IS TRAVEL BALL leaving people/players/rec & school behind...OR...

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Nov 9, 2021
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I might be in the minority, but I wish there was something between rec ball and full on travel that would pose some additional challenge without the time and financial commitment of TB.

I don’t think your in the minority in talking to a lot of people. Some jump right into travel at an early age because they don’t feel they have another option. We are working on creating a program tied into our rec program that allows some to practice extra and play the occasional tournament. Like once a month or once every 6 weeks. They would still play rec ball and help the league grow. But they would also be able to kind of feel out travel ball and see if that interests them down the road. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback, especially at the younger age levels.

Now hopefully we can work out all the details and it works well. Thankfully for everyone involved I am not the one in charge of the details.


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Oct 6, 2020
8
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I don’t think your in the minority in talking to a lot of people. Some jump right into travel at an early age because they don’t feel they have another option. We are working on creating a program tied into our rec program that allows some to practice extra and play the occasional tournament. Like once a month or once every 6 weeks. They would still play rec ball and help the league grow. But they would also be able to kind of feel out travel ball and see if that interests them down the road. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback, especially at the younger age levels.

Now hopefully we can work out all the details and it works well. Thankfully for everyone involved I am not the one in charge of the details.


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I love the concept. I would be interested in the details. Where are you located? I don't spend much time interacting on DFP, so I don't know if there is a way to direct message and I don't want to dominate this thread with a tangent conversation. I can share my email if you are willing to share details.
 
Nov 9, 2021
184
43
I love the concept. I would be interested in the details. Where are you located? I don't spend much time interacting on DFP, so I don't know if there is a way to direct message and I don't want to dominate this thread with a tangent conversation. I can share my email if you are willing to share details.

Sent you a private message on here. If you can’t find it. I can shoot you an email later.


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Jun 27, 2021
418
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This is silly. I personally know three committed ’22s whose coaches never saw them play at a national tournament. They went to camps, played in a few local showcases, and got offers. Playing in national tournaments might be necessary for top 10% type players, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is just playing glorified Rec. There are 30,000+ college softball players, 90% of them probably never set foot in Colorado.


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Except I said national tournaments during HS season. Yes, majority probably never play Colorado or PGF, I know many that have moved on to play at many levels
 
Jul 14, 2018
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Except I said national tournaments during HS season.

Does such a thing even exist? Except for those poor souls who play school ball in the fall.

I also know a few freshmen high schoolers whose teams don’t have enough players to field a JV squad, so they have no place to play at all until June, because there’s no TB happening simultaneous to school ball. I feel bad for those kids, it’s a tough spot to be in.


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Jan 22, 2011
1,610
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The rec league in our town is renting the City park and is now locking the fields up so nobody can go with their kid to practice. Probably not the best way to improve the quality of the rec league..(and yes I know I have posted this 10 times already on DFP but it is really pissing me off..)

Wow. In my town you are suppose to pay fees to use fields if it is for a team, but as long the organization(s) that have the permits for the fields aren't using them, it was fine for a handful of girls (probably less than 6 or so) to use the fields. Just be smart and not have the 5 or 6 girls show up wearing team shirts.

Our league had to rent the fields by the hour. Is the rec league paying to rent the field for every daylight hour, 7 days a week?
 
Last edited:
Jun 27, 2021
418
63
Does such a thing even exist? Except for those poor souls who play school ball in the fall.

I also know a few freshmen high schoolers whose teams don’t have enough players to field a JV squad, so they have no place to play at all until June, because there’s no TB happening simultaneous to school ball. I feel bad for those kids, it’s a tough spot to be in.


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It is, each team/area is different. You’ll have some teams squeak by with enough and some will carry 20+ and have varsity and JV.
 
Jun 8, 2016
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Is the rec league paying to rent the field for every daylight hour, 7 days a week?
I don’t know. They are telling me they have to fix the fields etc for night games so they cannot have anybody on them all day even though I guarantee they won’t start working them till the afternoon.
 
Nov 22, 2019
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I think this is a common theme. 10u rec can be brutal even for the most avid softball fans. But that also doesn’t mean travel at that age can’t be negative also.

Curious on ways to make 10u rec more beneficial to all so that parents/players don’t feel they have to rush to travel to avoid the torments. In our current league my youngest plays in it can be painful. The pitchers and catchers get work and that is about it. We seem to have some really good pitchers that strike everyone out. Or really bad ones that walk everyone. Hard for the other girls to develop when they don’t get the chance to field a ball often or hit but maybe once a game and even then they may not see a strike. There is no shortcut to experience for pitchers, so we have to let them struggle. But it makes that age group painful for everyone else.

If anyone has seen something in the 10u range that works I would love to hear about it. Looking to help my local league improve the development at that age.


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We got my DD playing travel ball at age 9 after my wife found this tournament we went to watch and realized what they were playing in rec was barely softball.

My DD wanted to become a pitcher bc our family friend (now at BC) was one. Pitching is a lot, though.
 
Oct 3, 2011
3,478
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Right Here For Now
I think the rec leagues have to offer something for the more advanced girls to keep their interest. If a rec league has to replace the top 10-12 players in an age group every few years they will never be able to build a solid program.

As was mentioned above it can be hard when you feel your daughter can’t even throw hard. We have had to move a daughter up early for that as well. But without the good players in the program it never forces the other girls to learn to catch harder throws. The rec programs need the better players to stick around to help in the development of all the girls.

But the rec programs have to recognize if they don’t offer something advanced for those that are more serious those girls will go elsewhere. We are working on adding a travel component to our rec programs. We hope to not make parents choose one or the other. But rather what combination fits their needs. Now how that looks has been the subject of much debate.


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Most of our rec programs around here have, what I would call, intermediate teams. Players on those teams play on the rec ball teams during Spring and over the Summer, they play several (maybe 5 or so) B/C level tournaments around the area. There are usually several teams from each rec organization so it's not just for All-stars and each organization has their own tournament to raise money for the org that anyone can enter including TB teams. They're pretty well run for the most part and with some B/C level TB teams mixed in, the intermediate teams get to see some better competition. Since many parents around here think traveling 25 minutes across town is traveling, they get to play TB without actually traveling.

The only downfall was, at one time, many of the intermediate team HC's tied to say something along the lines of how they needed to keep all of those players practicing and playing together throughout rec league so they can be competitive with the TB teams come tournament time. Only problem with that is those teams usually dominated the rec leagues year after year and almost ruined them. Now, most of the leagues require players to be split among the rec teams to make all of the teams more competitive.
 

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