Interesting read going through all these pages. I'm more of a lurker than a poster, so hopefully I don't offend too many here with this, but the amount of "travel snob" in this thread is a little crazy. Yes, there are high level teams, full of future college stars. However, that doesn't mean that the far greater number of "B" and "C" teams are watering down the prestige of "A" teams. The 2 aren't related.
Without any pride or shame, I'll say my daughters team is a "C" team. It's 12 girls that love playing softball and wanted to play/practice more than what "rec" offers. Nobody on the team, or their parents, are looking at this as some path to a college scholarship. The girls just want to play, and the parents have the ability to pay a little more than "rec" for a lot more softball. Team fees are about $900 for some amount of softball about 9 months of the year. Local "rec" league is about $200 for about 2 months.
Specific to travel killing rec, yes, the level of play in our rec league is very poor, and if some the local talent in the lower level travel teams were in it, the play would improve a little. However, I think the desire to want to play more is the biggest reason for leaving rec. Even if you could magically fill our rec league with 120 of the best softball players ever created, they are still only playing 15 or so games.
Without any pride or shame, I'll say my daughters team is a "C" team. It's 12 girls that love playing softball and wanted to play/practice more than what "rec" offers. Nobody on the team, or their parents, are looking at this as some path to a college scholarship. The girls just want to play, and the parents have the ability to pay a little more than "rec" for a lot more softball. Team fees are about $900 for some amount of softball about 9 months of the year. Local "rec" league is about $200 for about 2 months.
Specific to travel killing rec, yes, the level of play in our rec league is very poor, and if some the local talent in the lower level travel teams were in it, the play would improve a little. However, I think the desire to want to play more is the biggest reason for leaving rec. Even if you could magically fill our rec league with 120 of the best softball players ever created, they are still only playing 15 or so games.