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Reply With QuoteSorry, I meant his grade, ONE ABOVE (as opposed to two), and below.Originally Posted by tominct
Sorry....
I have an 8 year old son, he is NOT a stud. Nice little swing, towards the end of the fall was hitting some nice balls on the nose through the hole (third/short) erratic but strong arm, developing defense.
I have a choice to make. He made gains over the summer and fall but next eyar he moves up to "minors" and he is younger, a March birthdate.
So I can play him in "rec" league, where he will face a pitcher two grades ahead of him most nights. If he performs well he might get nominated for an all-star team that will consist almost exclusively of kids a grade ahead of him, or a "9/10 B" team that will be comprised mostly of 5th grade kids (My son is in 3rd grade).
I have very mixed feelings about what to do with him. I realize the idea of playing travel ball is to play MORE competitive ball, but at least in 9U travel everyone will be his grade or below, he won't be playing against 10 year olds. Of course, the idea is supposed to be that those third and fourth graders are all studs, but I'm not so sure that is that case. In our neck of the woods 9U would be 50/70 too. How that fits into the discussion I am not sure, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I have no intention of his not playing Rec league, he would like to play with his friends (although his best friends will be 8's next year, not 9's like him) but the shortcomings of Rec league are what they are, and one is that too many coaches are out for Rec League glory, pitch their 10 year old studs and no one else, and the younger kids have a very hard time adjusting.
So it's just rec league or both travel and Rec.
Thoughts?
Sorry, I meant his grade, ONE ABOVE (as opposed to two), and below.
Sorry....
For two years I thought it was the best, started at 8 had the cool prestige of your kid wearing the cool uniform. The competition was better so one would think the kids would improve. We all tend to forget most of our kids are good ball players because they work hard obviously have skills & were good players before travel. I was anti REC but now we are going back to rec, my kid is 10 & is now catching something he would have never done in travel he's small. He is having the time of his life catching & improving weekly. Granted there are great travel programs out there i'm sure, most that we see worry to much about a 5 dollar trophey over actually teaching kids how to play baseball. A lot of people will tell you wait till there 12 & I think that is good advice after seeing all the competitive parents at tourney throwing chairs & water bottles cuz a kid struck out or missed a ball was really an eye opener. So yea REC may be painful at times but we will go into it with an open mind & just have fun playing ball since at 10 is really all it should be. So at 8 I would wait a few years & practice & learn & have fun. You can pick up some competitve games at the end of year all star tourneys to see how you boy stacks up against some of the better competion.
Just enjoy they are only 10 once don't make baseball a job
thanks......
anyone else?
If your son was out-performing everyone in his age group by quite a bit, I would say you might want to investigate playing travel-ball at age 8... possibly playing on a 9u Majors team.
If he's not, stick with the league...
-Good luck.
At your sons age just keep him playing and have fun.
If you go to travel ball just make sure it is a team about development and not just winning. One advantage I like about travel ball is the mound and base distance grow with the player.
What I like about rec. ball is the kid most likely gets to play with his friends and have fun.
My son did both but didn't start doing both until age 11 and the travel ball team he played on was about winning. They took the best players in the surrounding areas. Didn't practice much and only played about 1 tournament a month. So there was no burn out.
Personally I would just ask him what he would like to do and see what he says. Then way the options and make an informed decision.
Just be sure not to ask in a way that will push him in the direction you want him to go. When my son was starting high school he had the option of 2 schools. One was a new school without an established program and the other was very established. Obviously I wanted him to go to the established program. So, I would always talk up the established program. So when I asked him where he wanted to go he said to he wanted to go to the program I wanted him to go to. I could tell he wasn't completely satisfied with his decision because all of his friends were going to the other school. Before decision time I asked him again but this time I told him to be completely honest and take me out of the equation. He said he would rather go where his friends are going. He did and has been having a great high school experience.
All of that to say. It's not always about the actual playing of the game and where you play but rather are you enjoying the journey. Much easier to enjoy when you're with your friends. There may become a day when you have to move on but not right now.
Reasons to go with any team:
- he will play and not sit on the bench
- he will receive good instruction
- DaddyCoach doesn't play his son in your kids position
Travel Negatives:
- You and your son may get burned out at an early age if he starts travel too soon (assuming the travel team plays lots of ball)
- I would not have my kid play on any team where he will be sitting. Playing good competition won't help your son if he doesn't play.
BTW, my kids have done travel and rec routes.
Last edited by songtitle; 10-20-2009 at 01:33 PM.
Play rec, and put together a group of like minded parents to create a travel team with the goal of development. You all play rec, and between seasons you play travel with the goal of developing skills, learning the game and playing multiple positions.
Mechanics Analyst
Do you guys not have local tournaments or select (more competitive) private/association leagues? My boys play both rec and select and maybe a tournament or two, but I don't see the need to travel.
The rec league is practically select ball here to start off with, and really competitive. There are also so many tournaments locally that the "travel" in travel ball means at most a 30 minute drive. It makes it really easy to pick and choose what to do. Lots of options.
Baseball Mecca...
Or, do basically the same thing less the travel team. In our case I've seen the time spent working on his game outside of organized baseball as exponentially more responsible for my son's development as a player.
The leagues are for fun, spending time with friends, enjoying getting a win, hoping to get some bragging rights at school, etc. The time we spend with a couple of his friends day after day, attention to detail, no worries about time, only getting it right - no comparison between that and team practices and game playing time.
My son has always wanted to play more competitive baseball, not for the development opportunities, but because he'd find the better baseball more fun. He's had fun at times in LL (rec.), but I'd say that overall so far he's looked at it like pizza - by definition baseball is either good or great - no such thing as bad pizza or bad baseball.
Reading all the posts here where members feel like their kids could be getting more out of even their travel league experience, I feel like my son and I are taking the perfect approach. We consider our time to be the premium. We both know it ain't going to last forever and we're both going to miss it. So, we make the most of it, have a lot of fun, work hard, and look at the league play like pizza.
In general our LL at least at Majors is more competitive than travel, unless you want to play on a fancy pants team that goes all over SoCal/Vegas/AZ. At the majors level we are lucky enough to have some big hard pitchers at 12, and facing that heat from 46 is tough.
On the other hand our Rec league, like most, tails off such that the last three hitters on many teams don't have much of a chance. We only allow the top 72 kids into majors (with the exception of mandatory 12s), so you end up with 4-5 advanced 10s, around 16-18 11s and around 40-48 12s. (no more than 8 per team, or else you expand)
So at this level I like kids to play both. Travel is nice because you back up to 50 (54 as my son sometimes plays 13 travel) and nobody can blow it by you. You now have to worry more about learning to sit.
When he was 8 we played on a team that won a tournament. They wanted us to travel to Vegas since we "qualified" by winning a tournament up in LA. I said no, no freaking way am I taking a 9 year old to Vegas for baseball. This is the type of thing you will have to decide. We decided to scale back, run a team ourselves, and play Sunday games during fall, and a tournament or two in the spring. When my son was 8, turning 9 if there was one thing he hated was not getting to "spend the night" with someone because we had 8:00 AM sunday games or practices. So we blew it off, and stopped, and played in a less competitive league. He liked playing at that age but didn't want it to impact all the little social things. So I didn't push him.
You'll have to decide, and I lean towards not burning them out at that age. We were lucky and figured out a way to play. Another thing at least around here is that there are many travel teams and most scramble for a player. So my kids get asked to be an extra player a lot for this team or that. Sometimes they don't do it (I don't make them), but usually they are happy to, as long as they know someone on the team. Again this is easier to do when there are a few informal teams without contracts etc.
LL is very much the same here (no travel or select ball w/o commute). Lots of good players, but about an average of 2 or 3 kids per team that don't compete well.
As far as burning them out, that'd be tough for the kids in my son's circle. Probably have a better chance of getting Tanya Harding a co-host spot on The View. Their biggest complaint is not enough games a year even with spring, spring tournaments, AS, and fall baseball it's under 40 games a year.
I'd have to agree 100% with this approach. My son never made all-stars until he was an 11YO. Prior to this, we spent a lot of time working together on improving his hitting, fielding, throwing, etc. This was good, quality time spent with him ... and only him.
Although he played travel ball as a 9-YO, he saw limited playing time. We didn't even bother playing travel ball the next year, since it was run by the same set of coaches. I assured him that with all the work he and I did together, his time to shine would someday come.
Well, that time would finally come 2 years later as an 11YO. He made the all-star team for the first time and went on to lead the team in hitting with a ~0.650 batting average over an 18-game period. As a 12YO, he tore up the rec-league, again batted over 0.600 during all-star play, and is currently batting 0.670 in fall ball with 7 home runs in a 15-game stretch. Needless to say, he's far surpassed the playing ability of those he once sat watching from the bench as a 9YO.
Bottom line ... I wouldn't worry too much about the level of competition he sees as an 8YO (or 9YO ... or 10YO). Keep working the fundamentals with him, make it fun, and enjoy the time you spend together. If you stick to that formula his time will eventually come.
What's most enjoyable is that, even though he'll soon be a teenager, he still waits for me to come home and asks me if I want to have a catch with him! I feel like a kid myself .... playing ball after coming home from school.
Jim
Travel ball around here is pretty watered down and many of the teams have significantly weaker players at 10-12, so they don't bat the lineup. We carry some weaker kids but outside of tournaments I want to bat lineup. If I need to sub, I probably don't have very good kids on the team in the first place.
So if you are 9 and not getting much play time find another team. This business about making some 9 year old feel like he has to earn it is just silly. I see so many teams that carry the weak players mainly because they are willing to pay to get their son on a certain team. Then the kid sits out, doesn't bat etc.
I would find balance. Your kid doesn't need to be a stud to play travel but find a team that tries to develop. I am cheap and find a way to get it done for less, and number one rule was always don't play for any team where the coach fancies himself a hitting instructor and requires batting lessons. I wanted my kids to play for guys that taught the subtle things, baserunning, situations, etc.
Given the information you gave me I would stay with rec ball for the time being. He'll be challenged playing against older kids. He'll have fun playing and if you work with him or monitor his progress you'll see improvement. Plus it give him the opportunity to do other things and baseball won't be all consuming for an eight or nine year old kid. Make some contacts with people playing TB and maybe he can guest play in a tournament or two. I wouldn't rush into anything with TB yet - wait until he is a little older.
Just wanted to add my 2 cents here. After reading most of the replies, it is interesting how similar my experiences have been.
I have been involved with both little league and travel ball with my boys. One is 14 and the other is eight. My preference is travel ball, if it is done in what I consider the right way. Both the 14U team and the 9U team are built the same way. We brought kids together that had made their rec leagues all-star team. We do not cut/drop or headhunt for players. Although we do play to win, winning is not the end all. Our focus is developing our players so that, when the time comes, they are at least competitive when trying out for their school teams. Out of the 12 players on our 14U team, six of them made their middle school teams. Two players didn't try out due to the academic programs they are in, they did not feel they had the time for their studies plus school baseball, and the other four were seventh graders at a school that only likes to carry eighth graders. I consider that to be a pretty successful program.
I'm not saying a kid can't get there by strictly playing rec ball, but in this day and age it is going to get harder and harder for a kid to be successful at the high school level if they have only played rec. Now of course, I can only speak for my area.
Another reason I prefer travel ball to rec league play, is it reduces some of the politics (notice that I did not say eliminates), but as a parent and a coach a lot of fun for me was taken out of rec ball with all the junk that would go on with the league.
As for burning them out. I have my views on that. I believe that if a kid gets burnt out, then the game probably wasn't for them anyways. My eight year old eats, drinks and sleeps baseball. He loves playing it and he loves watching it, plus he has a work ethic that I wish I could put into older kids. I don't push him to do any of this. I just give him the opportunity, the rest is up to him.
I guess the bottom line is you need to look at both sides, as there are pro's and con's to each route, and figure out what works best for you and your son.
"Baseball is the only sport that allows you to fail 7 times out of 10, and still be considered good."
Sounds like your kids are involved in a good league period, not just a good travel league.
And for tominct and his 8 y/o that's the most important thing - getting what fits his kid now and what he'll have fun playing. Just get him into what you think is a "good" league. Listen, there's no 8 y/o out there who's already made rec. a diminishing returns situation to the point that they have to play TB especially if they're getting some time with you practicing fundamentals.
M2J - your 8 y/o sounds like my son at that age. I had everyone and their dog tell me how he would burn out and perhaps even feel resentment toward me and how he'd want to give up baseball, etc. Didn't happen. Now, I've got a 12 y/o who manages to have a good school-other sports/activities-friends-video games-music-puppy love-family balance and still be in love with the game and a baseball addict. Who I see less of in the youth sports circles these days is junior whose parents were the ones making these comments.
Good point, Shake. I think of all the top 15 y/o players in our area who played baseball with Ursa Minor back when they were 8 or 9, and almost all of them worked liked crazy then -- but it was their own decision. Sure, Dad had to be willing to go out there day-after-day, but it had to start with the kid. And, its funny, many of those hard-working kids weren't necessary all that good, but that work paid off when they finally got their growth. One of UM's best friends never came close to making an all-star team up through 14 y/o Pony ball, but just kept playing and working and finally had a big bump in growth, and ended up being one of the top players on his HS freshman team last year.
Of course, the down side of all that hard work by a kid is that you've wasted all that time you could have spent at work -- and instead blew it playing catch and talking with your kid.You'll regret that choice on your deathbed.
7th graders mostly, at 46 feet, that's part of the problem. Our 10U kids played 50/70 this fall and our entire rec Majors plays on the 50/70 field. I saw the LL world series, that kid from CA had no business on the the little field. None of those kids do, if you ask me. So you can gas little kids at 46 feet, big whoop!
It doesn't help anyone. And whoever the brain surgeon who pushed the date up to April 30th needs a labotomy too! "hey guys, let's put more big kids on the little field!"
Idiots...maybe, just maybe, when a kid dies on the mound from taking a shot from a 13 kid born in May who's 6'0 and 175 pounds, then maybe people will wake up.
Thanks guys
Anyway, let me fill you in a bit. I AM the local MS coach, and yes, enarly all my players are travel players, or kids who play on the "A" all star team and play a psuedo travel schedule. My older son is in 6th grade. He pitches, but not much else. He is always the slowest kid in his grade (and he's not fat...well, not that fat..drs. tell me not to worry.) He is born in January, and he just broke his arm on a Rip Stick....glorified skateboard...he will NEVER ask me to pass, and it became a source of tension when he was 9, 10. I could see he was very behind, (but he is on the low end...so far...athletically, period...) and I knew if he didn't work it wasn't jsut going to happen....so baseball became WORK for him beacuase it wasn't easy (nothing athletically is for him) and he would rather just sit. He loves the games, hanging with teamates...he's very social...loves to pitch, but in all the years he has played he doesn't have 10 hits (that's from 9-11), no extra base hits, and didn't get a hit in the fall at all. He doesn't want to work....I didn't provide him that gene. being a coach and really appreciating the kid who woould run through a wall it has been for me a terribly difficult thing to watch my son NOT play, NOT practice and tell me NO when I ask HIM if he wants to have a pass.
It has, on occasion, brought me to tears, literally.
I have been very hands off with my younger son as a result. Now my younger son is more athletically gifted than my older boy, but he doesn't even think about baseball if there isn't a game. Doesn't even like to watch SportsCenter which my oder son watches...(when he's not glued to the Simpsons), but I know someday soon I will be waking up and he won't be able to compete becasue he never practiced.
And I have a batting cage in my yard, a Person Pitcher Pro in my basement, a membership at Steve E. Ron Woolforth DVDs you name it.
Maybe THAT is the problem, I don't know....anyway. this should be a new thread...Do I cut my son from my Middle School Team?
Assuming he even wants to go out for the team for the right reasons and not because his dad is the coach and he thinks he should. How many 6th graders do you take on the team? And how many of them see any playing time? In our town if a 6th grader makes the team he either doesn't play or plays very little. Most of the players are in 7th and 8th grade.
I'd have a talk with hin about what he wants, if he trys out and you don't cut him, explain he'll be a practice player and not a game player. Maybe with another year under his belt he'll suprise you.
Remember that baseball with you is three years but his memory of these three years will always be remembered. I'd put him on the team and not play him much, if any.
... My son is the same age (8 years old). He played 7 year old travel right after his rec season ended in the Spring. He was one of the better players on his rec team, but the coach didn't pay too much attention to him. Much to busy with his own son who was of about the ability as my son.
Once we started travel, the coaches really started to work with him and he improved greatly. He loved travel ball way more than rec with his old coach. At our first travel game he batted last, Before the end of the season, he batted clean-up most of the time. The travel coaches were really knowlegeable and gave him a chance.
Now, he's all about baseball. He's waiting on me when I get home from work ready to go throw or hit. Everytime we go to the indorr cages one of the other coaches will ask if he has a travel team to play on. He eats that stuff up and it makes him work harder. He is a perfectionistm which bothers me a little. He picked the wrong sport to have a perfectionistic attitude.
We played rec again this Fall. His first practice, he gave a kid a black eye who couldn't catch. He is very frustrated and bored at the practices in rec ball. We will not play it again. It's not worth having to put up with the kids that can't play for several months so that you can play with the better players in ALL-Stars for a month or so.
The "playing with friends" thing doesn't matter to him. He always been good at making friends with whoever is on his team anyway. He has made more friends that have more things in common through travel ball. A lot of kids that play rec don't really like baseball. they are there because mommy and daddy want him to play a sport. He just wants to have fun. Travel=Yes and REC=No for us.
It all depends on the situation and coaches, but we are 100% travel after the rec season ends this week. Both he and I will be so glad when it's over. I keep telling myself one more game...one more game....
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