This has been an interesting thread. I’m glad to see some push back on the whole travel ball lunacy. I got blasted into oblivion some years back on this very forum for daring to say folks should really consider reining it in a bit. Unfortunately it’s only grown worse. Families are WAY to obsessed with Little Johnny’s and Jane’s ball “career”. I was stupid enough to get sucked in nearly 20 years ago now and it was nothing compared to now.

If you and your family are ball field junkies and nothing else matters, including Church, fine, have fun but please loose the illusion that it’s going to catapult your child into a college scholarship. It’s not. Especially if we’re talking about kids pre-high school age. That list posted above should’ve started with travel ball kids at the top with an easy million kids playing now yet only only less than 20% even making it to be a senior on their high school team.

As mentioned above, my daughter also started playing travel ball when only the top few kids from each county came together and formed a team and still half of them never played through high school. My kid had a spot on the 16u Bama Gold team which all but assured her of at least a few scholarship offers and she walked away. Tore this ole boy up at the time but reflecting back I seen it as a grind that wore her down. Luckily, she stuck it out with school ball but really only to not let her friends down. But after that she was done. If I had it to do all over again we’d have never seen a travel ball tourney till she was at least 14 and as a parent I should have seen it before it was too late. My time and money would have been much better spent on weekly hitting/pitching classes and maybe spearheading an effort for a local rec type league that played through the week all summer and kept things lighter yet still competitive, and quite honestly that would’ve given some opportunities to those who have a desire to play but don’t have the means for the travel ball life. I look back and see several that could/would have helped and I was in a position to affect that and I didn’t. I deeply regret that.