OT Travel Ball Advice

[SPAMM]

Following up on the Baseball Expert Question in a different way. We have a "make believe" grandson", through a God daughter relationship, who is 13, lives near Boston, a pretty good ball player, who like many, has baseball aspirations. He just made his first travel team, the Middlesex Reds. I was a reasonably good player when younger but stopped at 15 and that was 60 years ago. Everything I know about travel ball I have learned from CIS. My requests 1. What advice would you give to a travel ball player now and as he grows into high school to get the most out of it? 2. Can some one find an article, video, or PDF, or even just advice on "Being a first time Travel Ball parent" His father has little athletic experience and didn't play sports, let alone baseball, on an organized level in high school or college.

 

[b caned]

Travel ball sucks. Losing means nothing to most kids nowadays because of it. There’s always another tourney the following weekend… and likely called a “World Series” of some kind. Smoke and mirrors.

And I won’t even get into the money grab aspect of it. The entire thing stinks in my opinion.

 

[ChinstrapCane]

Travel ball is nothing but a money grab, but you better be willing to pay the price if you have aspirations because a huge part of baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey and lacrosse recruiting comes from travel sports as opposed to high school sports. There are exceptions in the case of kids who have 95 mph fastballs or are 7' tall, but the best players are in travel sports and its more efficient for college recruiters to go to travel tournaments than it is to go to individual high school games.

 

[NC_Canes_11]

There is no reason to play travel ball before you get to high school. Unless that kid is the elite of the elite, he’s not gonna get any offers before then.

Run fast, throw hard, swing hard, hit the ball hard and far. That’s how you get scholarship offers. Work on that in the off-season, not travel ball.

 

[Canesfreak]

My son is 8 and I’m actually thinking of putting him in 9u. I cannot take anymore rec nonsense. Half the kids are picking their noses or staring out into space or afraid of the ball. My only option for real coaching and playing with teammates who really enjoy playing baseball is travel, no?

 

[canesstevealum08]

My son is 8 and I’m actually thinking of putting him in 9u. I cannot take anymore rec nonsense. Half the kids are picking their noses or staring out into space or afraid of the ball. My only option for real coaching and playing with teammates who really enjoy playing baseball is travel, no?

yes, and as he gets older you're gonna want somebody with pro baseball connections because those travel teams are the ones colleges and scouts pay attention to. sent you a PM on this.