Does your son cry when his team loses and the other kids just want to know where the juice box is? Does he go to practice excited about learning and the other kids are bored and drawing in the dirt? Surround your son with like minded kids. They will feed off of each other and make each other better. Find a coach that loves to teach as much as he loves to win. Having fun at baseball can mean a totally different thing to different kids.
You're right, Coach May. We've been extremely lucky with teams and coaches. My son was one of those who came home from practice and wanted to practice some more. Now that he's in HS, he does the same thing. It pais
As for pitching BP, one learns quickly to duck behind the screen! Sometimes I can hear the ball whiz by.
When my son was younger, we had one of those little TPX blue pitching machines. It was great and we used it for 3 years or so, until he turned 12. Then we broke it trying to increase the velocity with a bigger spring. My husband can't throw a strike to save his life. My son wanted to hit real baseballs, and I couldn't afford one of the nice pitching machines, so, what do you know, I gave it a shot. I also learned that I can actually hit decent grounders to him if I use his old 19 oz big barrel bat - I can't handle the -3. It's a workout! But it makes that Saturday afternoon glass of cold sauvignon blanc taste even better!
Is it 5:00 yet...?
Notlong, are you with Boys of Baseball? My son played with them in a tournament here in Gainesville a couple of years ago.
Yes. We played with Boys of Baseball at Gainesville in December. It's a great program that allows kids to get together from many different areas to play together and to get a chance to go to Cooperstown at 12YO. We live in a small community of less than 8,000. Thus, we travel all around for baseball.
My son's coach on that team is a scout for the Giants. Incidentally, his AAA coach was a scout for the DRays...
This is another example of how it is good to get outside of your little pond once in awhile if you can. We played the Alabama Viper BB Academy twice while we were there. It had a profound effect on my son in that there were three hitters on that team who hit balls to 240 and beyond.
My son is a big strong hitter but, up until that point, he had never hit a ball that landed beyond 200' (close but no cigar). He worked hard in his lessons during the summer getting more out of his lower body and then attended an excellent camp in August. During the camp he crushed one that landed 270 (a pull hit) and has had another game hit since that went 230.
I dont think he believed that he could hit a ball that far until he saw others doing it. I think bigger kids and kids that grow early can limit their development because their size is doing more for them than their talent. I am hoping that my son maximizes his hitting ability while he is bigger, so that he has more experience and better mechanics when the other kids catch up on the growth.
Meanwhile... I have to seriously think about protection for the BP I will throw him at 7:30am tomorrow before Try Outs...
My son had four HRs including a grand slam at Cooperstown! Now he's hitting one-hoppers to the 320 fence.
You are right about the big guys, and are approaching it the right way. My son plays up, and is considered "small" (70th percentile in height and weight for his age group - he was 11 in Cooperstown ). Click, clack, can you hear us coming...
I hope your tryouts went beautifully. Good luck to you and your son!
I don't believe it makes any difference at all where a kid plays until he hits the big field. I've seen plenty of 46/60 and 50/70 studs turn to duds when they hit the 60/90 field. Some kids were just early bloomers who stopped growing. My 15U son refers to those as studs who turned to spuds.
Ultimately developing innate talent is going to be more important than where a kid played when he was little. You can't buy talent. A kid will start to display his talent (or lack of) on the big field. And when you get to 14U, 13U seems like slow motion.
My son played LL and some travel from 9-12. The purpose of the travel was to play more baseball, nothing more. When he was eleven and twelve his LL all-star team played into August anyway.
Other than he had fun in the 9-12 years, his accomplishments are irrelevant to me. They were accomplishments on a smaller field. What matters is entering high school this fall playing USSSA Majors on a regular basis starting at 13U and 14U has prepared him to the point where he's been invited to tryout out for varsity in the spring.
Last weekend his (just turned) 15U team played in a 17U tournament. Now I'm impressed. I watched my fourteen year old son not bite on hard breaking balls in the dirt. I watched him get quality swings on mid 80's fastballs. He's ready for high school now. Nothing he did on a small field had anything to do with it other than learning fundamentals and building a passion for the game of baseball.
There's one other thing my son learned in 9/10 rec ball. He learned patience, self control and what part of the game he can control. He learned he control the quality of his pitch, but he can't control what his fielder's do with the play. I told him when he got older he would have better fielder's behind him so don't worry about what he can't control.
Posts: 624 | Location: . | Registered: August 12, 2007
I don't think you can argue the benefits of playing on a quality travel/elite team. Generally better coaching, better competition ,more games and so on. The biggest benefit is the confidence that come with facing great ball players. Is this necessary at a young age ? Probably not but once you reach 14/15 it is a good idea. My son played for 4 teams prior to the year he went to cpllege and it was easy to compare. No camparison between elite travel ball. The work ethic as you got to midget was far better. We were lucky our city had great instruction even at AAA city ball but the competition was no where near as good. I would say that it is not necessary but recommended. It can be very hard to break into a travel team lineup especially if the player is not up on his skill training. Many people get a false sense of players ability when they play against poor competition. I have seen many tryouts where these players look very bad against properly trained players. Many not knowing what to do when ball is put in play. Pitchers atanding on the mound as ball is put in play. Not knowing their cuts etc. This stuff has to come insticntively. Unless they have been drilled from an early age they come off looking poorly. The designation of AAA or the other letters down to D in Ontario is based on city population. Our city of 140,000 people is a AA city. You can play up to AAA but you cannot play down below AA. It is much like US HSs which are 5A, 4A etc.
Posts: 4412 | Location: Canada | Registered: October 13, 2005
I don't think these teams are necessary at that age. But boy, those sure were fun times. Why would you want to miss out?
If it's because it's just not your son's thing, then why worry about it? If he doesn't see a future for himself in the game, then let him play or not play as he sees fit. There are a lot of choices for extracurricular interests and maybe baseball isn't going to be his.
If it's because you don't want the stress (time wise or financially), that is also legitimate. The family's needs do come ahead of the desires of an individual child.
For our part, we saw some talented kids and we felt they would profit long term from assuring that they had coaches who were more than babysitters. Coaches who knew the game and could teach it, but who could also handle young kids the proper way -- keeping it fun, keeping it safe, and avoiding the throbbing vein/screaming fit kind of thing. (And we saw way too much of THAT over the years -- from coaches AND parents!)
Nine years after we got started, about half of our players have D-I scholarship deals lined up (class of 2008). Hopefully there will be more. I think about that with some pride these days.
Is it necessary? Of course not. But I agree with the comment above that baseball has a lot of nuances and the more you play the more you absorb. The more you play, the closer you will get to being what you are capable of being.
If you see in your son that inner drive that tells you he is going to be a competitor the rest of his life, I would recommend travel ball as young as age 9.
If he doesn't seem ready at age 9 but at age 11 or 12 he's interested, that's not too late to take the plunge and try to catch up to the competition.
But if you wait much past age 13, you may as well forget the debate, because at that point he'll be so far behind his competition that the likelihood of playing at the high school level is slight.
Posts: 2503 | Location: Virginia | Registered: February 01, 2006
But if you wait much past age 13, you may as well forget the debate, because at that point he'll be so far behind his competition that the likelihood of playing at the high school level is slight.
Midlo, I just don't agree with your conclusion. I think TG is 100% correct when he says that, for most players, none of it matters all that much until you get on a regulation diamond/field. I think that is especially true in Northern CA where there are very strong little league programs in a lot of areas and many strong high school programs with very good coaches. For boys, most of them don't begin to mature until ages 15 and above. There are so many strength and growth changes that if a player has had good instruction by the time he gets to 14-15, his skills can develop just fine with him beginning travel ball at that point. As a point of comparison, the very best player from our area when our son was 12, didn't even play in high school because he was physically matured as a 12 and the regulation diamond exposed that. When our son was 12, he was a good player but was physically small. He began to grow when he was 15/16. From that point, he was able to compete with the best players at every level through minor league baseball.
'You don't have to be a great player to play in the major leagues, you've got to be a good one every day.'
Posts: 2090 | Location: ca | Registered: February 11, 2003
Deldad had the right answer , NO. They are not necessary. But are they helpfull? Yes , if the coaching is quality and its about getting better and learning and not all about winning. I too have seen numerous 12 year old boys that were head and shoulders above everyone else at that age. But the vast majority if not all were advanced physically for their age. When they moved up to the regulation field and the other boys had caught up in growth the roles almost always reversed. Not always but alot of the times. The biggest thing imo a parent needs to focus on is the COACH. Someone that can inspire , teach the game and foster an evironment where having fun is getting better and working hard is having fun. jmho
Boy the number of perspectives her keeps expanding and it's a great discussion.
The geography aspect is really interesting. I think there are very legitimate arguments that in certain areas, Little League programs can be extensive with great competitive and development opportunities. In an old post, one fellow (from California I think) mentioned tracking LL players at 10 YO when there were over 300 players in their LL to some older age to see how many players were still playing. We live in a community of 8000 and this past summer played in a centre with a population of 85,000. In that city House League and travel totals less than 50 kids! They share the House League (Rec ball) with a larger community. In a number of instances, the House League coaches have barely played the game. If a kid goes through House League like that for a number of years, I would argue the gap is very big. In our small town, a friend told me recently that there were kids on the local team who had not hit all season at 11YO!
I would agree that it is not a necessity to move to travel if you are in a strong competitive LL with quality coaching.
My son is fortunate to have seen and played with players his own age in/from Toronto, Buffalo, Boston, Baltimore, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Connecticutt, Georgia, and Florida. In most instances, these players are from Travel Ball backgrounds and we have learned a lot about their programs back home. In some areas such as our own, I would guess that travel ball offers a markedly different development opportunity than rec ball.
It has been my experience that most rec program coaches in our area do not give good instruction on proper swing mechanics. Through training resources, my son has been taught to use a light bat, short swing and use his lower body at the plate. We have been working on hard line drives up the middle this summer and lately his trainer has been trying to get him to hit drives with backspin. He is trying out with a new travel team this year and the four coaches (all non-parents) all expect this style of hitting.
I am not saying this is the way it is elsewhere but the rec ball players at Try Outs (half of the kids) in this particular city are at a serious disadvantage in this scenario. They have played just under half of the games as the other incumbent kids who have been instructed by great coaches. It is obvious that most of them have not been instructed in swing mechanics. About half of them could barely hit coach pitch at the last Try Out day. Further, they are not prepared for the speed jump in pitching they will see from travel players next weekend. I must admit that the coaches are giving the kids every fair chance to make the team. The kids are just not prepared. This team is preparing to take a run at Nationals in two years and I think that the gap is going to become even greater for rec ball players over that time.
Two years ago, my son played up a year in Rec ball. He lucked out and had a superb coach who taught fundamentals regularly. This coach had coached travel ball with an older son for about 6 years. That is certainly not the norm here. I dont believe half of the rec coaches could teach a proper run-down or how to slide or know why to slide for that matter. My feeling is that it would not be the case in rec ball in Texas, California, or Florida or many other baseball hotbeds.
I am sure there are other areas where travel ball is almost a necessity.
Notlong you are surrounded by some strong areas of BB. Cambridge,waterloo and the whole intercounty area provides some very good BB. It is possible to get on a good team and get excellent instruction. Frozen ropes in Guelph and many other good instructopnal places. Our area is also full of quality programs since we are 60 min from Toronto. Most of the Elite teams draw from a 100 mile radius and even further. It is hard to imagine not playing at least OBA travell if not Elite. There is no comparison to Rec/House league.
Posts: 4412 | Location: Canada | Registered: October 13, 2005
I am jumping around too much in the discussion. We have just finished a year of travel in one of those centres (I was an Asst Coach) and my son is in the process of Try Outs for Travel in another one of those centres.
I agree - there is no comparison between House League and Travel (Rep) ball in this area. I was tryng to illustrate a point that in some geographic areas (such as ours), there is a great disparity between Recreational teams and Travel teams. In others, such as California (I made a point to watch LL games in Thousand Oaks when I was down there on business when I could), Rec Ball and most importantly Rec Ball Coaching is strong. I got the same sense when we were in Florida. I would say that in those places, there would be an argument that kids are not falling behind that much in their development and travel can wait.
I find that Rec ball players/parents/coaches here are not as aware of the training facilities and the great opportunities they provide.
My son has been at Frozen Ropes in Guelph since he was 8 YO. I believe that we have received some of the best instruction there as we have anywhere. He currently has both a pitching instructor (Mel) there and a hitting instructor. We attended a 12-16 High Performance Camp they put on recently and it was without doubt the best we have attended anywhere in the past three years (it was exhausting too). I should add that we have attended five other Ontario-based training facilities that you mentioned for various camps and private lessons over the years so far. The other clinic we attended was a Duane Ward Pitching Clinic in Etobicoke. Duane and a number of the World Series era Jays have started putting on clinics throughout the province with Nigel Wilson. Duane is the real deal - this was not just a signing event. Beyond the World Series Pitcher, he's a World Series trainer. He worked with my son pitch by pitch and pushed him to a new level. For pitching, this was high value and he's a great speaker and role model with the kids.
When my son is older, if he wants to go, we will take him to the Clemson and Tennessee Summer Camps. If he does nothing else in baseball, I think he will make a superb coach someday. His original pitching coach retired form Frozen Ropes back in the spring. A great baseball guy - I'm just glad that my son got to work with him.
Did you hear that Scott Diamond signed with the Braves recently? A guy that used to train at FR in the cages beside us. Great guy.
I am not sure about under 12. I did notice a big difference between young players who transitioned from 50/70 to 60'6/90. It took the LL kids alot longer to acclimate themselves to the distance and some quit. I know a bunch of guys who are great LL coaches but they are few and far between. Travel ball is big commitment and you MUST do your research. Ask current and ex players about their experience with a certain organization. We did an exhaustive amount of research on one program and it turned out pretty well. My son worked very hard and improved quite a bit. In addition my son has forged friendships with kids from other towns he would have never met playing rec ball. Questions to ask: How many players will team carry? Will players rotate positions if feasible? Incidental fundraising..what is the price no B.S. What is your approach with pitchers? I have witnessed kids being pitched 6+/100 pitches in April. Thanks god we did not join that program!
Posts: 5 | Location: CT | Registered: May 19, 2006
Bobble: My son attended the Baseball Zone camp last year when they held it in Brampton. He has taken Catching clinics there and private hitting lessons as well.
The Frozen Ropes one was run in conjunction with Intercounty Terriers elite program. It was also attended by a fairly disciplined core of 12YO from Cambridge with a tremendous coach who has worked with them since Rookie Ball. That made it especially good for my son. They brought in Ron Pearson from BB Canada and a number of other guests. It was physically demanding enough that the instructors were pretty exhausted when it was done (by the fourth day, one of the instructors had thrown 800 pitches). They plan on making it a shorter 4 day session next year.
Originally posted by hitdapill: I did notice a big difference between young players who transitioned from 50/70 to 60'6/90. It took the LL kids alot longer to acclimate themselves to the distance and some quit.
I coached a 13U travel team. The kids who only played LL didn't have any trouble at all making the transition to 60/90. They were athletes and baseball players. You're talking about four feet of pitching difference and ten feet of basepath. It's still small. It took about two weeks for base runners to learn to read pitcher's moves. It takes a day to teach a pitcher how to freeze runners. Some pitchers never learn a good move to first no matter where they play.
In the long run 46/60 or 50/70 isn't going to matter. In either case the cream will rise to the top and the rest will fall by the side of the road.
Posts: 624 | Location: . | Registered: August 12, 2007
Now he's hitting one-hoppers to the 320 fence.
