Travel Baseball - What are we getting ourselves into?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He has to be all in.
You have to be all in.
Would he be joining for 9U in the fall?

It really depneds on the organization, but we have two kids in travel baseball. Fees are about $3000 a year plus $100 a week for training plus all the new gear and the bats are $300-$400. Travel is required usually once in the spring plus memorial day, 4th of July and probably at least 2 other tournaments. For my 11U we will have have probably 7-8 weekends this year that require a hotel and at least one parent to be with him. The hotels can range from 2-3 nights and are usually around $200 a night. We have one this summer that's $500 a night for 3 nights and another that's $400 a night for 2 nights. It really adds up and is a lot if you have other kids. We usually would bring our whole family, but some families can't or don't want to do that. The younger siblings usually don't love sitting out for 5 hours in 95 degree heat watching baseball.
You cannot do sleepaway camp until August and it limits when you can go on family vacations.
You cannot miss tournaments. If you are not on board with this, do not sign up.

This is one of the most concise and accurate assessments of travel sports I’ve ever read. They real do drain you of everything: money, time, vacations.

I’m the mom of two boys, the first did travel soccer and it nearly broke our family due to time commitments. The second wants nothing to do with travel after being dragged along to tons of soccer events, games, tournaments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He has to be all in.
You have to be all in.
Would he be joining for 9U in the fall?

It really depneds on the organization, but we have two kids in travel baseball. Fees are about $3000 a year plus $100 a week for training plus all the new gear and the bats are $300-$400. Travel is required usually once in the spring plus memorial day, 4th of July and probably at least 2 other tournaments. For my 11U we will have have probably 7-8 weekends this year that require a hotel and at least one parent to be with him. The hotels can range from 2-3 nights and are usually around $200 a night. We have one this summer that's $500 a night for 3 nights and another that's $400 a night for 2 nights. It really adds up and is a lot if you have other kids. We usually would bring our whole family, but some families can't or don't want to do that. The younger siblings usually don't love sitting out for 5 hours in 95 degree heat watching baseball.
You cannot do sleepaway camp until August and it limits when you can go on family vacations.
You cannot miss tournaments. If you are not on board with this, do not sign up.

Agree with this. DS has played for a lower level travel team since 11u and it works for our family. Games and tournaments are primarily local (within an hour), but we do play a handful of tournaments where we need a hotel. Even with minimal travel, I'd estimate we averaged roughly 10-15k/year between club fees, hotels/road food, additional training, and equipment. The DHs and tournaments make for VERY long days especially when the weather is not optimal (which seems like it usually the case--we are either freezing or frying). We also spend a lot of time in the car--to/from practices, games, training AND parents waiting in random parking lots at odd hours. Weekday baseball always seems to hit right at dinnertime so we make multiple meals and eat on the go. We go out of town in August, but that's pretty much it because after a certain age, teams expect you to prioritize tournaments and games over everything else. Our lives legitimately revolve around baseball (he's now 15u), but DS is all in. I cannot imagine starting earlier than we did and I would not ever push a kid into this unless they were asking for it.

[Anonymous]

If your kid LOVES baseball and little league doesn't provide enough volume (games & practices) to scratch his itch, then starting travel at that age is a good call.

As some others have mentioned there are differences in travel programs. Joining a program where you're traveling out of state every weekend and incurring hotel costs doesn't make sense at that age. Nobody is getting scholarship offers at 8/9 years old. There are plenty of good programs where your kid can get to play more baseball without having to travel more than 45 minutes every weekend.

If he's still in love with the game by high school, you won't have a choice. At that point every team worth playing for is on the road almost every weekend of the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a son in 15u baseball. He didn't start travel until 12u so we don't have experience with the younger ages, but as others have said, you're playing ball on major holiday weekends- Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, etc.

If 9u does doubleheaders on the weekends, it's a big time suck. You're easily looking at 7+ hours depending on where games are held.

If your team travels for tournaments, some are stay to play which means the hotels will be even more expensive than if you booked your own stay. I think many (but I'm sure not all) teams 12u and younger have parent coaches; it seems 13u and up is when you start getting majority professional coaches (which will increase your fees, of course).

Depending on the organization, there may be an expectation that you book training with their affiliated instructors. My son's never been on a team that requires that, thankfully. Again, not sure what the younger ages require but there are often winter workouts (usually not included with team fees).

My son's loved playing. He hasn't loved every single aspect of it but has kept returning to baseball every season. I think we may be stepping back from fall travel though as it's a lot of baseball playing school ball right into summer travel right into fall travel with a few short months of rest before gearing up for high school workouts and tryouts.

This. Travel is a waste on an 8-year old. Until age 12, kids are just learning the game and developing their baseball IQ. Rec is perfectly fine for that. If he shows interest, travel at 12 or even later is useful and can be a lot of fun.

Signed, mom of two youth players, one now plays at a D1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would wait til 13u if you have a good little league. That's what we did and it worked out very well for our son. He's playing on his very competitive high school team as well, so it didn't set him back any. In most programs you'll just have parent coaches until 13u, at which point you'll get coaches the program hires. This is MUCH better than dealing with some dad who plays his kid over everyone else while you fork over thousands of dollars for the privilege.

Unless your little league is really subpar, I'd wait.

This, 100%. Wait at least until 12U. Enjoy these last special years with your kids while they are young and you can linger at the beach. Fight the FOMO pressure, I know it’s tough. We waited until 12U and our kid plays for one of the top HS teams in the country and is being D3 recruited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's different degrees of travel. We are in a travel program joined to the rec league and at least at 9U, found most of the games were home games against local teams. It was basically ran concurrent with the fall and spring little league schedule, with an extea practixe once a week and games on Sundays. Indoor training over the winter. I'm sure it steps up a bit in the older divisions but it was fairly benign for 9U.

+1

OP I’d really look into the travel program more and see what “kind” it is. My DS played “travel” at 10U but all the games were in our metro area (within 45 minutes from our house)- except ONE tournament over a holiday weekend a few hours away (and as a rare thing, that was actually pretty fun). It wasn’t much more time consuming than rec ball, and we kind of preferred it because all the games were on the weekends (as opposed to scrambling on weeknights).

But other teams? Even at 9-10U ages can be very intense. Traveling every other weekend, even flying to out of state tournaments and whatnot (ridiculous IMO).

But I would at least try to get the gist of what this particular team entails before making a decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid LOVES baseball and little league doesn't provide enough volume (games & practices) to scratch his itch, then starting travel at that age is a good call.

As some others have mentioned there are differences in travel programs. Joining a program where you're traveling out of state every weekend and incurring hotel costs doesn't make sense at that age. Nobody is getting scholarship offers at 8/9 years old. There are plenty of good programs where your kid can get to play more baseball without having to travel more than 45 minutes every weekend.

If he's still in love with the game by high school, you won't have a choice. At that point every team worth playing for is on the road almost every weekend of the summer.

My kid played on a National team and the Summer season was actually very condensed. Basically, June 10th - July 22nd. Did involve living in Atlanta essentially for the 3 weeks...but I appreciated that it was efficient.

[Anonymous]

Tournaments every weekend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a son in 15u baseball. He didn't start travel until 12u so we don't have experience with the younger ages, but as others have said, you're playing ball on major holiday weekends- Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, etc.

If 9u does doubleheaders on the weekends, it's a big time suck. You're easily looking at 7+ hours depending on where games are held.

If your team travels for tournaments, some are stay to play which means the hotels will be even more expensive than if you booked your own stay. I think many (but I'm sure not all) teams 12u and younger have parent coaches; it seems 13u and up is when you start getting majority professional coaches (which will increase your fees, of course).

Depending on the organization, there may be an expectation that you book training with their affiliated instructors. My son's never been on a team that requires that, thankfully. Again, not sure what the younger ages require but there are often winter workouts (usually not included with team fees).

My son's loved playing. He hasn't loved every single aspect of it but has kept returning to baseball every season. I think we may be stepping back from fall travel though as it's a lot of baseball playing school ball right into summer travel right into fall travel with a few short months of rest before gearing up for high school workouts and tryouts.

This. Travel is a waste on an 8-year old. Until age 12, kids are just learning the game and developing their baseball IQ. Rec is perfectly fine for that. If he shows interest, travel at 12 or even later is useful and can be a lot of fun.

Signed, mom of two youth players, one now plays at a D1.

Agree. Also a mom of a baseball player (who plays on a 'good' HS team). Do NOT get caught up in any travel baseball nonsense with an 8 year old. It is a wastes of time/money/resources. Let your son continue to play Rec, and encourage him to play other sports to develop general athleticism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a son in 15u baseball. He didn't start travel until 12u so we don't have experience with the younger ages, but as others have said, you're playing ball on major holiday weekends- Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, etc.

If 9u does doubleheaders on the weekends, it's a big time suck. You're easily looking at 7+ hours depending on where games are held.

If your team travels for tournaments, some are stay to play which means the hotels will be even more expensive than if you booked your own stay. I think many (but I'm sure not all) teams 12u and younger have parent coaches; it seems 13u and up is when you start getting majority professional coaches (which will increase your fees, of course).

Depending on the organization, there may be an expectation that you book training with their affiliated instructors. My son's never been on a team that requires that, thankfully. Again, not sure what the younger ages require but there are often winter workouts (usually not included with team fees).

My son's loved playing. He hasn't loved every single aspect of it but has kept returning to baseball every season. I think we may be stepping back from fall travel though as it's a lot of baseball playing school ball right into summer travel right into fall travel with a few short months of rest before gearing up for high school workouts and tryouts.

This. Travel is a waste on an 8-year old. Until age 12, kids are just learning the game and developing their baseball IQ. Rec is perfectly fine for that. If he shows interest, travel at 12 or even later is useful and can be a lot of fun.

Signed, mom of two youth players, one now plays at a D1.

+1 from another parent of a college player who didn’t start travel until 13u. It is fine if they want to do it, but not necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a son in 15u baseball. He didn't start travel until 12u so we don't have experience with the younger ages, but as others have said, you're playing ball on major holiday weekends- Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, etc.

If 9u does doubleheaders on the weekends, it's a big time suck. You're easily looking at 7+ hours depending on where games are held.

If your team travels for tournaments, some are stay to play which means the hotels will be even more expensive than if you booked your own stay. I think many (but I'm sure not all) teams 12u and younger have parent coaches; it seems 13u and up is when you start getting majority professional coaches (which will increase your fees, of course).

Depending on the organization, there may be an expectation that you book training with their affiliated instructors. My son's never been on a team that requires that, thankfully. Again, not sure what the younger ages require but there are often winter workouts (usually not included with team fees).

My son's loved playing. He hasn't loved every single aspect of it but has kept returning to baseball every season. I think we may be stepping back from fall travel though as it's a lot of baseball playing school ball right into summer travel right into fall travel with a few short months of rest before gearing up for high school workouts and tryouts.

This. Travel is a waste on an 8-year old. Until age 12, kids are just learning the game and developing their baseball IQ. Rec is perfectly fine for that. If he shows interest, travel at 12 or even later is useful and can be a lot of fun.

Signed, mom of two youth players, one now plays at a D1.

+1 from another parent of a college player who didn’t start travel until 13u. It is fine if they want to do it, but not necessary.

Are all these people who started at 12 and 13U in the DC area? I feel like several people I know were shut out by waiting, their kids are good but the kids who have been on Travel since 8 or 9 are occupying all the spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a son in 15u baseball. He didn't start travel until 12u so we don't have experience with the younger ages, but as others have said, you're playing ball on major holiday weekends- Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, etc.

If 9u does doubleheaders on the weekends, it's a big time suck. You're easily looking at 7+ hours depending on where games are held.

If your team travels for tournaments, some are stay to play which means the hotels will be even more expensive than if you booked your own stay. I think many (but I'm sure not all) teams 12u and younger have parent coaches; it seems 13u and up is when you start getting majority professional coaches (which will increase your fees, of course).

Depending on the organization, there may be an expectation that you book training with their affiliated instructors. My son's never been on a team that requires that, thankfully. Again, not sure what the younger ages require but there are often winter workouts (usually not included with team fees).

My son's loved playing. He hasn't loved every single aspect of it but has kept returning to baseball every season. I think we may be stepping back from fall travel though as it's a lot of baseball playing school ball right into summer travel right into fall travel with a few short months of rest before gearing up for high school workouts and tryouts.

This. Travel is a waste on an 8-year old. Until age 12, kids are just learning the game and developing their baseball IQ. Rec is perfectly fine for that. If he shows interest, travel at 12 or even later is useful and can be a lot of fun.

Signed, mom of two youth players, one now plays at a D1.

+1 from another parent of a college player who didn’t start travel until 13u. It is fine if they want to do it, but not necessary.

Are all these people who started at 12 and 13U in the DC area? I feel like several people I know were shut out by waiting, their kids are good but the kids who have been on Travel since 8 or 9 are occupying all the spots.

There are many programs that start at 13u or 14u…in addition there are programs that are blunt that they have no loayalty to their 8u-12u players at the older ages and they will add better players to the team from tryouts

There are also programs that will completely change up their 16u and 17u teams (if they send many kids to play in college) because they want all their kids to get recruited and won’t keep any kids they don’t think will make it.

[Anonymous]

I love how anytime baseball comes up on an anonymous mommy board suddenly NOVA is home to 10 bazillion D1 recruits. My now sophomore in college son played travel with a close in outfit, pitched for his large, close in HS and literally not a single team mate of his went D1. I think 3 out of the ~ 40ish kids he played with from rec to travel to HS went to respectable D3 schools.

For our son, it was simply the love of the game. He knew he wasn't D1 and, honestly, having known D1 athletes from my own childhood, it wouldn't have been for him. It is your ENTIRE life.

So if your kid just wnats to play lots of ball, yeah, have at it. The money isn't an issue unless you're so broke 3k a year will break you.

And it's true about younger siblings. Don't make their life about their siblings life. I have regrets about the amount of time our daughter spent on the sidelines watching her brother instead of living her own life. We realized this and corrected course but I see many who don't.

Also learn to ignore the loudmouth older guy who comes into any talk about baseball. He is living through his very mediocre son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how anytime baseball comes up on an anonymous mommy board suddenly NOVA is home to 10 bazillion D1 recruits. My now sophomore in college son played travel with a close in outfit, pitched for his large, close in HS and literally not a single team mate of his went D1. I think 3 out of the ~ 40ish kids he played with from rec to travel to HS went to respectable D3 schools.

For our son, it was simply the love of the game. He knew he wasn't D1 and, honestly, having known D1 athletes from my own childhood, it wouldn't have been for him. It is your ENTIRE life.

So if your kid just wnats to play lots of ball, yeah, have at it. The money isn't an issue unless you're so broke 3k a year will break you.

And it's true about younger siblings. Don't make their life about their siblings life. I have regrets about the amount of time our daughter spent on the sidelines watching her brother instead of living her own life. We realized this and corrected course but I see many who don't.

Also learn to ignore the loudmouth older guy who comes into any talk about baseball. He is living through his very mediocre son.

Madison and Gainesville always send several to D1 each year, and there are plenty of NOVA kids playing for privates like SJC (last year's Gatorade player of the year was a SJC pitcher from Nova)

Also, you have three kids drafted in the 1st and 2nd round of the MLB in the last three years from NoVA (Eldridge, Triantos and Morabito).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how anytime baseball comes up on an anonymous mommy board suddenly NOVA is home to 10 bazillion D1 recruits. My now sophomore in college son played travel with a close in outfit, pitched for his large, close in HS and literally not a single team mate of his went D1. I think 3 out of the ~ 40ish kids he played with from rec to travel to HS went to respectable D3 schools.

For our son, it was simply the love of the game. He knew he wasn't D1 and, honestly, having known D1 athletes from my own childhood, it wouldn't have been for him. It is your ENTIRE life.

So if your kid just wnats to play lots of ball, yeah, have at it. The money isn't an issue unless you're so broke 3k a year will break you.

And it's true about younger siblings. Don't make their life about their siblings life. I have regrets about the amount of time our daughter spent on the sidelines watching her brother instead of living her own life. We realized this and corrected course but I see many who don't.

Also learn to ignore the loudmouth older guy who comes into any talk about baseball. He is living through his very mediocre son.

Madison and Gainesville always send several to D1 each year, and there are plenty of NOVA kids playing for privates like SJC (last year's Gatorade player of the year was a SJC pitcher from Nova)

Also, you have three kids drafted in the 1st and 2nd round of the MLB in the last three years from NoVA (Eldridge, Triantos and Morabito).

Direct from high school.