Back to rec. What the heck?!

[Momo'sDad]

I am not a 12u coach. But now, somehow, I am a 12u coach.

A couple months back, Mojo told me she'd like to pitch again. She's been practicing an average of 3-4 times a month for about the past year, not enough commitment to justify putting her back in lessons, but enough to let me know she enjoys it. Last spring, she was able to pitch a few times as a guest player in the local rec league. Because she wanted to pitch a little more this spring, I signed her up for the league and yes, you guessed it. Just when I thought I was out.....

Fortunately, because I can only offer a part-time commitment, a buddy has agreed to be the HC. Evaluations were indoors yesterday and while there were a nice handful of really strong players, we're definitely going to have some work to do with the parents of the newer players. I hope they'll be as vested as Brian and I in working with their girls on the fundamentals of this fun game. Now it's on to the draft.

 

[00fpdaddy]

Enjoy it, you look back when she out of the house and miss these times.

 

[CLM265]

Rec will always have it's place and it can be a lot of fun (DD does both) but I wish they would get off their high horse in that they ignore the fact that TB is killing them.

 

[Momo'sDad]

CLM, last spring was the first time our local league was really handicapped by early departures. Too many kids in the 10-13yo range left, which meant that both 10u and 12u had to play interleague games outside of town. That is not always a terrible thing, and the spring 'travel' was a pretty fun experience for the 10u, but that low participation number did impact the overall level of play. But what it also did was to allow the 9yo's to get more opportunities that they would not have if our stud 10yo's had stayed in the league. As a result, they're looking at the prospect of having a very strong all-star team this year, since all but a few of their summer team are back in 10u, including all the best pitching.

Most all of the 12u's came back, too, and they're going from 2 teams last year to 3 teams this year. We lost 1 starting pitcher, but my DD returning as a part-time player makes up for that loss.

I agree that the proliferation of travel teams has hurt the rec programs, but the drastic increase in TB teams has also hurt TB in a way, because it's no longer the domain of the best-of-the-best. But even though there are more mediocre TB teams out there, the truth is that they're providing a lot of opportunities for the average to just-better-than-average kids coming directly from rec. The real work with rec programs is in keeping the fees low enough to prevent more parents from saying "Gee, for $100 more, we'll get 3x as many games by going to travel".

 

[Momo'sDad]

The draft went pretty well. All 3 of the teams got plenty of experienced players and seasoned pitchers and the newbies were spread pretty evenly. We only got 10 players, though, so the 1 thing we know for sure is that there won't be any complaints about playing time.

 

[FP26]

The draft went pretty well. All 3 of the teams got plenty of experienced players and seasoned pitchers and the newbies were spread pretty evenly. We only got 10 players, though, so the 1 thing we know for sure is that there won't be any complaints about playing time.

Enjoy it while you can! My DD is 14 but cannot play rec because our local league ends at 12. We were just talking about rec ball at the dinner table tonight and it brought back a lot of great memories. DD really enjoys travel ball, but enjoyed rec in a slightly different way.