High School Ball vs Travel Ball

[druer]

Our girls were told to stay on base during overthrown balls or bad pitches.

Not sure how one team in your league can be loaded with travel players and others have none, but I'm guessing that your HS coach isn't threatened by travel ball teams which is why so many of the girls are playing travel ball. While many other HS coaches actually make it known that they don't want "their players" to play for another coach and they "make examples" of those that do by berating them and benching them if they make even 1 small mistake.

Why should your teams players have to accept and tolerate a lack of training and effort, or coaches getting paid for a job they really aren't equipped to perform just to put an extra check in their account, or 4 sport players "dabbling" in softball who aren't willing to even put enough work in to avoid being humiliated on the field over and over? At some point those other players have to see what softball looks like by players that "LOVE" the sport and put the work in to improve in it. I understand that not every girl and their family can commit to travel ball either due to time or finance, but there are clinics/camps year round that they could participate in if they want to improve and compete. If errors don't cost them runs, and pitches that can't even be caught don't cost them runs they won't have the incentive to work harder to avoid those things. They will just collect their letters at the end of the year, go play the next sport and come back the following year to drag the sport down again.

If the league rules don't have mercy rules and the team wants to avoid running up the score, then simply have the players step off the base while the pitcher is on the mound. Get out of the inning and then come back and attack offensively again the next inning. It's not fair to force great players to "dumb down" their game because the opposing teams can't field a team that can compete. I don't like to see teams lay down once they get on base because they won't be used to being aggressive once they get to the post season.

 

[NVfishing]

Today was a friendly. Next week the season starts. I hope some of the teams we face next week are better. There are about 12 to 15 teams and we only played two today. I hope it's different next Saturday. Some of the schools are from smaller towns and due to lack of #'s their teams are weaker to begin with. We have a very large HS and a lot of players to pull from. Our little area has a strong TB tradition. The HS coaches all have or have had DD's that were TB players. The coaching my DD will receive in HS is going to be good. I'm more worried about low "B" team type/league play from some of the smaller schools and how it will affect them when they run into another HS that is full of the better players. I think it will be hard for these girls to stay up mentally for the season if it all comes easy.

 

[InTheCrowd]

I'm from Ohio and we have both HS and TB teams. Typically the TB is a higher level of play and competition than HS. Many HS team have kids who play for fun but aren't serious players. TB usually is comprised of kids who love the sport and challenge of higher level of play. So easily said, TB is better.

We also have a state high school athletic board that sets all kinds of really stupid rules for the HS age athletes. A team can't have more than 4 players from the same school on a travel team. Why? Who knows. Also high school coaches are limited on how many times they can have contact with players on the off season. Seems back-rear-wards to me but that's how it is.

 

[starsnuffer]

HS ball is rec ball without the added benefit of a draft. Each school is stuck with whatever they get by zoning gerrymandering, and since this is usually done on social-economic lines, it's fairly typical that one or a few schools are loaded down with a higher percentage of TB players.

HS softball is a completely different sport then travel softball, each has it's own benefits and negative aspects, and they really can't be compared apples to apples.

-W

 

[Kelly Clinevell]

I think that for my daughter her memories about high school softball will contain more "in game" moments than her memories of showcase softball. She loves travel ball as well and I might have a different opinion if she made it to the quarterfinals in a national championship. There are bragging rights at stake and the woofing about next season usually starts a couple of weeks after the state championship is decided. When a game stops in the middle of an at bat in a "drop dead" game it's difficult to view the game in the true spirit of competition. The high school ball in our area of Virginia is pretty competitive with a fair amount of college prospects including D-1 among the pitchers. In fact our pitcher from the beginning of the season last year is an SEC pitcher now (4-0 at the moment). There may be some occasional competitive mismatches but we have some lopsided scores in travel ball as well.

 

[dbias]

I think that for my daughter her memories about high school softball will contain more "in game" moments than her memories of showcase softball. She loves travel ball as well and I might have a different opinion if she made it to the quarterfinals in a national championship. There are bragging rights at stake and the woofing about next season usually starts a couple of weeks after the state championship is decided. When a game stops in the middle of an at bat in a "drop dead" game it's difficult to view the game in the true spirit of competition. The high school ball in our area of Virginia is pretty competitive with a fair amount of college prospects including D-1 among the pitchers. In fact our pitcher from the beginning of the season last year is an SEC pitcher now (4-0 at the moment). There may be some occasional competitive mismatches but we have some lopsided scores in travel ball as well.

I have the same feelings. My DD is freshman this year and thru TB she has a very good skill set for HS ball. She pitches and i wonder how different it will be to go 7 innings in a game. In TB she has several perfect games... if you want to call them that...... with drop dead..... and she only pitched to 9 of the 11 listed batters before time was up. TB is a better level of comp but like many has expressed it is the closeness of the school and things that go alone with that. Many kids in the school that she doesnt even know very well yet come up to her and say " i hear you are gonna be a really good pitcher for us" and that has to mean something to a kid. That being said there are girls from 7 different HS on her TB team and yes they all play in the same conference. So basically she will know someone on most of the opposing teams she will play.... they all come up with signs to give each other at the TB pizza party we had before the team was let loose for HS. Oh well. we'll see how it goes

 

[Mrek]

I have the same feelings. My DD is freshman this year and thru TB she has a very good skill set for HS ball. She pitches and i wonder how different it will be to go 7 innings in a game. In TB she has several perfect games... if you want to call them that...... with drop dead..... and she only pitched to 9 of the 11 listed batters before time was up. TB is a better level of comp but like many has expressed it is the closeness of the school and things that go alone with that. Many kids in the school that she doesnt even know very well yet come up to her and say " i hear you are gonna be a really good pitcher for us" and that has to mean something to a kid. That being said there are girls from 7 different HS on her TB team and yes they all play in the same conference. So basically she will know someone on most of the opposing teams she will play.... they all come up with signs to give each other at the TB pizza party we had before the team was let loose for HS. Oh well. we'll see how it goes

7 innings in a game? In my daughters' Freshman year (she is a Junior this year) her team lost the Sectional final of the state tourny 1-0 in 9 innings.
Last year they won a Sectional quarterfinal game 3-0 "in 10 innings". The pitchers for both teams in both games went the distnace.

This is the advantage of HS ball over travel, where playing the game out generally only occurs in a Tourny championship game.
Pitchers really learn what they are made of both mentally and physically as you need go through the top part of the lineup at least three times and play the game as it was designed, "to the end".
And those attributes are extremely important if they play beyond HS.

In terms of memories, DD was primarily an OF in her Frosh year and she robbed an over the fence HR from the opposing team to keep the game
scoreless in that 1-0 game. The school still talks about "The Catch".