What's your experience with Arlington Travel Baseball?

[Anonymous]

From what I can tell ATB is more south Arlington kids, but not exclusively. I think because little league is more popular in South Arlington and babe Ruth is more popular in the north? They also have a lot more practice than storm and their A teams tend to be better than storm, but their B teams are worse. IME, they do not do good arm care and they work their kids hard. Their A teams win a lot of tournaments though.

[Anonymous]

From what I’ve seen at the 13u and 14u levels, their sportsmanship is abhorrent from the coaches to the kids. No doubt they are talented, but behavior is appalling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve seen at the 13u and 14u levels, their sportsmanship is abhorrent from the coaches to the kids. No doubt they are talented, but behavior is appalling.

Agreed. Would never let my kid play ATB. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve seen at the 13u and 14u levels, their sportsmanship is abhorrent from the coaches to the kids. No doubt they are talented, but behavior is appalling.

Agreed. Would never let my kid play ATB. Sorry.

Curious what you would recommend instead (besides Storm)? I’m not familiar with a lot of other options that don’t include a long drive to practices.

[Anonymous]

You may have already missed the boat, but ATB does a fall academy -- practices twice a week, no games. Good introduction to the program and the coaches get to see the player.

ATB does have paid coaches, but at some practices I've seen them just mail-it-in. It's a job. And sometimes going to work isn't fun.

[Anonymous]

ATB is a non-profit program.

If your player is pretty athletic, listens to instruction, and likes playing baseball even after practice is done, then travel is potentially a good fit. One description I've heard, to determine if travel baseball is a good option is if your player likes to play and practice more, even after finishing a game or a practice.

Having had 2 players go through ATB, the program is really good. They think about skills progression, baseball IQ and building skills appropriate for each level. So you really see it come together at about 11u-12u. There's a new coach at the 13u level who is amazing--really positive and really fantastic. His father is an Arlington baseball legend and I've seen him at the field.

ATB is pretty loyal to players and a solid core will stay with the team year after year. The paid coaches has really helped at the upper levels, as we still see some of the parent politics in rec. If your player might be interested in high school baseball, ATB will give your player a chance to work with some of the high school coaches, as some of them have helped as specialists to ATB teams in the past.
Coach Healy at W-L has worked with some of the 10u, 11u teams for a practice or a clinic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ATB is a non-profit program.

If your player is pretty athletic, listens to instruction, and likes playing baseball even after practice is done, then travel is potentially a good fit. One description I've heard, to determine if travel baseball is a good option is if your player likes to play and practice more, even after finishing a game or a practice.

Having had 2 players go through ATB, the program is really good. They think about skills progression, baseball IQ and building skills appropriate for each level. So you really see it come together at about 11u-12u. There's a new coach at the 13u level who is amazing--really positive and really fantastic. His father is an Arlington baseball legend and I've seen him at the field.

ATB is pretty loyal to players and a solid core will stay with the team year after year. The paid coaches has really helped at the upper levels, as we still see some of the parent politics in rec. If your player might be interested in high school baseball, ATB will give your player a chance to work with some of the high school coaches, as some of them have helped as specialists to ATB teams in the past.
Coach Healy at W-L has worked with some of the 10u, 11u teams for a practice or a clinic.

Totally agree with your assessment of what makes a good travel player. You have to put in the work off the field as well. Coach Healy also works with the storm players in summer camps.

[Anonymous]

I realize this is an old
Thread. But, thanks for the feedback on the programs.

Unfortunately, we had a bad experience with ABR STORM. Overall, was not a positive environment due to coaches.

[Anonymous]

I think you will find that with any travel program they expect you to show up to all practices and games/tournaments. That means you don't go to sleep away camp in June or July or go to a family vacation in those months or Memorial Day and maybe 4th of July week. You don't skip practice because you have soccer or basketball practice on the same night. If you aren't dedicated, then travel isn't for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you will find that with any travel program they expect you to show up to all practices and games/tournaments. That means you don't go to sleep away camp in June or July or go to a family vacation in those months or Memorial Day and maybe 4th of July week. You don't skip practice because you have soccer or basketball practice on the same night. If you aren't dedicated, then travel isn't for you.

These same coaches were multi-sport athletes in high school.

Every smart person will tell you, playing multiple sports will make you better in all sports.

The college coaches look for multi-sport athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you will find that with any travel program they expect you to show up to all practices and games/tournaments. That means you don't go to sleep away camp in June or July or go to a family vacation in those months or Memorial Day and maybe 4th of July week. You don't skip practice because you have soccer or basketball practice on the same night. If you aren't dedicated, then travel isn't for you.

+1

Parents need to push back if travel coaches are being ridiculous, quite frankly.
These same coaches were multi-sport athletes in high school.

Every smart person will tell you, playing multiple sports will make you better in all sports.

The college coaches look for multi-sport athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you will find that with any travel program they expect you to show up to all practices and games/tournaments. That means you don't go to sleep away camp in June or July or go to a family vacation in those months or Memorial Day and maybe 4th of July week. You don't skip practice because you have soccer or basketball practice on the same night. If you aren't dedicated, then travel isn't for you.

+1

Parents need to push back if travel coaches are being ridiculous, quite frankly.
These same coaches were multi-sport athletes in high school.

Every smart person will tell you, playing multiple sports will make you better in all sports.

The college coaches look for multi-sport athletes.

Sure but it’s nearly impossible to play two travel sports, and don’t prioritize another sport and then complain to coach when he benches you because you didn’t come to practice. Teams have 12 kids. If kids don’t come to the game, we most of them to come to every game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you will find that with any travel program they expect you to show up to all practices and games/tournaments. That means you don't go to sleep away camp in June or July or go to a family vacation in those months or Memorial Day and maybe 4th of July week. You don't skip practice because you have soccer or basketball practice on the same night. If you aren't dedicated, then travel isn't for you.

+1

Parents need to push back if travel coaches are being ridiculous, quite frankly.
These same coaches were multi-sport athletes in high school.

Every smart person will tell you, playing multiple sports will make you better in all sports.

The college coaches look for multi-sport athletes.

Sure but it’s nearly impossible to play two travel sports, and don’t prioritize another sport and then complain to coach when he benches you because you didn’t come to practice. Teams have 12 kids. If kids don’t come to the game, we most of them to come to every game.

But it's not impossible, bruh. Which poster was complaining about getting benched for missing a practice? Besides, it's more time for your precious snot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you will find that with any travel program they expect you to show up to all practices and games/tournaments. That means you don't go to sleep away camp in June or July or go to a family vacation in those months or Memorial Day and maybe 4th of July week. You don't skip practice because you have soccer or basketball practice on the same night. If you aren't dedicated, then travel isn't for you.

+1

Parents need to push back if travel coaches are being ridiculous, quite frankly.
These same coaches were multi-sport athletes in high school.

Every smart person will tell you, playing multiple sports will make you better in all sports.

The college coaches look for multi-sport athletes.

Sure but it’s nearly impossible to play two travel sports, and don’t prioritize another sport and then complain to coach when he benches you because you didn’t come to practice. Teams have 12 kids. If kids don’t come to the game, we most of them to come to every game.

But it's not impossible, bruh. Which poster was complaining about getting benched for missing a practice? Besides, it's more time for your precious snot.

You are right. It's not impossible and lots of kids do it. However, all of the teams suffer and the kid is usually exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Atb is a very badly run organization. The board/president/vice president are genuinely bad people. I have heard multiple first hand accounts of the president/vice president bullying parents, yelling at them over perceived wrongs, and cutting kids from rosters based off of whether or not parents behaved in however they thought they should. I even heard a story of the atb management blackmailing the parents by saying that they would make sure their kid didn’t play in highschool (would somehow influence the coach’s decisions for highschool team rosters) if the parents reported some wrong doing to the county.
The Arlington baseball community is toxic but atb is much much more so.