OT: Is little league baseball dying or thriving?
I'm currently in Florida for my 11 year old's final travel baseball tournament of the season. A dad from another team was commenting on how "park ball" has given way to these specialized travel tournaments because fewer kids are now playing little league, and that in general baseball culture is slowly dying with kids these days. Here in the south I don't know that I see baseball slipping away like that, but it makes me wonder about how things are going in the north (where I used to live) or just in general. What do the rest of you think? Does baseball no longer hold the place it once did among kids in America?
Insightful! How do you ensure, though, that everyone gets the same opportunity to participate?
Other than the annual tryout? We don't. The only two criteria for playing travel are you make the team (i.e., have enough talent to be one of the 11/12 best players at the tryout) and you finance your way. Perhaps your question is aimed at the financial end, following the discussion above about opportunity for all socioeconomic groups. Travel teams come from all over, not just the affluent suburbs. If a family doesn't have the money, then they can fundraise. In fact, most teams conduct organized fundraising to offset team costs (winter practice, uniforms, equipment, field use, umpires, insurance, tournaments, etc.). Examples include can/bottle drives, restaurant nights, bowling nights, golf outings, euchre tournies, working a charity poker room (like the one that closed at the Heidelberg), you name it. Another option is to secure sponsors, which is surprisingly easy; many community businesses are willing to chip in $100-500.
In my four years of coaching (travel and rec), it's been apparent that 1) there are rec players playing travel who shouldn't be, and 2) the development of travel-quality players in rec ball is likely stunted due to playing with less talented players who are just learning the game. In my first game coaching rec (8-10 year-olds), there were 42 walks issued by the two teams, in six innings. That benefits no one, least of all the kids who have talent/interest and want to play and improve. The kids who are learning and just happy to be there (or not...) don't really care. So in summary, every player may have the same opportunity, but not overy player should take it.
Thank you. Having played on those types of teams albeit in a different sport growing up, I knew that, but I am appreciative that you took the time to articulate that from the perspective of someone who does it currently. We (i.e. anyone who has competed or coached in this environment) knows that the issue raised above doesn't really exist in actuality as a barrier to entry to participate at that level because of the mechanisms that you described (which also helps develop other helpful skill sets for life later on), so this is helpful.
Here in So Cal there are 20-30 tournaments every weekend where kids can play on bigger fields, use bigger bats, lead off, etc: in other parts of the U.S. all may be doing ok but here in California, hardly any of the good or great kids take one step on a LL field. Look at it like this. The field dimensions for Majors in little league are the same dimensions 9/10 yr old use in Travel Ball. My 13u team has been playing on a regulation size field for almost a year now, if we play LL these kids would never see that field until they stepped on a High School Campus and had to learn REAL BASEBALL RULES, by then its to late for most kids. See your always going backwards. I commented here many times about Michigan Baseball as if they wanna be serious just recruit Cali, there are thousands of kids that are better then lots of kids that are getting scholarships from the Midwest and North. I have kids that are 13-14 yr old that are just as good as high school seniors. These kids go to Perfect Game, JO, all the showcases...LL is to ancient these days w there rules.
Most of the Big Travel tournaments have the Cali teams in the Finals all most 9 out of 10 times. We travel all over the U.S. And play YES my 12-13 yr old kids could throw in the 80's already. It's a different animal that most or if not all here don't understand if you don't live on the west coast or in Deep South. We play 365 days a year here so the kids are much better.
LL numbers as a whole may be ok, but here on the West Coast the elite kids don't play, very rarely do they play and the Cali teams are still usually the most dominant teams.
LL has taken the fun out of real baseball for the kids who wanna challenge themselves etc, you can't even chew damn gum in LL anymore. It's more like babies baby sitting babies. But I do agree there is a place for it but just not for your kid if he is elite.
I could go on and on about LL, but I still enjoy it on TV as I love baseball. But most of the teams would get mopped up on a weekend AAA or Major Rated Big tourney here in Cali and that's the best LL had.
Remember when kids used to just go outside and play with other kids in the neighborhood? I feel like I don't see that much anymore. My wife has some younger siblings and they make an effort to go outside and play basketball, baseball soccer or football, but when we go to parks or fields we don't see many other kids. I love youth sports, but I wish kids had more freedom to go out and develop skills playing with their friends at a park.
the quality of youth baseball has never been better. The coaching is better, fundamentals are taught better and the number of opportunities if you show a lot of promise and have supportive parents with the financial means are exraordinary. However that is just at the very highest level.
But below that level the players are not nearly as good as average youth players of the past. At one time everyone (almost) played little league and many beyond that, but that was a small fraction of the baseball played. Many kids played pick-up baseball all summer on the 5 days they didn't have organized games. Instead of getting to bat 4 times a game- they might bat 20-30 times over a long afternoon. They would have a chance to play all positions. You organized games whther you had 18 players or as few as 5 or 6, playing the game of "work-up" and calling a designated side of second base that you could hit to.
When was the last time you passed a public baseball field on a summer day and saw kids playing without any formal organization or adults?
The average players developed a lot of skill just from exposure and practice that wasn't required but just because it was fun, even if they were not getting the high level coaching. Eventually I think this will take a toll on fandom as a far higher precentage of kids don't have all of those great memories of having played the game.
Growing up in the Tri-Cities area, we played baseball all day every day practically the entire summer. That was our summer camp! I don't think my 14 year old, who's an accomplished player has ever done that with his friends. Sad. No coaches, no uniforms, no umps = no kids.
Our program in suburban Boston is dramatically smaller. When my son started as a 5 year old over 1000 kids in the program from 5-16, this year, a little over 500. He combined in-town with Travel/AAU which is draining kids from town programs. Time requirements are tough forcing kids (parents) to choose. Most think have to play travel, but many of those pay to play programs are a joke, in addition to being expensive.
When I coached, started seeing a decline in numbers around age 9. The best kids and the ones who love baseball played and became the foundation for travel teams. Had the lesser kids who's parents signed them up to do something. Loss was at the middle class, the better athletes, may or not be travel players, but the kids who played well and created depth and competition were leaving for soccer and lax.
Kids who continue have access to better coaching and baseball training facilites that we never dreamed of. However, time committment and cost are really starting to impact our program, whch is sad to see. How much fun is it for an 8-9-10 to stand out on a field on a 45 degree April night for 2 hours? Not fun for the parents either!
haha this thread just reinforces what you see in the real world; people are obsessed about talking about their kids and sports. Everyone talks like their kid is headed to the pros.
haha...the ones that don't talk about their kids are usually the ones with the studs. My 2 bros and I played college sports and my parents were the most hands off of anyone. I hope I take after them and not these psychos you hear about. Kids will pursue their sports dreams on their own accord.
Amongst a part of the US population, it has definitely slipped. My assumption is that kids with ties to Latin America still are very interested, as well as kids in the southern part of the country where it can be played longer and there are more resources put into it. But it definitely seems to be behind football and basketball in terms of youth interest.
My two boys played t-ball and maybe a year of coach pitch before they gave it up and started playing lacrosse. I remember how upset the CYO baseball coaches were in 4th/5th grade when many of the best athletes were switching to lax for their spring sport. The growth in youth lacrosse has to have had an impact on baseball.
My son is 11 on a 12U travel team. I just emailed his travel program to tell them we would like to stop playing in travel tournaments and just train with them. He plays LIttle League too, and absolutely loves it. We are in Orlando and travel baseball here is huge, but I don't find the quality to be worth the outrageous weekend time committment of the tournaments. He generally faced better pitching in Little League because he played up a division and faced much older, more physically mature kids. We skipped Majors division (the LLWS division) because we wanted to play open bases. My desire to be involved in travel baseball is not for the tournaments, it is for the instruction and development at the practices and small group pitching and hitting workshops the travel program provides. The weekend tournaments suck. I really wish more travel programs were focused on developing baseball talent and encouraged participation in youth rec leagues, but it is all about the money and that would require a travel program to voluntarily sacrifice money, which isn't going to happen.
Top to bottom, travel ball has better talent. But there are most definitely kids that can play at any level who play local rec ball. This is evident by the 2 kids who pitched for me the last 2 nights that combined for 11 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings and each jacked deep homers.
I would actually like to put together a travel team next year because I would have a strong core of kids and would need to pick up a few, which would not be a problem because I know enough people for this to happen. Do I want my whole summer dictated by youth baseball? Hell no and I don't want shell out $3,000 for my kid to play when it costs $60 to play a few less games. Well sure