Baseball Team

If you’ve decided to join a travel baseball team and aren’t sure where to find one, there are a number of resources available. 

It may go without saying, but word-of-mouth can be a valuable first reference point. If you’re thinking about switching to travel baseball, chances are that you already know someone in your area who has made the jump. If so, don’t be afraid to ask them questions about the team and their experience. It’s a big commitment — both in terms of time and finances — so it’s important to make sure you find the right club for your son or daughter.

In addition to word of mouth, many organizations offer a list of active teams on their website. For example, USSSA has a tool that lets you filter teams by age level, skill level, and location . There are also many state-based forums and Facebook groups where coaches post their team’s tryouts (and positions needed). As an example, here are Facebook groups for travel baseball teams in Florida and Michigan ⁠— you can find similar groups for every state. 

Another good option is FieldLevel.com , which (like the USSSA site) allows you to filter teams by state and level. While not every team is listed on that website, it does include over 4,000 clubs.

Here are eight things to think about when evaluating teams. These factors will make a big difference when it comes to your overall experience, so take the time to think about them, and don’t be afraid to ask questions of parents and coaches.

1. Coaching  

A coaching staff can make or break a team. How coaches manage players, keep the game fun, instill the fundamentals, and focus on development — not only as athletes, but as young men and women — is extremely important. 

Some travel baseball teams have parents or grandparents serving as the head coach. While that can be fine, it’s important to make sure those coaches don’t make keeping their own child on the field a priority. Before committing to a team, spend some time researching it by watching a practice and talking to current and/or former players and parents. 

What’s the coaching style? Do they have high expectations but still encourage and love their players? Or, on the other hand, are they screaming at players when they make a mistake? 

Additionally, are players treated equitably, or do some get preferential treatment based on their relationship to the coach or their financial contribution to the team?

Ideally, your child will be a part of that team and organization for consecutive years, rather than bouncing from team to team. As such, determining whether the coaching staff is a good fit is a crucial first step.

2. Cost  

For many parents, this is the most terrifying aspect of travel baseball.

Just how much of a toll is this going to take on your bank account? The specific answer varies, but the typical range of cost for participating in travel baseball is between $500 and $2,500 per year. 

That said, you can end up spending a lot more than that. Back in 2011, CBS News reported that one Georgia family paid $4,000 per year for their 9-year-old son’s travel team. You can imagine that older players in elite programs that travel all over the country can spend even more over the course of a season.

Typically, the more intensely focused a program is on developing its players for college baseball, the more money the program is going to cost. On the other hand, teams that are playing more for the fun of it — those looking for just a little more structure and competition than offered by Little League — won’t put as much of a dent in your wallet.

There are a number of specific factors that go into how much it costs to be on a team:

• Where you live . If you live in a baseball hub, like Texas or California, you won’t have to travel as far to get to tournaments. Many teams from rural areas regularly drive across multiple states (or sometimes even fly) to tournaments. As such, where you live will likely be the single biggest variable in your overall travel baseball cost.
• Whether you have to buy your own equipment . Some teams are sponsored by equipment companies like Easton and Rawlings and have their bats, gloves and cleats provided either for free or at a reduced cost. Obviously, this can be a huge savings. Also, keep in mind that (unfortunately) equipment is often viewed as a status symbol in travel baseball. If your child joins a team where every other player has multiple bats and position-specific gloves, he or she is going to press you for similar gear.
• Whether you have to rent facilities . Some teams practice exclusively at public fields. Others have little or no access to such facilities and have to rent fields and/or indoor space (especially for winter workouts). This can have a huge impact on the overall cost of participation.
• Whether or not coaches are paid . Some teams — typically the more competitive ones — pay their coaches small stipends and/or cover their cost of travel. On one hand, this tends to lead to better coaching. On the other hand, families are the ones who will ultimately foot that bill.
• How competitive the team is . Higher-level tournaments typically have higher fees. Lower-level tournaments, operated on a more sub-regional basis, are usually much less expensive to enter. If cost is a concern, make sure you know what types of tournaments the team usually enters over the course of the season. 

3. Location  

As stated earlier, location is a key factor in deciding which travel team to play for. If you’re fortunate enough to live in California, Florida or Texas, you’re going to have a lot of opportunities to play with and against high-level competition right in your backyard. 

But outside of those states, it’s a little bit tougher, and you have to decide how committed you are to playing at the highest possible level. 

For example, if you live in a medium-sized town outside of a major baseball hub, chances are you have at least a couple of travel ball options. However, the odds are that those options are not the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to coaching and competitiveness. In order to play for the absolute “best” team possible, you might have to commute from your mid-sized town to the nearest major city. 

So you’ll be faced with the following choice: play on a lower level team that’s closer to home, or drive a hundred miles or more for twice-weekly practices? It may sound crazy, but many families do just that. 

Why would they commit so much time and money to their son or daughter’s athletic pursuits? It comes down to goals. Better teams often provide better coaching and more opportunities for exposure to college and professional scouts. 

What’s the team’s mission? Is the focus on fun, player development, college exposure, or a mix of all there? Teams can have many different goals and missions, and there’s no right or wrong approach.

However, it is possible that a team’s mission does not align with your values and goals, and you need to think about this before committing, as a compatibility mismatch can lead to coach-parent and coach-player tension. 

5. Organization

Consider the reputation of the organization you’re evaluating. When you join a team, you and your son or daughter will essentially be endorsing everything the program stands for. If they’re known for dirty play or being disrespectful to the game, you’ll be associated with that. 

And believe it or not, the baseball world is a small and surprisingly tight-knit community. College coaches tend to know which programs produce bad apples — and they avoid them. In fact, many college coaches will completely write off an entire organization that has a reputation for not playing the game the right way or for having disrespectful players.

6. Playing Time

There’s an important balance between getting enough playing time and being challenged. Before committing, ask the coaching staff what kind of playing time your child can expect — including at what position. 

If there are two returning shortstops, he or she most likely won’t be playing there and might have to learn another position. That’s not a bad thing: college coaches want players that are versatile, and many players change positions as they get older and their bodies develop. 

Still, it’s helpful to know what to expect ahead of time. Getting game reps is important from a development perspective, but also just from a fun perspective: no kid wants to consistently travel to a tournament only to sit on the bench for most of the weekend. 

7. Skill Level

Be realistic about your child’s skill level, and pay attention to the level of competition around him or her at tryouts (i.e., the skill levels of the other players). If your kid has the fight and desire to compete for a spot (like they’ll have to do if they make it to college ball), then putting them on a team where they’ll be challenged is the best option. 

But if he or she is there to have fun and make friends, with no burning desire to be constantly improving, then choosing a travel team that’s more low-key will be the better call.

8. What You’re Giving Up

Travel baseball tournaments are on weekends, and players often have to sacrifice certain things that are part of a normal childhood. 

Is your son or daughter willing to miss out on things like birthdays, sleepovers and school dances, because most of their time is spent doing homework, traveling to and from games and practices, practicing on their own (possibly including private lessons), and spending nearly every summer weekend at the ballpark?

And are they willing to sacrifice the material things that matter to kids — things like clothes, video games, new smartphones, etc. — because so much money is being spent on baseball? 

As I wrote in THV’s guide to travel softball , my family made major sacrifices to support my athletic pursuits. 

For some, their love of the game is so great that giving up these things is a no-brainer. For others, they may regret missing out on these social activities. And that’s perfectly fine! Just be honest with each other and talk about the true costs of travel baseball — because it’s not just the sticker price.

There are some important similarities and differences between competitive travel baseball and recreational baseball. Both can teach many valuable life skills, such as work ethic, good sportsmanship, teamwork and bouncing back from failure. But they are very different when it comes to time commitment and competitiveness.

The Little League schedule usually runs from the late spring through early summer, with teams practicing twice per week and playing two games per week. The total number of games per season varies, but it usually ranges from 10 to 20. It’s a local program, which means travel is either limited or non-existent. In general, Little League coaches are parents.

Little League can be a great place for kids as young as 4-years-old to start playing the game. They’ll learn the rules and the absolute basics of hitting, pitching and fielding in a fun an easy-going environment (except for the occasional parent that takes their coaching position overboard). 

Overall, Little League fits the classic stereotype of youth baseball: kids having fun playing the greatest game in the world, without much pressure or focus on player development. 

Back in the day, Little League would feed into middle school and high school programs, which carried the bulk of the weight when it came to getting payers ready for college and the pros. But today, the reality is that it’s almost impossible to get the coaching and skill development you need by participating only Little league or other rec ball programs. 

That’s especially true when it comes to the gap between “Majors” Little League (12-and-under) and high school. Few middle schools still have baseball programs, and those programs that do exist tend not to be very good. Likewise, while Little League offers both a Junior division (12-14) and a Senior division (14-16), those leagues tend to pale in comparison to the coaching and competition offered by travel ball. 

So, if your son or daughter is serious about playing baseball at a high level, it’s especially important to focus on the transition to travel ball at around the age of 11 or 12.

There are positives and negatives when it comes to travel baseball. Here are a few of each.

• Better competition : Players are more serious about the game and more driven to improve. This higher level of competition will help push your son or daughter to improve their own skills.
• Better coaching : Travel baseball coaches tend to be better qualified, more knowledgeable, and better-connected. At the highest levels of travel ball, teams often employ former professional coaches.
• More exposure : Aside from high school baseball, travel ball is the primary means of exposure to college coaches and pro scouts. Plus, travel teams often attend showcase tournaments and camps.
• More games played : Travel teams play significantly more games per year than rec ball teams.
• Facilitates travel : Sometimes seen as an ancillary benefit, the travel itself can be a valuable and eye-opening experience for players. Many kids don’t have an opportunity to travel out of their own area or state, and travel baseball can provide that. 
• Encourages character development : Because travel teams are more serious, there’s a greater emphasis put on things like being on time, demonstrating maximum effort, and having a good attitude.  
• Cost : Travel baseball is expensive — sometimes absurdly so. Families often spend around $2,500 per year, but the costs can be even higher. 
• Time commitment : Even a moderately competitive travel team can consume an entire summer’s worth of weekends. 
• Ultra-competitive : On most travel teams, there’s a balance between player development and winning. What you won’t often find is an “everybody plays” approach. For the most part, the best players will play the most, which makes for a highly-competitive environment. 
• Tougher workouts : This can be a pro or a con, depending on the player’s perspective and goals. Tougher workouts can lead to better outcomes, but they can also be mentally and physically taxing if the player isn’t fully invested.
• Lack of diversity : Because travel baseball is expensive, it has often been criticized for a lack of socioeconomic and racial diversity. 

Travel baseball provides many benefits and can be a valuable opportunity for players who are serious about the game and committed to playing at the highest possible level. However, it’s not without its share of criticism and controversy. 

In an essay titled “ Left Out ,” MLB superstar Andrew McCutchen wrote about how kids like him, who grow up in low-income families, are often excluded from travel baseball and thus systematically disadvantaged when it comes to development and exposure: 

“When you’re a kid from a low-income family who has talent, how do you get recognized? Now, you have to pay thousands of dollars for the chance to be noticed in showcase tournaments in big cities. My parents loved me, but they had to work hard to put food on the table, and there wasn’t much left over. They didn’t have the option of skipping a shift to take me to a tournament over the weekend. […] That’s the challenge for families today. It’s not about the $100 bat. It’s about the $100-a-night motel room and the $30 gas money and the $300 tournament fee. 

[…] If you’re a poor kid with raw ability, it’s not enough.”

McCutchen was lucky: an AAU coach “discovered” him at the age of 13 and covered his travel ball expenses. But most kids from similar situations aren’t so fortunate. 

Why is this important for you, the parent of a child thinking about joining a travel team? 

On one hand, it’s important to be aware of how the systems we participate in affect our society. But on a much more specific level, you should know that your child will be entering a largely homogenous environment.

On top of that, kids from lower-income families can often feel out of place in travel ball — especially if they don’t come to the ballpark with the latest, top-quality gear like their teammates. This social dynamic can have a powerful impact on your child’s experience. 

Additionally, travel baseball means that both your family and your child will be spending less time within your own community.

There’s been a lot written in recent years about how travel baseball may be contributing to the erosion of communities , because it pulls families out of local baseball programs that once served as important civic institutions.

This is evidenced by the sharply declining participation in Little League. In the organization’s Southeast Region (a hotbed for a travel baseball), the number of Little League players has plunged by nearly 50% since 2007 . 

So we’ve come to the biggest question: Is travel ball worth it?

If you want to improve your skills and have the best chance to play in college or the pros, travel baseball is the way to go. But remember: there is a range of cost and time commitment within travel baseball. Your son or daughter doesn’t necessarily have to opt for the most expensive travel team in order to be sufficiently challenged (and later on, to get noticed by college coaches). 

Your goal in evaluating teams should be to find the right balance of: 

• Financial commitment 
• Time commitment
• Intangible sacrifices (school events, community involvement, etc.) 
• Baseball goals

After reading this article, you should have a very solid understanding of what Little League and travel baseball have in common, their differences, and what you should be looking for in a club. 

Remember, this is your child’s choice to. Help them see the pros and cons of each option. And although we stated it earlier, we cannot stress this enough: you cannot dictate your son or daughter’s commitment to the game of baseball. It’s up to them. So, support them in whatever capacity they want to participate. If you do, they’ll never regret or forget the amazing experiences, friends, and lessons learned playing this great game.

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Alexa Peterson

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For His Renown

That the glory of the Lord might cover the dry land as the waters cover the sea

Don’t Play Travel Ball: Stay in the Rec League

I have friends I respect whose kids have played (and some who do play) travel ball, and I mean no offense to them by this post. Nor am I categorically condemning their decisions and choices. I am offering these thoughts for parents who are considering whether to put their kids on a “competitive” team, or a “travel-ball” team, or a “tournament” team, or whatever it may be called in your sport and locale.

Don’t get me wrong: I love competition. I love excellence. And I want to provide the best competitive opportunities I can for my own kids.

I played two years of major college baseball at the University of Arkansas, and I’ve been coaching my sons in baseball and basketball for the last 7 years or so. These reflections grow out of my own experience playing and coaching and watching other families. My thoughts will be mainly applied to baseball, but I think they are valid for basketball, volleyball, soccer, lacrosse, swimming, and whatever else.

Here are 10 reasons I think you should keep your kid in the rec league rather than quitting it for travel ball. These are presented in the order in which I suspect most dads think about them, not in the order of importance I would rank them (#6 would be #1, and #4 would be #2).

• Kids should play not work.

Growing up I loved baseball. I wanted to play all the time, until I got to college and had to do so. When I walked on and made the Razorbacks, the sport I loved to play became a year-round job. A job is not a game. We practiced a lot , doing as much as the NCAA allowed, all year long, in season and out.

That’s fine for an 18 year old on the cusp of adulthood, but there’s no reason to put a 7–14 year old through that kind of rigor.

After my first year of it in college, I found that what had been so fun because I had the opportunity to look forward to it in the off season, or even on days between practice or games, began to feel like a dreaded obligation that consumed a significant portion of every day.

The daily grind not only sapped the joy of the game, it was physically punishing. My arm hurt all the time, and I wasn’t a pitcher. The journey the Lord had me on led to me being cut from the team after I did not play summer ball following my sophomore year. I had played non-stop from the summer before my freshman year, through fall ball, winter weights, the spring season, then summer ball before it started all over in my sophomore year. I needed a break, and I wanted to be a counselor at a Christian camp that summer (Kanakuk).

The gods of baseball punished me for my lack of devotion. I was sad when the team cut me from the roster, but I was also relieved. I had my schedule back. So much time was freed up by not having to go to practice. I could now study what I wanted to study, and my classes were no longer determined by baseball practice. I could rest.

I’ve heard of travel ball teams that play 60 games in a summer—for kids under 10!—and then they practice at least once a week through the winter.

I’ve also heard more than one parent tell me that after a few years of travel ball, in some cases only one year of it, their son decided he didn’t want to play baseball anymore. I never felt that way until I got to college, but looking at the demands of travel ball, I totally understand how the kid feels.

That’s why I’m writing this post. I want your son to love baseball, to have the opportunity to be a kid, and to play the game as a kid. Baseball should be a fun game for him not a demanding job.

Keep him in rec ball, where he won’t get burnt out because he’s a kid facing the demands of a profession.

• Your kid isn’t going pro (and that’s a good thing).

The percentages are outrageous. So many kids grow up dreaming, so few put on a big league uniform. No one should expect to make the show.

I grew up wanting to be a major league baseball player, and I’m so glad I never even got drafted. I spent my 20s laying the foundation for what I’m doing with the rest of my life, not bouncing around in the minor leagues. I got an education, got married, we started having children, and now I get to coach my kids.

If I was in the big leagues, my summers (and falls, and springs) would be dominated by an unrelenting schedule leaving no opportunity to coach my kids’ teams. Travel is not glamorous but grueling. How does a big leaguer have a family? And at best a professional athlete might play into his late 30s or early 40s, then what?

I submit that even with all the excitement of the game, and the money and fame that come with it, the life of a professional athlete is not one to be envied.

Don’t sacrifice your son’s childhood on the altar of the hope that he’s the next Derek Jeter. Have fun with sports, and use it to build character, not dream-castles in the skies.

Give your kid the chance to be a great person and cultivate that through sports.

• If your kid does go pro, rec ball is the likelier path.

On the off-chance that your kid is a freak athlete with the arm strength, foot speed, power, stamina, and character, who gets all the right breaks at just the right time, chances are he’ll rise up through the ranks of rec ball rather than being groomed on the travel ball circuit.

Small towns breed professional athletes , and the reason seems to be that kids in small towns aren’t over-coached, over-organized, and over-specialized by the travel ball opportunities found in larger cities. Small town kids grow up playing lots of sports not getting burnt out playing the same one all year round.

• Your family doesn’t need travel ball.

This is the one your wife wants you to care about. And you should. Your marriage matters a lot more than some sport your kid plays. What will travel ball mean for your marriage? What will travel ball mean for your other kids? If you’re coaching your 12 year old’s travel ball team, what does that mean for the rec league opportunities your 7 year old has? Do you want to miss the younger kid’s games and practices?

If you are traveling every weekend, or most of them, for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday tournament, what happens to non-sport family time? If you’re exalting baseball over all these other things, are you serving a false god, an idol, that is going to use you and then throw you away?

Is the travel ball opportunity your 7–14 year old kid has more important than Friday nights and Saturday mornings at home with the family? Is it more important than being at church on Sunday morning? (on which more below).

• Your wallet will thank you.

I don’t even want to think about how much parents pay for their 7–14 year old kids to travel to tournaments, to stay in hotels, to pay the tournament entry fees, and whatever else all this costs. I am confident that there are better ways to steward those thousands of dollars.

You may be betting on the kid getting a scholarship. I’m betting you would be better off saving your money to help him with college expenses. Consider D1 baseball: each team is allowed a maximum of 11.7 scholarships , and those scholarships can be divided up between players. The roster includes 35 players, 27 of whom can receive scholarship money.

When I was playing at Arkansas, none of my teammates had a full ride from the baseball program. Not one. The only kind of baseball scholarship D1 programs offer is a partial one. That means that even if your kid is the best thing since Babe Ruth, if he goes off to play major college baseball, the baseball team isn’t paying all the expenses. And given the number of kids playing and the number of available spots, even a partial baseball scholarship is terribly unlikely.

• You should be in church.

As a follower of Jesus, this consideration is the most important one for me.

I talked to a dad who was committed to having his family in church even when they were on the road—and he said they traveled as a family as often as they could—for tournaments. That’s commendable, but I suspect that those tournaments don’t always start the Sunday games at times that make finding a worship service possible.

More important than that, you and your family don’t need a summer long break from the life and fellowship of your local church. Christians need to be gathering with the same group of people every week to worship the risen Lord Jesus, to hear his word, and to fellowship with each other.

Kids need to see that Jesus and his church are more important to their parents even than baseball. Jesus is God not baseball.

You need the church, and the church needs you.

If you’re a non-Christian reading this post, don’t you want to live for something more than baseball? I would urge you to consider how trustworthy Jesus is, how he can reconcile you to God, how he has paid for your sin, and how his Spirit can enable you to love others and enjoy life with them in a gathering of people joined together at a local church. Baseball can’t raise the dead, but Jesus will do just that when he returns to make this world into the new heavens and new earth.

If you’re in Louisville, come check us out at www.KenwoodBaptistChurch.com .

• Better to play more than one sport.

I’ve alluded to this somewhat above. Kids need to play more than one sport so their rotator cuffs can recover, so their elbows can rest, so they don’t have to have Tommy John surgery at 17 . They need to run and jump and exercise other muscles than the ones required by baseball. They don’t need to have baseball practice every week all year long, and you don’t need to be their taxi for that every week all year long either.

• Don’t dilute the talent pool in the rec league.

Part of the argument for travel ball is the appeal of better competition. As more and more kids get involved in travel ball, the best players are taken out of the rec league. It’s a vicious cycle. The best coaches and the best players stop playing rec ball in favor of travel ball, leading to fewer teams and a lower level of competition in the rec league.

• Don’t cause the rec league to dry up.

This is related to the previous: the best players leave the rec league for travel ball, and then the mediocre players get tempted to do so, and then all the kids get burnt out and stop playing baseball. Thus the rec league dries up. Was it really worth it?

• Don’t get seduced.

As I’ve talked to people about this dilemma, one friend proposed this to me: he said that I should start my own travel ball team, and I should commit myself to being “low-key” about it. Sound familiar? It did to me. Several dads had told me that they were leaving rec ball for a “low-key” travel ball team, or that they were adding a “low-key” travel ball team on top of the rec ball their son was playing.

But my friend who suggested that I do this also told me what was going to happen: he said I needed to understand that the other travel ball teams weren’t going to be low-key, so we would get pummeled at tournaments and probably lose every game. That would inevitably awaken the competitive impulse, leading to more practices, more effort expended, and the gradual creep to a higher key. He said he had seen it happen. Dads get into it for a little better competition not meaning for it to take over their lives, and the next thing they know their schedule and wallet are dominated by travel ball.

So I’m writing in the hope that you’ll see that rec ball is a better route. It’s better to honor God than to win , and it’s better for your kid to enjoy the game than for him to play at the highest possible level.

Do I think you are sinning if your kid plays travel ball? Not necessarily, but if your kid is in the 7–14 age range, I will suspect that you might not be pursuing the wisest course. I could be wrong. There may be instances in which it’s the right thing, and when a kid gets to be 15 to 16 years old, it’s understandable that commitment levels and demands are going to rise and choices are going to have to be made.

But I say be wise. Be a parent. And for the good of rec ball leagues everywhere, for the good of your family, and for the good of your kids, I would urge you to avoid travel ball until the kid is old enough to commit to a more demanding regimen. It seems to me that time comes in the mid to late teens, but that’s going to be a judgment call . . .

Bottom line: give your kids a childhood they’ll want to replicate with their own children not one they’ll react against.

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69 Comments

Good stuff Jim.

Totally agree with your article. My son (now aged 26) was approached from age 10 on to play travel ball, but we declined year after year because it would pull us away from church plus cost us a small fortune. He played Little League all the way through age 14 and has wonderful memories of playoff games, sometimes leading all the way to state. He was athletic and had the potential to play college baseball, so we finally enrolled him in travel ball after his freshman year in high school. Despite not playing travel ball until high school, he got several offers and ended up playing for a highly regarded D1 program. Just like you, he burned out after two years and transferred so he could pursue his other passions and, more importantly, gain much-needed work experience which benefited him tremendously when he graduated from college and was looking for a job. (He never would have been able to do this had he continued playing in college as all of the players were expected to play in a summer league each year.) And you are right about MLB not being all it’s cracked up to be; several of my son’s college teammates were drafted in the top 10 rounds (as high as supplemental 1st round), and with only one exception, they all complained about the grind and monotony (not to mention extremely low salaries) once they entered the minor leagues. My son’s high school teammate played in the minors for several years before being cut and at age 26, he is just now finishing college and trying to figure out what to do with his life. Again, like you said, church should not be sacrificed by families of 8, 10, and 12-year olds, and oftentimes not even by families of high-schoolers. (Matthew 6:33) I pray that many folks take heed of what you shared.

What I’m hearing here is a guy who didn’t work hard enough when he was given the opportunity to walk on somewhere. Tournament ball may have helped polish your game to the point that you received that “partial” scholarship. Then to go and imply that making it to The Show isn’t glamorous couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth. What you failed to mention is the relationships that get built in a clubhouse that last forever. You can have both a family and be a true professional baseball player. Freddie Freeman is a great example. You can still play high level travel ball while having balance and a great relationship with god

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As one who has three sons, two of whom played ‘travel ball’ for part of their youth, and one who didn’t, I can affirm everything you say here. The best outcomes were consistently when we stayed in the local rec leagues. You are spot on with all your assertions, and I wish I’d been able to absorb something like this when my oldest two were starting out.

I was recently Contemplating to start travel ball from my son recently and for some reason I’ve been holding back . Now I know the reasons. You explain it t the tee for me and can’t thank you enough . I also when I was kid play at lyndon and never traveled and loved it and still played college baseball myself for 4 yrs. Tha KS alot for all your insight!!!

Jim, These are good thoughts. Thanks for sharing them.

As a long-term pastor I’ve watched parents who were convinced their sons would benefit by travel ball deeply regret their decisions a decade later. As a volunteer basketball coach for 18+ years, I’ve seen girls spiritually suffer by the same well-intentioned convictions of their parents. No doubt there are exceptions, but I haven’t personally witnessed one. -ta

Very good… and same principles work for hockey too. Thank you for writing this.

Thank you for this. I have been wanting to put my son on a travel team. It’s hard in the county. He didn’t make the middle school team as only travel ball kids only made it. He was so upset. So we are playing upward thru our church. My son loves basketball but I have noticed the small number of high school players that are playing in high school now especially in our town. They had to draft 8th graders to play for the high school JV team so the others could step up and play the Varsity. We only have 1 high school senior playing basketball. Maybe my son will get a chance to play as long as he continues to love the game. It’s hard to see him play so well and knowing we don’t have the funds as most to do travel ball. Thanks for posting this. #momof3boys

Thanks for the great article I can share with the parents of my students. Really great article Dr. Hamilton!

Thank you! We have made this decision for the past three years and been ridiculed for it and told we are not being fair to our son. For us, it boils down to priorities. I do not feel we will ever look back on our decision to say “no” to travel ball. At 12, our son tells us he thinks we have made the right decision. He told us last week that he is glad that we have taught him to focus on his eternal future.

Do you know how many great high school players didn’t play travel ball, the number is zero. And the level of mechanics and skill has increased enormously since the man writing this article played in college.

I don’t believe in definitive ‘s. There are many benefits of pursuing sports excellence, travel like any other passion filled event children can participate can be an extremely beneficial. Turn your focus and see a different view. Learning that excelling takes commitment, hard work, loyalty. Focusing on winning games is short-sighted and ignorant. Fill your children’s team with morals and role models. Learn from others short comings and honor God with your precious time on the field. Travel with extended families and make bonds with good people. Have your “church” thru fellowship and reach others who may be lost. If you forego travel for these “right” reasons then you should challenge yourself and those in the league to make it the utopia described here (I believe it should be). BE INVOLVED , VOLUNTEER, ATTEND MEETING AFTER MEETING, FUND RAISE, HOLD ALL ACCOUNTABLE FOR TIME, HONOR, COMMITMENT AND GET ALL THE KIDS TO ENJOY THIS LEAGUE YOU ARE A PART OF. Don’t let one child be turned away because they can’t afford registration or equipment. Car pool or fund transportation for those who can’t get their children on time. Extend your season, make sure that all teams are drafted equally. Train your coaches and prepare them for every level they will be involved. PAY FOR QUALITY UMPIRES, make sure you have enough umpires for all games and have them supported by all involved. Set the example for the kids. Applaud effort and celebrate results for both dugouts. Do not tolerate conduct of the weak and uneducated. Educate them. Give MVP, Player of the game, most improved player of the game.. Awards. Encouraging the pursuit of excellence and rewarding hard work and God given talent. Build this league and you will have travel on the decline. Waiting lists for leagues. Fun for all, talent levels not seen before. A lot of we’ll rounded and good mannered young men who enjoy competition and sportsmanship.

Please advertise when you have this league so I can get the 70 or so kids I will bring with me to get in registration line.

Coach B, Come play in SBMSA in Houston. Our league is like the one you described.

I hoped that I would get information like yours Jason. Unfortunately with all the sacrifices I’ve made that relocation doesn’t seem likely but as usual, I’ll pray about it. I do offer the opportunity to advertise your league and ask that you share it here and anywhere possible. I would also ask to establish contact with you for a ‘best practices’ sharing of information and spreading of the works you are enjoying.

My son started disliking baseball at 9 years old because the boys in rec wouldn’t hit a cut off, and dropped the ball so often. The pitchers pitched far more balls than strikes. There are two sides to every situation. Maybe families should pray over the decision that best suits each individual child. My son excels in travel ball and we’ve started a bible devotion for the boys before every tournament.

Yeah don’t let your kid play travel so they can not play baseball in high school, if they do make the team they will sit, while the travel kids get all of the play time because they faced 60 mph pitching playing Rec ball. Rec ball is terrible for a players development

I don’t normally respond to blog posts, but I wanted to respond to this one because I respect you. Just last year, I finished your work God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment. It was excellent, by the way. I have also read some of your other works and have learned much from them and enjoyed reading them. This post seems a departure from your normal posting and writing. I find it filled with some great thoughts based on extreme examples and false assumptions. While you make some great points, let me provide an alternate perspective, even if I appear at present to be the lone dissenting voice. I have coached in a recreation league for almost five years, and now my eleven-year-old daughter is in soccer “travel ball.” First, not all travel ball destroys a child’s love for the game. My daughter loves the game more now than ever before. Second, recreation leagues can be just as competitive and demanding as travel ball, but doesn’t have the same season length. In my experience as a recreation coach, I found the rec league filled with as much politics and drama and team stacking as travel ball leagues. Often this will vary from league to league and from coach to coach. Third, most days my family enjoys family travel ball, together. Then again, some games I find my older daughter listening to her ipod while we watch the games. Many of the families on our team actually make it a family affair. Fourth, travel ball is expensive, but so are the other activities in which many parents place their children like show choir and band. Are those stewardship issues as well? Fifth, a child can play travel ball while a family is still committed to church. I understand that now I may be bringing up an exception to the norm. As a pastor, I require my daughter to be in church every Sunday, which means that she misses all Sunday games that interfere with worship. Now, this doesn’t mean that her coach and teammates like it, but we have found that our commitment has opened the door for spiritual conversations. We decided to engage in travel ball because the coaching was better. I know because I was her coach for years. She excelled once she wasn’t under my leadership and under the leadership of a professional. Do I think that she will go pro? No. Do I think that she will even play on the high school level? I don’t know. But we have had a great experience with travel ball and have been able to balance our commitments to both Christ, his church, and our family. We may be the exception along with the league in which we play. As of now, we do believe that we are pursing “the wisest course.” It’s not for every child or family, but we have enjoyed allowing our child to play travel ball, at least today.

See caveats in opening and closing paragraphs.

I agree with some that was said. Our daughter played travel softball for 9 years. It was good for us a s a family although the wallet didnt think so. Rec ball in many places is competitive. Here in our area not so much. Wr had to travel 3 ours to find a competitive travel team. Which we gladly did because we got to see our daughter develop into a top notch softball player, which would not have happened here. Dont get me wrong there are alot of rec leagues that are great but if you live in the middle of no where lile wr do that was out only option to make her the best that she could be and to teach her to challenge herself and not settle for just good enough

If non-Christians are playing travel ball on Sundays and all the Christians are in church with other Christians, how will the Christians win the non-Christians to Christ?

There are other times – even on Sundays – to play just as there are many different times that people worship. We come together as believers to worship and encourage one another – then we go out into the world to reach people in the name of Christ – Hebrews 10:25 is just one example of the Bible reminding believers that it’s important that we not throw church out the window to do other things. God will open doors to tell others about Christ as we are faithful to follow Him.

By living our life for Christ the other 6 days. By your argument, we should never have church services because, if we’re in church and the lost people aren’t, how are we going to win them? This is a straw man argument that has nothing to do with the very valid points the author makes.

This question reveals how far our cultural worldview has intermixed with a Christian one. Confused! We don’t win Non-Christians by showing them how little we care about worship and the assembly of believers, we win them through honoring God as better than all other appetites. We don’t win Non-Christians by loving them more than we love God and his glory. We love them by showing them that God is infinitely more valuable than all else. This is what we due when we gather for worship. It is other worldly, it is unlike anything the Non Christian can imagine, to deny ourselves something the world says is a “must” and do something the world see’s as “foolish”. It is evangelism that is not solely dependent upon our efforts, but on the power of the Word being preached, loved, and then given to others. Non-Christians exist because what they worship is false. Christians are Christians because we worship what is true. We must show them how to live well so that they may flourish and worship what is enduring. And if it means giving up travel ball, by all means give it up. Eternity is at stake.

I hear this quite a bit. Generally speaking, these parents don’t do the Sunday sports to evangelize. They use evangelism as a “spiritual” reason for not being in church. And man (probably some do) don’t evangelize. The irony is that if you don’t value your commitment to church (and Christ) enough to pass on sports to commit to church, you aren’t likely to step out and preach the gospel at the sports events either. Also, I’m more interested and more compelled by Scripture to promote the spiritual health of my own children than of their team mates. If I show my kids church is optional but reach the other parents, I’ve failed. Our children assume that Sunday morning is time to worship with our church. I intend to keep it that way.

Thanks to all who replied. I think this is an important topic that needs to be discussed. And I hope all who read my question realize that there is no 1 correct answer for everyone. The Holy Spirit leads us all differently. When my life ends, I will have to give an account to my Lord as to whether I obeyed the command in Matt28:19 that says “Go”. I simply have to go find the people that need Jesus. Very few will walk in my church doors on Sunday. What guides me is Paul in 1Cor9:22-23 – “22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. 23 I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it”. Yes, I need Sunday fellowship and worship. I also need it every day of the week. And yes, they will see how I live and what’s important to me the other 6 days a week; for better or worse. But if missing church on a Sunday for travel ball is condemning, then missing church for family vacations, work, sickness or any other reason is the same. Legalism requires perfection, and I’m not perfect, Jesus is. Thanks, To Him Be the Gory (in travel ball and everywhere else in His Creation)

Thanks, Roy. I know you were saying that there’s no one answer for everyone. I appreciate that. I think it does need to be approached carefully and prayerfully, especially with the demands on the family and commitments that call us away from the church. For some – may not even be an issue. For others, it can wreak havoc.

I appreciate the attention to burnout as well – I’ve seen that in some kids where they’re pushed to keep going and just don’t want to do it anymore.

Likewise, I appreciate the voices of parents who have been there on both sides. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

We enjoyed Upward for what it was and knew that it wasn’t hugely competitive (for the most part). We’re enjoying the homeschool league to which we belong right now, but also realize that our daughter’s team is not a highly competitive team, but the JV/Varsity teams are a bit more competitive. (Their varsity team is seeded #1 or #2 nationwide and is competitive, though still strives to put Jesus first.) We pretty much know that we’re not ready to commit to a large amount of travel and that will be a consideration as our daughter gets older.

Your daughter will be cut or sitting the bench as the other hood players on the high school team have faced the better competition of travel and had tons more live game experience.

Great post. Hopefully it will make us parents pray, think, and analyze the motives behind our kids’ activities.

I am coaching a 5-6 yr old team and can already feel the pull of private instructors, out of season ball, travel squads, etc. coming down the pike. My 5 year old has peers that are playing baseball year round already!

This is going to be a big temptation for me because I love sports and am competitive by nature. I pray that God keeps me humble and rightly focused. Articles like this help.

I just watched a program not too long ago on the rise of Tommy johns surgeries. Every expert agreed that kids are being played too hard and too long. For one thing, their bodies just aren’t developed enough to handle the strain. In fact, most experts believe that if your goal is for your child to go pro, the worst thing you can do is overplay them. All your doing is increasing the strain and the chance of injury for no appreciable gain.

But besides that, if you are a Christian parent, the absolute worst thing you can do is teach your kids that anything is more important than God. You can argue all you want and say you go to church when you travel, but the first time you skip church because it interferes with game time, you have taught your child that a game is more important than worshipping God. It is no wonder so many of our children leave the church when they go to college.

There is another very sad thing that often happens as a result of a family’s involvement in travel ball. As a preacher’s daughter, I saw many families who were active in church get involved with a travel ball team, and not only stop being active, but eventually drop out of church altogether. I have seen it just recently in the church I’m attending now. It always seems to happen with those families that God is really working with. I’m not saying that travel ball is a sin, but it seems to be something that Satan can use to tempt people away (especially dads). My older brother played sports from t-ball to college, probably would have went pro if he hadn’t hurt his shoulder (yes, he was THAT good, I’m not just saying it, he had an unhittab,e curve ball), but the decision was made when he first started that God and His church would always come first, and he would not play if there was a conflict between his first priority and the game. I think Jesus said it best when He said, “What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?”

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Thank you sir for this…I wrestle with this issue a lot as our older children (3 boys/12, 9, & 8) are starting to get to the age where this is a possibility. Praying we keep the Lord first in all things…and your insights help!!! His, Ryan E

I think this is a good post and is great advice. I do wonder though as a parent of a child who did play travel ball and also ended up as a D1 athlete if we aren’t typically just exchanging one pursuit of excellence for another. I have a feeling you may not describe yourself as so Dr. Hamilton (humble?) but could it be said that you’re in the big leagues of your profession? It’s only my observation of course but many areas in life are dog eat dog competitive, as it were. Travel ball is being on the right team, knowing the right people, and working on your skill set; not that much different from academic pursuits really and more so I suppose. Personally, if I could have done things differently I would have kept my child in the rec leagues but I guess I’m not sure if she would have learned to pursue excellence in the manner she did had she done so. Again, it’s an interesting post but when it comes down to it is the field that you or other high achieving people are in really all that much different? I’d venture no but the travel ball experience can be quite beneficial to that pursuit can it not provided travel ball doesn’t become a means to an end which, unfortunately, it often is. Uber competitive athletics is going to end for 99.9 percent of kids/young adults. For those not going into coaching/training or the extremely few that will play professionally the focus needs to not get away from marketable skills once your done with college; which is a challenge in itself as athletes are often steered towards meaningless degrees to accommodate athletics.

Well said Andy…..

My concerns in the post are directed not at adults pursuing excellence in their callings but at parents of kids in the 7–14 age range . . .

Your son wouldn’t have made d-1 if he played Rec leagues only, travel ball with its better competition and better coaches helped get him there.

Damn Dave you seem butthurt over others opinions. Typical parent who lives through their kids lives. Gurantee you cant even do a single pull up with your beer belly

Many of the assertions in this article are quite true. As a mom of a 10 year old girl who has played both travel and rec softball we have seen first hand the pros and cons of both. However, the main reason we’ve stuck with travel is the consistency that it offers. My daughter has played with the same girls and coaches for 3 seasons now. They have grown together, developed rapport and strong friendships. While rec ball was enjoyable, the ever changing pool of players, coaches and parents made for inconsistent experiences for my daughter, some good and some bad. It always seemed the season ended right about the time we got to know everyone. We have truly enjoyed getting to know our travel team family!

I appreciate the article. My daughter is involved in a local homeschool league. I was impressed when we showed up that the Varsity girls took a little time to welcome her and get her situated before the coaches were ready. They open/close each practice and game with prayer and are not overwhelming us with lots of games. We don’t have Sunday games and I’d venture that she’s in the lower end of competitive teams. I look at another coach who is seeded number one in the league and am very glad my kid isn’t with him as I can only imagine the sort of character they’d be building.

We still put prior commitments first and the coach understands that we can’t make all games/practices as a result. We’re seeing some growth in her skills and she loves the game. She does it for fun and it’s not overwhelming even though it’s a little more competitive than a local rec league.

We played Upward for quite some time and my wife was amazed at how many parents going to the practices are unchurched. She got to have some really good conversations with the moms who really didn’t understand the philosophy behind Upward as a result. 🙂

I’ve seen a couple of families fall into the travel ball trap. They dropped out of church and I think it really showed their kids that priorities of baseball come before any commitment to church attendance or service. I also grew up watching sports slowly take over Sundays as the team practices/warmups got earlier and earlier until they happened during church times. Families who thought the Sunday game was no big deal slowly dropped out of church because sports came first. Sad to see but strengthened our resolve that sports would not take priority over God and our church family.

Upward is a money grab. Like 99% of things involved with churches.

I enjoyed your article and the discussion following it. You all make very good points to consider. I’m coming at this topic from a multi-dimensional approach. My husband and I were both very competitive athletes growing up (though we had a wide variety of interests), played travel ball in high school, and won scholarships to a Big 10 university. After college, my husband played pro baseball for a while and I played on a national team. Our time in sports opened up a world of opportunities, and more importantly taught us much about life, ourselves and God, so we are very pro-sports. However, as parents now of three young adult children we handled sports for them in a much different way than the current culture dictates. Additionally, as an exercise physiologist, I’m very pro movement, health and sports, but believe balance in life is key.

In raising our children in a world where developing a one-sport athlete is pushed to the extreme, we both were counter-culture, and we have happy, well-adjusted kids now, all of whom continue to pursue fitness as a lifestyle. (Not that we did everything right by any means!!) My thoughts written here veer away from the focus of recreational versus travel leagues as the original blog talks about, but include some areas to think about whichever route of competition you choose. Below are just a few “stream of consciousness” suggestions as readers consider their views on how they encourage their children in sports. Some of the thoughts overlap what was already said.

I recognize that although it isn’t common for kids to be offered college scholarships for sports, it obviously isn’t impossible. (And I hope that’s not the reason you involve your kids in athletics!) Several thoughts on that: Their chances are greater for continuing their sporting lives, whether at college or recreationally as adults, if they aren’t burnt out on competition by the time they turn 18…or 13, as I’ve seen occur far too often. Though parents are well-intentioned, often children are tired of pursuing what was once fun but has become a stressful climb to the next level of competition at the expense of other parts of their lives, or at the expense of joints injured by overuse. Also, parents may not have a realistic view of how talented their son or daughter is in sports, often over or underestimating their abilities. Listen to truthful, accurate feedback from coaches. (This, too, however, isn’t a litmus test. Kids blossom at different ages. Always keep in mind why you have this child involved in sport. What are they learning? Is it a help or detriment to their character and bodies? Do they enjoy it or is it a drudge? Do the social aspects improve their values and stimulate great discussions at home, or lead them away from family?)

How do you help your child’s best come out, leaving the potential open for higher levels of competition, while avoiding the possible detriments of rigorous levels of the sport? No formula exists, but here are a few ideas to think about:

Variety: Encourage your children to play a different sport each season until their upper teens. They will actually improve more at each sport because a variety of new skills enhances old ones in ways that can’t be quantified. Additionally, they will probably have fewer injuries and enjoy the competition more. They learn more socially because they have different teammates for each sport and different roles. The physical and mental challenges of pursuing more than one sport is healthy in every respect. (And options do exist that don’t cost an arm and a leg.) The fear that if children don’t specialize in one sport by eighth grade they will miss opportunities is unfounded.

Enjoyment: Help your children enjoy a sport for the simple joy of the sport. There doesn’t have to be a life lesson constantly pointed out. The nature of sport is that participants will learn in the course of their play, practice, games or meets, all about discipline, perseverance, punctuality, teamwork, goal-setting, how to handle disagreements, disappointment and failure, as well as success and recognition. We parents should observe what’s going on, be readily available, but not be constantly interfering, trying to direct, or solve everything that goes on in practice or competition. (No wonder God calls us to pray without ceasing!)

Identity: Think about how your child views his or her identity. Our hope as parents is that they think of themselves first as members of God’s family and then our family, and then perhaps as an athlete, etc., after that. Being part of a team, no matter how long it’s for, isn’t permanent, so as nice as it is to identify with activities that we love, we don’t want them to define us or our kids.

Well-roundedness: Despite the cultural drive for pursuing one sport, well-roundedness as a child makes for happy, well-adjusted adults. We all need to be careful that identifying with just one sport and spending most of our time with it can deter a child from gaining skills, interests and appreciation for other activities and knowledge. Developing skills in (or at least having exposure to) music, art, great books, drama, theology, politics, or science-and-math-related activities makes us better, more empathetic, engaged human beings and citizens, and better leaders. Help your kids find the joy of learning in areas other than sports. If your children think you are most concerned about their being the best baseball pitcher, back-stroker, or whatever, they can become guilt-ridden for wanting to even think about spending time in other pursuits because they naturally want to please you (or the constant stress of knowing how vital it is to you, may act to make them hate it).

Excellence: Pursuing excellence is important, but be sure you know and your child knows what you mean by that. God makes it pretty clear when Paul says, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus…” We represent Him, so we will want to do our best and want our kids to understand why. And we want them to work hard, even when the going gets tough. As parents, however, we can sometimes unknowingly pressure our kids to continuing pursuing things at a higher level because we want it for them, not because they want it, and we proverbially try to put a square peg into a round hole. When we read books about how it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert on anything, it may wrongly motivate us to try to create little experts out of our kids by the time they graduate from high school. Of course our children have bents that we want to nurture, encourage and help them develop, but let’s make sure we aren’t pursuing our own agenda.

Messages conveyed: We parents need to pray daily about what messages we are sending our children by the sports or other activities we have them in. It’s important to be committed to making games, meets, tournaments, and practices a priority, but not at the expense of church, or important family gatherings. Those conflicts are becoming more common with the increasing secularization of our country. Get involved with the sport’s governing board and voice your opinion. Other parents might be emboldened to speak up. Hey, for years sports programs operated quite successfully without Sunday morning scheduling.

Motivations: Just because you liked something as a kid, or were good at it, it doesn’t mean your child will or should be. My husband also was a quarterback at a Big 10 university, and my dad was a football coach, but we both chose to direct our son away from football and into other sports because of the enormous risk of injury, especially head injury. Our son never felt like he missed out on anything; he was too busy playing other sports and doing other activities. Think about your reasons for getting your child into a sport. It will look different for each family and each child.

Well, this certainly diverged off the main topic of traveling versus rec sports, but I hope it provides a little more to talk about, especially among family members.

Well-said. I have a neighbor who constantly pesters me about our children’s sports’ involvement level-rec. vs. travel. I also appreciated this article: My Kids Don’t Play Sports http://kristenanneglover.com/my-kids-dont-play-sports/#comment-6411

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Well-said. I have a neighbor who constantly pesters me about our children’s sports’ involvement level-rec. vs. travel. I also appreciated this article: My Kids Don’t Play Sports http://kristenanneglover.com/my-kids-dont-play-sports/#comment-6411

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Having coached both my sons in travel an rec ball, and being on the board of our local rec league, serving as president for several years. I agree 100% with your article. Too many times parents want what they want, not what’s best for their kids. Let kids be kids. Kids are smarter than what we want to give them credit for. Baseball is the greatest game ever, it is exactly that, a game. Let them play the game. For every 10 players that are “forced” to play at the “highest ” level for their age, 6-8 will quit by the time they get into high school. Too many surgeries, other arm problems, leg issues and other health issues that kids at that age shouldn’t have to endure. Rec ball and travel ball can coexist, BUT, it has to be done with the kids as the foremost priority. Let kids be kids, they and their bodies will decide what they can and can’t do. Rec ball is where they develop and foster a love for the game. I’d bet if you polled the MLB players the vast majority of them would agree.

Who’s forcing their kid to play??!! Can’t keep my almost 13 yr old from it since 5, and 3 yr old hits a large bucket of real balls off the tee by himself at the indoor facility in a cage while his brother hits in another. Who are these kids being forced to play? Haven’t seen any. Rec ball😂

You’re absolutely dead wrong, all of the pro players played travel ball, this delusion in the modern era of baseball needs to stop. Every kid that starts on every single good high school or college team played travel ball

As a Pastor–I certainly appreciate the sentiments expressed in this article.

I don’t see anything wrong with having children that play recreational sports. However, I am concerned about the amount of time spent in preparation, travel, and practice that can rob a family of what is truly important from a Scriptural perspective.

The statistics reported concerning the abandonment of the Christian Faith by “christian” young people before their sophomore year in college is overwhelming. Check out:

The Nehemiah Institute (nehemiahinstitute.com) Josh McDowell’s “The Last Christian Generation” Al Mohler’s “Culture Shift” Michael Horton’s “Christless Christianity” Christian Smith’s “Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers” Voddie Baucham’s “Family Driven Faith”

It’s apparent that we–generally speaking–spend more time encouraging our children to pursue athletic excellence than we do in developing a Biblical Worldview in them. Nevertheless, Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6:1-4 still stand in Scripture as commands, not suggestions.

Very edifying – thank you!

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I give you a big Amen! From a father of 3 boys I can confirm this to be absolute truth. I played college baseball and never once played Travel Ball in the summer until I was 17. I chase my boys all over creation and it’s very taxing in many ways. Thank you for speaking out and I hope people will take these comments seriously. It is simply not necessary for the younger kids.

When you played baseball the competition was a joke, the days of beer drinking and dugout cigarette smoking , and subpar baseball athletes is over. If your kid doesn’t play travel ball he will not start on a good high school team or any college team.

Not posting some long winded bs. If your kid is good and loves to play, you won’t be able to keep them from it. My kid started lessons at five and at almost thirteen, still going strong. Once we knew about travel ball there was no going back. He pulls down honor roll at school and is in band. The three year old is already all in and ready to play. Not criticizing anyone not on same path, but if they want it, you won’t stop them.

This is great information, but unfortunately rec ball…aka little league…is a political nightmare where I am from and for many others. I am very thankful we found an amazing travel ball coach at age six. The only time we had awful politics was before our team separated and we joined the head coach. The group that split from us is the same group that has ruined our little league. Thankfully, we have a great group of players, coaches, and families. We pick and choose how much we want to play, spend, etc and have been very successful in several states. We haven’t broken the bank, we attend church on Wednesdays is we know we will be traveling too far to attend on Sunday (otherwise we go on Sundays), and the kids are all great friends. For us, travel has been amazing. I think the key is finding the right team and families.

Rec ball is an absolute joke and a money grab more so than travel ball. The coaching and player skill is unbearable.

Wow this article really spoke to me. My 10 year old tried out for a travel team for over 2 months. He was selected and after spending money on uniforms, dues, tournaments, he was cut from the team because he had a slump in his batting. Even though my son showed to every practice and gave 100% effort, it didn’t matter. This mentally effects the kids also with so much pressure to do well. It’s only about winning and not developing. We will be staying with rec from now on. Lesson learned.

Sorry to say but your son isn’t talented at baseball, some parents have to accept this, let him play Rec league and enjoy playing even if he is bad.

My son is 11u, and this fall was his first (and possibly final) season of travel ball. We have the pressure of middle school tryouts being in 2 years, and we wanted to make sure that he did well at those tryouts. Truthfully, we have gotten better instruction and development at a Rec ball/All Star level. We have had a sub par experience, and I have that guilt every Sunday that we are at a tournament instead of honoring God in His house. We are leaning strongly to go back to his Rec ball league that we enjoyed in the spring. I think God led me to this article to reassure me that we are doing right.

The problem is everyone thinks their child is good, your child isn’t good enough to play travel for any decent team keep them in Rec ball

Thank you for this well thought out post. I coach my son (U10 Rec soccer) and was considering travel but was hesitant because of playing on sundays. I’m not willing to give up the Lords day for sports as much as I want him to play in a better league. Glad to see you are faithful (and a baptist!). Looks like a good pastor (Caldwell) commented above if that’s who I think it is. God bless.

Looks like we struck a nerve and exposed an idol….. Seen too many people put sports over their relationship with Christ. If sports are your priority, go for it. If you are trying to raise kids to show them that your faith comes first, they notice when things don’t line up.

Some people don’t research for baseball queries and then in results they fails in many field as they are not familiar with new tips and tricks, Amazing information!

There are so many contradictions in the Bible, so many instances of God, punishing people, instances where Jesus and God do not represent love, I want my son to get an education in the real world, not a fantasy from what amounts to a storybook.

I’d like to pose legitimate question, Christianity is based off of Judaism. in Judaism, they do not believe in a Satan or hell. How did these two things find their way into the Christian Bible and lexicon?

When you look at Christianity, it’s a religion of control and fear are to tell people what they should be doing, you say people should be in church: why?

Totally agree with all that you’ve said. We never put our daughter on a travel team for softball. We wasn’t going to pay that kind of money out. We knew she would make a junior college great player. Most of the girls who also on full scholarships with her had been on travel teams. We all got the same results of getting our daughters college paid for but they were out spending 6,000.00 a summer while we just played rec. most of the ones who quit during college were those who were burnt out.

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Will Travel Ball Eventually Kill High School Baseball?

If you listen to the rumblings from social media and parents who have written to OutKick, the writing is on the wall for high school baseball programs across the country: You're about to become the house baseball of the youth baseball industry.

The billion-dollar behemoth that is travel ball -- sports tourism was estimated to be a $91.8 billion industry in 2022 -- shows no sign of slowing down and now that it has killed rec leagues across America, the next frontier appears to be high school sports.

In a rather interesting Twitter exchange, Stan Switala, the head coach at Southington (CT) High School announced that he was hearing rumors of travel ball coaches telling their players to avoid playing high school baseball during the upcoming season.

"This is my 10th year being a head varsity baseball coach and I never heard such at thing!" Switala wrote. "Kids play for your High School and battle for a State Championship and play with players you have grown up with since elementary school!"

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

And when towns like Gluckstadt, Mississippi (pop. 3,200) are talking about building $100 million sports complexes -- they're calling it a MegaDome -- they're going to need bodies to fill these domes to pay the bills.

"With its unique geographic advantage and ability to connect millions of travel sports athletes and their families, all within a six-hour drive time from all the major Southern markets of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas, central Mississippi will surely benefit from the trickle-down spending of these sports tourists," Gluckstadt town officials announced Tuesday.

While Gluckstadt won't cause the literal death of high school baseball in the southeast, it's the smoke.

If you're a top-level Mississippi high school baseball talent and Gluckstadt's Mega-Dome offers you an NIL deal to be your exclusive club (NIL at the high school level is not currently allowed in Miss.), what's stopping the athlete from leaving the high school team?

Gluckstadt's Mega-Dome will be in an arms race. It has bills to pay. It needs the top players, which will then bring in more top talent that is willing to pay for training and that will lead to jealous parents who will then fork over money for their kids to get the same training and use the same facilities.

Eventually, there are B teams, C teams and D teams playing spring ball. Parents are then paying thousands more for their kids to play on these spring travel ball teams.

At some point, the local high schools have been gutted like rec ball leagues.

What's stopping this scenario from becoming a reality?

"I have never heard of a travel ball advising a kid to not play for his high school team, but nothing would surprise me," OutKick reader Chris B. in Houston, who provides travel ball industry updates for OutKick, wrote Tuesday.

But, in the next sentence, Chris B. proves my hypothesis on travel teams and Mega-Domes engaging in an arms race that ultimately needs big names to build pressure on parents to provide their kids with the same training and facilities as the best players have at their disposal.

"My son is not an elite level player, but we know some that are, including one senior that is rumored to have received a six-figure NIL deal," he added.

Top baseball talent is already skipping high school baseball around Indianapolis

It turns out my hypothesis is already beginning to be proven true in the Indianapolis suburbs where you can't go a mile without passing some sort of sports complex.

"When my son was in middle school, I had a friend tell me that if his son had to choose between high school and travel, he would pick travel," an OutKick source emailed Tuesday. "I laughed at him. Then my kids got to High School and I couldn't believe the incompetence of some coaches and I fully agreed with my friend.

"I ended up coaching multiple kids who played at some college level but didn't play in high school simply because of the coaches. This happened at multiple high schools around the metro Indy area."

If this is already happening in the suburbs, watch out.

"I quit playing after graduating HS in 2002 in Atlanta.  I wouldn't say it was a thing anyone was instructed to do (tell players to not play for the high school), but the competition and level of instruction wasn't even close in high school ball," OutKick reader Rory shared about his travel ball vs. high school ball experience.

"It was like the Jamie Moyer effect going from high school back to travel.  You'd be in a funk for three games until you adjusted back to the velocity.  Also, as someone who played the left side of the infield, travel ball was the only time I played with other infielders I felt confident in."

The money keeps pouring in & the only way to pay the bills is by filling fields and hotels

Meanwhile, in Princeton, West Virginia (pop. 5,800), a $100 million sports and commercial complex is slated to begin construction this year. There will be six baseball fields, six softball fields, retailers, restaurants and hotels.

Omaha is dumping $54 million into a youth sports complex.

And then there's the Field of Dreams site in Iowa where an $80 million expansion will turn the place into a 290-acre facility with nine baseball fields, nine softball fields, a 104-room hotel, an RV park, and a 100,000 sq. ft. fieldhouse for indoor sports.

It's not crazy to envision a day when high school travel ball teams are busing it to Iowa in May when their high schools are playing a worthless conference game against the school that barely fields a team.

"The only good thing that’s stopping summer programs from plucking is that generally summer tournaments don’t begin until June. So high school kids are expected to play HS until then. If that ever were to change then that would be a problem," an Ohio high school coach relayed to OutKick Tuesday.

As the money keeps being funneled into these for-profit complexes, it doesn't seem far-fetched to see the day when the script shifts and the expansion of youth sports enters its next phase.

Give me the lay of the land where you live. Do you get the sense high school baseball could be the next victim of the travel ball industrial complex?

Email: [email protected]

The Ultimate Parent’s Guide to Travel Baseball | Everything You Need to Know

March 14, 2023

49 min read

If you’ve got yourself a youth baseball player, you’ll probably start hearing all about travel ball soon – if you haven’t already. 

Travel baseball can be rewarding and exciting for both you and your ballplayer. 

It’s a chance for your child to substantially develop their baseball skills and passion while having a ton of fun. 

And a chance for you to foster that positive growth and love for the game while joining a new social tribe yourself – that of the travel ball parent, with its fulfilling experiences, camaraderie, and norms, just like any good tribe. 

But, travel ball can also be a huge commitment. It often involves a significant financial and time investment from you and your budding athlete. 

So before deciding to play travel ball, you should carefully consider what your child will get out of it and how it might affect your entire family. 

Several factors should go into this choice of whether or not to play club ball. 

And in this ultimate parent’s guide to travel baseball, you’ll learn how travel ball works, the pros and cons of travel ball vs. recreational baseball, what to look for in a new travel team, and even how to start your own travel team.

Let’s hook-slide in together.

# The Difference Between Travel and Recreational Baseball

# recreational baseball.

Recreational baseball often refers to Little League. Although, there are other organizations around the country, like PONY or Cal Ripken Baseball, that host recreational baseball leagues for their localities. 

Local is a keyword here. That’s usually the main difference between rec and travel ball – recreational ball doesn’t require travel. 

Recreational leagues focus on players learning the basics of the game, especially at the youngest levels. Seasons run from late spring to early summer. And you can expect around two games per week.

# Travel Baseball

Travel ball, on the other hand, refers to teams that travel to other cities or states to play baseball. 

Club teams might be a single team or an entire organization with several teams spanning different age levels. 

Another major difference is that travel ball is often played year-round. Not having extended off-seasons ups the commitment levels for all involved significantly. 

A few of the biggest organizations in the travel ball world are the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA), the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), Triple Crown Sports, and Perfect Game. 

These organizations will host most of the tournaments that travel teams compete in.

Traditionally, travel ball has been a higher level of competition than Little League, meant to train elite players who had their eyes set on collegiate opportunities. 

However, as travel ball becomes more ubiquitous, the level of competition can now run the gamut a bit more between extremely high to moderate-low.   

Travel baseball, as you’ll see, is also much more expensive in terms of both cost and time commitment than its recreational variety. 

# The Pros and Cons of Rec Ball Versus Travel Baseball

Both recreational and travel baseball have their merits and drawbacks. You and your child should consider the pros and cons of both before deciding which type of team to play on. 

# Little League Pros

• Local – If you don’t fancy traveling around two weekends out of every month, then recreation leagues might be better for your family. Part of this locality is time. The amount of time you and your ballplayer will spend at team practices, games, and individual workouts is significantly less in recreation baseball. 
• Learn a lot – Little League, PONY, or Cal Ripken Baseball teams’ emphasis on learning and having fun lets your kid discover and grow to love the game in a low-pressure environment.  Some children benefit more from this, especially in the beginning, while others thrive only with higher levels of competition.
• Less expensive – The average fee in the U.S. for a season of Little League is $150, but it could vary as low as $30 and as high as $250 in some areas.  Travel ball can easily cost three to four times that. But we’ll get into the details and rough estimates of this cost in just a bit.

# Little League Cons

• Dependent on your area – Having a local baseball league often depends on the interest in your area. No interest could mean no teams. The level of competition also depends on who’s playing and how much talent your area happens to have.
• Not a conduit for playing at the next level – Although it used to be the case, Little League is no longer a safe route to playing high school and college baseball.  Today, kids who want to reach these levels and find success once there, must, in most cases, find a travel team to play on at some point in their journey.  Of course, there are exceptions to this for ballplayers who naturally have top-tier talent. And obvious caveats must also be made to make room for how competitive or noncompetitive a particular high school might be.  But these unique instances aside, the reality for many parents and coaches on the ground is that playing rec ball only these days makes it less likely for a young man to be an impact player in high school or college. 
• Coaches – With recreational baseball, the coach is usually one of the players’ parents. And this person may know little to nothing about baseball, or about managing a youth team. They are exclusively volunteers after all. Sometimes you can get very lucky with elite-experienced parent volunteers and other times not so lucky – it's kinda a crapshoot.  

# Travel Ball Pros

• Better competition and coaches – Travel ball usually affords more competitiveness and more experienced coaches. Travel ball coaches might even be former college and high school coaches who’ve started a travel club. And larger organizations often pay monthly or seasonal paychecks to these professional coaches – many of which will not have a child on the team.
• More games – Instead of the 8 games per month during a short, designated rec season, your child can expect to play much more with travel ball.  It’s year-round, and the most games occur during weekend tournaments in the summer. Though some yearly tournaments are weeklong affairs.  At each tournament, teams play between three and ten games – depending on how well your team does in bracket play. By playing more games, your kid gets more exposure to baseball and is afforded more reps to cultivate their developing skills.
• Nicer facilities, opportunity to travel – Travel ball tournaments are usually held at nice facilities with plenty of room for parents to watch and for teams to hang out when they’re not playing.  Club ball also gives your kid a chance to venture outside their native city or state, which can be a valuable learning experience for them.

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# Travel Ball Cons

Costly – A season of travel ball can run anywhere from $800-$28,000 per year, depending on tons of different variables.

The numbers above may be less common on both the low and high side – but both are certainly possible. 

The second number ($28,000) that’s causing your blood pressure to rise higher than Boston’s Green Monster is meant to reflect a total expenses possibility with everything maxed out. 

You may not find a number that high when you Google travel ball expenses, but the writers of those articles are likely not including every single cost into their calculations. 

Here are some things to truly consider:

You will be expected to pay base starting fees and possibly tournament entry fees for your team or organization. 

And, sometimes, you’ll also be on the hook for monthly team dues along with an annual organizational fee. 

Also, you’ll  purchase all of your ballplayer’s personal baseball equipment and uniforms if your team’s not sponsored. 

And in travel ball, the pressure to get your ballplayer the top of the line equipment in all categories is much stronger than in rec ball. 

Next, many sports complexes that host tournaments charge daily gate fees on top of not allowing outside food or drinks. 

And you and your family need to eat and stay hydrated during these all day tourneys, which leaves the complex’s overpriced snack shack or restaurant as the only option at times. 

Don’t forget the hotels, food, and transportation costs for any and all out-of-town games, too. 

Further expenses include the gas and increased vehicle maintenance that you will surely incur driving to so many practices and games within your county or state. 

Another common expense that sneaks up on parents are weekly private or group lessons that are often expected by competitive programs. 

Besides hitting, pitching, catching, or fielding sessions, many parents also opt for sport performance training and athletic optimization services – i.e. strength and conditioning classes, a physical therapist, a chiropractor, etc. 

Another cost is found by participating in team bonding and fundraising activities, where you might be expected to bring snacks and drinks or buy tickets – such small things add up during the course of the year-long travel season. 

Finally, if your ballplayer is recruiting age, this higher number above includes college camps and showcases throughout the year.

It also includes getting his professional skills video produced, so you have something great to send over to college coaches.

Do not be too alarmed. Many of these expenses are totally avoidable and up to your family's budget. 

But, you should also know there tend to be unspoken expectations and incentives for some of these activities that you might feel are avoidable once you’re actually inside of competitive travel programs.

• Time – Travel ball is a significant time commitment. The two weekends per month out of town for tournaments is only a small part of it. Your child might also have practice or scrimmages against other travel ball teams during the week. And, as mentioned, your ballplayer may still be expected to get professional skill and sports training lessons each week.
• Tough – The level of competition is, again, higher in travel ball. The players are better, and many teams take a “the best players play” rather than an “everybody plays” approach. Club baseball can be intense and challenging. If your ballplayer’s skills aren’t at the right level yet, then they’ll see less playing time and could get discouraged. 

# Should You Switch from Rec Ball to Travel Baseball?

Parents often have mixed opinions when it comes to travel ball. In particular, there’s disagreement over what age to switch. 

Some say you shouldn’t put your child in club ball until he is 13 years old, since many kids drop out of sports altogether by this age. 

The rationale behind this recommendation goes something like: 

Most parents can avoid paying a bunch of fees for travel ball between the ages of 7-12, when your child is statistically likely to give up the sport soon anyway. And if they’re still serious about baseball at 13 years old, then it’s worth the investment.

While some parents echo this sentiment, others strongly advise starting your kid in travel ball much sooner – if they show a real interest. 

As one parent  put it online when asked about starting at the 8U level, “As long as they don’t get burned out I say let em’ play.” 

Another parent disagreed, however, saying that they saw “absolutely no value in travel ball with children that are so young.” 

Most parents polled agree that their decision to switch depended on their circumstances. 

Some said that “it is difficult to make a blanket statement” about when to switch or that decisions “are going to vary based on regions.” 

Again, the latter statement points to the raw fact that certain geographic regions of the country are much more competitive in baseball than others.

Living in a highly competitive region raises the threshold necessary for things like making a high school team to the point that playing travel to gather enough skill is an almost prerequisite.  

Often, the decision to join a travel team does come down to the organizations in your area. You’ll want to find out how many travel organizations there are in your locale and what their quality is. 

If there are no clubs in your town or city and none nearby, you’ll be looking at a bigger time commitment and more expenses to put your kid on a club team – which will include much more driving and the potential for more hotel rentals. 

But when to switch from rec ball to travel is not the most important question facing parents and ballplayers who are still on the fence about switching in the first place. 

So let’s get to the heart of the matter.

# Will Your Child Enjoy Playing Travel Ball?

The most important factor to consider when making the switch to travel ball is your child’s interest in baseball. 

Is your kid a competitor looking to sharpen his or her skills and continue playing as he or she gets older? 

Or does your child like baseball for the fun of it, and enjoy being on the field with his teammates?

Travel baseball is a huge time commitment – but not just for you. Your child has to be willing to put a lot of personal time and energy into it as well.

# Is Your Child Willing to Give Things Up for Club Ball?

Playing travel ball means your kid will miss out on many social events with friends and family.

Birthday parties, holiday celebrations, sleepovers, school events, family reunions, can be all sacrificed to time playing baseball. 

This is not say that there aren't plenty of travel ball players excelling in the classroom, because of course there are.

It's just that they need to be more focused and organized than other kids to get those same high marks, and parents should be aware of these realities. 

Not only are time and special occasions sacrificed, but the money you spend on baseball – fees for the team, equipment, private lessons, etc. – is money you cannot now spend on other things your child might want. 

Depending on your family’s finances, new clothes, video games, gadgets, and other material items for your son could come at the cost of playing baseball.

Whether you switch from recreational to travel baseball is ultimately down to you and your child. There are many factors to consider, some of which, like where you happen to live, are outside of your control. 

The best thing you can do is educate yourself and your child as much as possible about the pros and cons of travel ball, and then make an informed decision together. 

And this guide is a great start. But it should be supplemented by talking to local parents in your area and possibly finding Facebook Groups or other communities to learn from parents who have been there and done that when it comes to making the travel ball switch. 

If you do decide travel ball is the way to go for your family, then your next task is to find the best team for your ballplayer’s development. 

# How to Get Started on a Travel Baseball Team

# what to look for in a travel team.

If you and your child do decide to join a club baseball team, then you have five main things to look for when choosing a team.

# 1. Coaching

Here are few questions about any travel ball coach that you, as parents, will want answered right off the bat before joining their team:

• Who is the coach, and what is this person’s experience? 
• Is the coach someone who knows what they’re doing in terms of baseball skills and leadership?
• Even if they know the game, are they new to the travel ball scene?

Note: this last question can become more important once your ballplayer gets into the college recruitable ages. 

If it’s your ballplayer's goal to play in college, you will want to join an established program that plays in the right tournaments to get noticed, and a coach that has built a trusted relationship with college coaches and recruiters over the years. 

But, if the current goal is just to improve your son’s skill set, then the coach’s knowledge and ability to articulate it might be more important to you than he or she being a travel ball insider.  

Some additional, related questions to ask both the travel coach directly and to ask parents whose child is already playing under he or she are:

• What kind of coaching style is most commonly used? 
• Does the coach emphasize skill development or college recruitment? 
• Is the coach more like an instructor, or is the team playing to win nearly all of the time? 
• Would the coach yell at a player for making a mistake on the field or pull them aside afterward to discuss the error privately?

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As we’ve explored, cost is a big factor for travel ball because it’s not cheap. Make sure you get all the anticipated, known costs for the season upfront from the coach or their team administrator.

If the coach can’t give you exact figures of what things cost on their end – monthly team dues, organization fees, uniform costs, and any additional tournaments costs – before you sign on, be wary. 

The coach may not be organized or experienced enough to help your ballplayer and you might end up paying more than you expected to. 

Some club teams have sponsors who provide equipment and uniforms, but others will ask parents to pay for these in addition to registration fees. 

You might also have to hand over a fee to help fund the coach’s stipend if they are paid for their expertise. 

For some elite organizations, coaching is a full-time job, plus the coach has to travel with the team too.

# 3. Location

Here’s some questions on this front that you’d want answered:

• Do you live near a big urban center where the team plays most of its tournaments, eliminating long travel times? 
• Or does the team regularly travel out of state for their games? 
• It’s a travel baseball team, but exactly how much travel is involved on this particular team?

Think carefully about how much you and your kid are willing to travel and factor those expenses into the cost.

# 4. Structure

Structure-related questions might include:

• How does the team operate? 
• Will your child get to see significant playing time? 
• Will the team have regular practices and training sessions to attend as well?

Another important question about structure is if your kid will get to pick their position. 

Meaning, will the coach let kids play where they want, or try to rotate everyone around to different positions during practices or practice games? 

Of course, this last line of questioning applies almost exclusively to the youngest levels of play. From about 14U up, there is more positional specialization and team roles are established and sustained more based on the talent and performance of the individual ballplayers. 

# 5. Values

Value question to get clarity on:

• What is the mission of this travel team? 
• Are they helping players get noticed by college recruiters? 
• Do they just try to offer more playing time and a fun environment? 

Make sure their objectives line up with yours. Ask yourself as well how your child will develop as a baseball player by joining this particular travel team.

# 6. Team Chemistry

Before joining a club team you should try to gauge the team’s chemistry. 

Once you commit, your child will be spending a lot of time with these teammates, so if they don’t get along or your kid doesn’t feel like he or she fits in, it could be a problem.

Similarly, look at how the parents interact with the players and each other. Are the other parents promoting a supportive environment for everyone by being encouraging?

Or are they the types to yell at umpires, coach from the stands, or take the game to unhealthy levels? 

Not only will your kids be spending a lot of time with their teammates, but you’ll also spend time with the other parents. 

So choosing a travel team is in a way choosing friends and peers for both you and your child. 

Team chemistry should also extend to how players and coaches relate to each other. Do the coaches work hard to bolster the kids’ confidence, or are they constantly tearing them down for the sake of winning?

# Where To Look for Travel Baseball Teams

Reading up on how travel baseball works in helpful guides – like this one – is again a great start. 

Don’t be afraid to ask around in your area about club baseball, either. Word-of-mouth is often one of the best ways to understand travel ball, especially how it operates in your specific city or town. 

You can also look up registered teams in your area on the USSSA website or FieldLevel.com . 

Again, Facebook Groups are also a great way to find local travel teams, since many teams might not have their own website. 

These groups are filled with parents like yourself and coaches who relish in helping with your travel ball journey. 

But maybe you have lots of playing or coaching experience and want to spearhead your own travel ball team. We’ve got you covered on exactly how to do it below. 

# How to Start Your Own Travel Baseball Team

Choosing to join an existing club team is one thing; starting your own is another entirely. 

Maybe you have some playing or coaching experience and you’d like to put together a team for your son or daughter. Maybe there aren’t any club teams in your area, so you’ll be starting the first. 

Whatever your reasons, starting a travel baseball team is a rewarding endeavor, albeit a daunting one. You are basically starting an entirely non-profit business. 

And you’ll see below that you must do many of the same steps that new entrepreneurs must do when beginning an enterprise, so make sure you have the time and skills for this undertaking before you even start.  

The steps to creating a travel ball team can be broken down into four main phases. 

We’ll look at each of these in detail. 

# Travel Ball Team Building Phase 1 - Finding Volunteers

Before doing anything else, you should recruit some other parents or outside volunteers to lend you a hand. 

Whether you’re planning to coach the team or to have someone else do it, committing to running all aspects of a team as a single individual for an entire season isn’t feasible. 

To make a strong team, the internal team of coaches, team managers, or recruiters needs to be strong first. 

Call on parents you know and trust, former coaches, former teammates from your playing days, or current older players to help you out. 

As you’ll see in future steps below, it’s highly recommended these days to have at least one person on your team who knows marketing, graphic design, or website creation. You’ll save a lot of time and money this way.

And instead of having 2-3 full-time volunteers, it can be helpful to eventually amass a network of people who are willing to pitch in semi-frequently. 

That way, you’ll have coverage if one of your coaches or volunteers can’t make it.

# Travel Ball Team Building Phase 2 - Planning Your Budget

After you have a group of people to help out, you should focus on the financial planning for the team. 

Make a list of the expenses that you’ll have to cover, along with sources of funding. 

Next, you should approach local sponsors about paying for some of the things you need, like uniforms and equipment. 

Now’s the time to think about fundraisers as well. Any the money you raise helps lower your player fees. 

Fundraisers are an important aspect of many teams, especially those without established sponsors. 

Raffles, silent auctions, casino nights, bingo nights, trivia nights, and paid dinners can all make great fundraising events. 

Look around at your volunteers and support staff. Do they have any skills, jobs, or relationships that can help raise funds to send your boys to the best tournaments? 

Company tickets to sporting events, like box seats or concerts, make great raffle or silent auction items. And if someone owns a restaurant, a paid dinner fundraiser is a no-brainer. 

Take this budget phase seriously, and it’ll save you a lot of headaches down the road. 

# Travel Ball Team Building Phase 3 - Getting Your Players

Once you have some people to help and a balanced budget, you need to find some players. 

It’s possible you already have a group of interested players and that’s why you’re starting the team in the first place. 

But your initial seed group may not be big enough to field an entire team. So you’ll likely need more. 

There are two slightly different journeys at this point in the process. One for people wanting to start a travel team by joining an already established organization and another for those starting a new team completely from scratch.

Of course, joining something that already exists is a bit easier, because they'll hopefully have team processes and even recruiting relationships in place that'll allow you to hit the ground running. 

If you are joining an already established travel ball organization, then you'll want to leverage their name, social media accounts, website, and email list to help you recruit your new squad of ballplayers. 

Even if this is the case, you will likely still want to create your own social media accounts that use the established organization's name alongside either the age group or grad years of your team and your last name as the username.

Here's a template for what we mean when applied to an Instagram account name:

{Established Organization Name} {The Age Group: 8U, 10U, 12U, 14U, 16, 18U or Graduation Years} {Your Last Name}

Example: LA Pioneers 12U d'Aranud

But, if you're starting a new team or organization from scratch, there will be some additional steps. To make people aware of your team, you'll want to do the following:

• Pick a name
• Create a logo
• Set up all of your social media profiles
• If possible, create a simple website. 

A website can be a major differentiator between your travel team and others, as most teams still only have social media presences and no official site in the current year.

For social media, you need Facebook and Instagram profiles at minimum, because these are the first places interested potential parents in the current year will check you out. 

If your logo design and website developer skills are not where you’d like, we recommend outsourcing these things to freelancers on Fiverr, UpWork, or 99 Designs. 

You can find incredibly talented people who are reasonably priced and can do whatever you require quickly. 

But always first look into your new network of trusted team helpers and see what skills they possess before outsourcing anything. 

Once these fundamental online presences are established, you will want to make some social posts that give parents looking into your program feelings of trust. 

Post about your playing or coaching experience and about everyone on the awesome team of helpers that you’ve assembled. Seek to post images or videos that convey your values as a new team. 

Tell everyone you know about these new profiles, so you can build a bit of social proof for your team and encourage all of your helpers to do the same. This step alone can get you your first one hundred to a thousand followers. 

Once people in your community know your team exists, you can hold tryouts for skilled players. 

Seek out travel baseball message boards and Facebook groups, and post all the details of your tryouts – making sure to include a link to your shiny new website or social media profiles. 

There are even Instagram profiles dedicated exclusively to posting the details of travel ball tryouts, so take advantage of these as well.

However, if you’re still not getting enough interest through these free methods, you might consider setting up paid Facebook or Instagram ads. Just make sure that the video or graphics you use for your ads are top-notch. 

Again, if you’ve never created such assets or set up Facebook ads before – and they can be overwhelming to the uninitiated – lean on outside professional help in the beginning. Experts in paid media creation and management can be found all over the web.

Next, you run your awesome baseball tryouts. These we’ll leave to you, coach. 

When putting together your roster though, hedge toward a  bigger team rather than a small one . 

Summer is an active time for kids – they have family vacations and other sports or activities to do in addition to baseball. You may not have your full roster attending every tournament at the start. 

So having a team with at least 14 or more players covers you for when other commitments come up. 

# Travel Ball Team Building Phase 4 - Registering Your Team

Once you have your team put together, you’ll need to register your players with at least one of the major travel ball associations in the country. 

Again, these are USSSA, AAU, Triple Crown, Nations, Perfect Game, but there are others. 

These associations host the travel ball tournaments that you’ll be competing in. Make sure you follow the regulations and register your team properly. Each organization has their own unique guidelines for registering.

Once this phase is complete, you still have all the practices, travel logistics, and dues collections to worry about – but you will have laid an amazing foundation for your new travel team. 

Now you can enjoy the honor of helping the next generation of ballplayers find success in the game you love. 

# Wrapping Up Our Ultimate Parent’s Guide to Travel Ball

As you’ve undoubtedly realized – because we repeated it more than once – travel baseball is a big commitment. 

Switching from recreational baseball to travel ball shouldn’t be done lightly. 

It should also be a joint decision between you, your ballplayer, and the rest of your family. If you or your kid is interested in club baseball, then make sure you both understand the impact it’ll have on your lives. 

Once you know what you’re getting into, you can make the best decision together.

About the Authors

Courtney Withrow

Professional Writer

Originally from the U.S., Courtney is a Brussels-based freelance writer with a Master’s degree in International Relations. She grew up playing softball and still loves the game.

Chase d'Arnaud

Chief Talent Acquisition Officer & Baseball Business Ops

Chase d'Arnaud is a 7-year veteran of Major League Baseball. He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, San Diego Padres, and San Francisco Giants.

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Travel ball hampering American Legion baseball as postseason opens

SIDMAN — The Cambria County American Legion baseball semifinals opened on Thursday. No. 3 seed Somerset fell to St. Michael 11-6.

Somerset was missing four integral pieces on Thursday, including what likely would have been its starting pitcher, shortstop, second baseman and catcher.

Instead, those four athletes are all in Georgia playing in a tournament for two separate travel ball clubs. But it's not just Somerset dealing with players choosing travel ball over American Legion. Perennial power, Claysburg, which would have been the No. 2 seed, dropped out of the playoffs due to a lack of available players. Richland did the same thing.

Tight-knit baseball family Three generations of Closes share bond through Legion baseball

"Travel ball is killing amateur baseball," said Somerset manager Bart Close.

More athletes continue to go the travel ball route rather than playing with their high school teammates or nearby programs. But it begs the question as to why they would want to do so.

"I don't know if it's so much the kids or if it's the parents trying to relive their youth through their kids," Close said. "Statistics show, 7% of high school athletes play at the next level whether it is D-I, D-II or D-III. Two percent go D-I, 2.5% to D-II and 2.5% to D-III. If you are not one of those 7% in these tournaments or tryouts, you're wasting your money."

Daily American baseball all-stars Meet the inaugural Daily American Somerset County All-Star Baseball Team

Somerset has been loaded with talent throughout its existence in the league. When Close took over as manager nine seasons ago, the club began taking more players from other Somerset County schools to fill its roster. Too many kids started playing travel ball and competing in other leagues. It was not feasible to have an 18-man roster with just Somerset Area High School players.

St. Michael is in the same boat. Several players starting for the Saints are from Portage Area High School.

Top coaches Daily American Somerset County All-Star Baseball, Softball Coaches of the Year announced

The goal for Somerset has always been a team-first mentality. Close nor any of the managers who came before him, including his father, Randy, who revitalized the Somerset Legion baseball program, has ever put an athlete on a pedestal. It has always been instilled to win and lose as a team and build a bond with those putting on the Somerset American Legion jersey.

"Our goal as a program is to take 80% of the high school kids that played in the spring, play another 30 or 40 games in the summer together, and that way, you have played almost a Minor League season, game-wise with the same guys. That's how you build a team. It's not about building individuals. In the past, we have been successful at that."

Times have certainly changed, but there is still something to be said for American Legion baseball.

"Each program in this league — Bedford, Claysburg, Somerset and St. Michael — we can roll out a list of kids that went on to play college ball who went through this league, and they didn't spend a dime to do it," said Close. "It is probably a combination of both, but it is probably more the parents."

Filling out a lineup

Close had several players out of their traditional positions in the opener against St. Michael. That is to be expected with travel ball players on the roster and kids going on vacation during the season.

But with only 18 players on a roster, it becomes an even bigger challenge for a manager to fill out his lineup card each night.

"We've fought with the state and national programs," Close said of the 18-man rosters. "We do everything by Major League rules. We have Major League rules in the field and Major League bats. The only thing we don't do by Major League rules is roster size. Major League has 25 guys, we get 18. With a limited season, there are vacations that happen. We will probably roll into Game 2 with 12 guys."

Every man for himself

Travel ball rosters are filled out by players willing to pay a ton of money for a potential chance to gain exposure at a tournament. There's no guarantee some of those players will even have an opportunity to swing a bat or throw a pitch at these so-called "elite" tournaments.

"The other thing with travel ball ... they are going out there and playing baseball. There is no baseball players," Close said. "The routine plays at the plate in baseball, they don't, because they don't play as a team. They meet up once every two weeks or once every weekend and there's no team mentality to it. That is why you are seeing the product at the high school level and the product at the Legion level."

Somerset managed only three hits against three St. Michael pitchers on Thursday. Ethan Hemminger, who had one of Somerset's hits, reached base four times and scored three runs. Zane Hagans also reached three times and had two RBIs via two fielder's choice plays.

"We were definitely economical," Close said. "We had three hits, two were infield hits. We had to take advantage of what they gave us. In the end, we didn't secure the ball in the late part of the game."

St. Michael tallied five runs in the bottom of the sixth to break a 6-6 tie.

Kirk Bearjar tallied four hits and three RBIs to pace the Saints. Dylan Kundrod had a pair of 2-run singles.

Somerset had plenty of golden opportunities go by the wayside throughout the game. The club stranded far too many on the bases, leaving 11 on, including seven in scoring position.

"You can't do that in playoff baseball, especially when you're playing the No. 2 seed," Close said. "You just have to come back ready to play."

Adam Ripple is the Daily American sports editor. He can be reached at 814-444-5926. Follow him on Twitter @ARipple_DAsport. Follow Daily American Sports on Facebook and @dailyamericanmedia on Instagram.

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Somerset Baseball Club drops playoff opener missing 4 starters

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Newberry baseball travel team asks city commissioners to reconsider eviction for their facility

NEWBERRY, Fla. (WCJB) - Parents and children filled the Newberry City Hall asking the Newberry City Commission to reconsider evicting the ‘Elite Pro-ball Academy’.

In 2012, Cedrick Bowers began coaching the baseball travel team in Newberry. The organization has more than 200 players of all ages. Years later, Bowers was notified by the city attorney, that the building was behind on property taxes.

“It’s a lot of things that are going back with that, my former partner, that comes into this, this situation,” stated Bowers.

Bowers said the organization paid off $15,000 this year, having a clean slate, but then they received unfortunate news.

“Mr.Bowers got a letter from the city of Newberry saying that they wanted him to, they wanted to terminate their 20-year agreement and wanted him to leave the facility,” shared parent Christopher Luetgert.

Despite paying their dues, Luetgert, a parent who assisted Bowers through litigation, said the city wants to break the contract.

“The city manager assured me that nobody was getting evicted over back taxes and to give him two weeks to work it out,” shared Luetgert.

Newberry City officials say the information shared by Bowers and the parents who attended Monday night’s city commission meeting is not true, and that the facts that will be presented to a judge in the case will be vastly different.

Officials say they are not able to give other details at this because of pending litigation in the case.

Many parents say a new development near the facility may be the reason behind the eviction.

“In my opinion, they really just want to use that facility for other purposes and they don’t want to live up to their 20-year commitment,” stated Leutgert.

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Bowers says over the weekend, the city attorney sent a letter, offering $50,000 for Elite Pro-ball Academy to vacate the building. However, Bowers refuses and says he is ready to fight for his team.

“I’m at a point that I’m willing to fight for the kids. I’m willing to fight for my ground, for everything that I worked hard for to get all these kids to believe in me,” stated Bowers.

He and several parents hope the city reconsiders their decision. At this meeting, no action was taken.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include the commentary made by Newberry officials on the matter.

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Copyright 2024 WCJB. All rights reserved.

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