Primetime travel baseball scumbags

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The coaches who run Prime Time are now running the Bishop O'Connell Team. I am guessing its a large organization and the headline may be about other staff- does prime time get/send players to O'Connell or do they get from a different area than Arlington?

Primetime is in Alexandria - its a 25-45 min commute to PrimeTime depending on traffic from Arlington/Oc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:State troopers should set up check points outside of the Sunday double headers. The amount of morning consumption is shocking.

Now that's funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The parent who said the thing about parents socializing hit the nail on the head. It’s about the parents! Travel teams like Primetime are about the parents taking shots at 10am in quality inn hotel bars. Every single second of the travel team experience is fulfilling a need for parents whether it be socializing, drinking buddies, unfulfilled sports potential from their childhood. Boys need activity to keep them away from screens. But I will never let my child be a $$$ for a creepy travel org owner like the ones at Primetime, a supporting character in some dads story, or an obstacle for some hyper competitive moms attempts to get her 11 year old pitcher signed to a college team. Use the travel program if it works for your kid then leave as soon as you see the writing on the wall that your kid is just a dollar sign. If it feels like a cult then it’s not a community. If you can tell that the other parents don’t want your child to succeed then get out of there.

Travel baseball is the worst and the baseball parents are the worst parents out of all of the sports my kids have played.

If I had to rank it:

Normal Parents - Tackle football, Basketball. These sports heavily favor the most athletic kids so most parents accept it if their kid isn't the best.

Bad Parents - Wrestling. Most wrestling Dads have some sort of dream of their kid growing up into a tough guy ass kicker and they like to harass/abuse their child to relive their high school wrestling practices.

Worst Parents - Baseball. Where do I begin? Yelling at umpires. Yelling at their kids. Spending thousands on travel ball per year instead of saving for college. Every parent there is out for their own kid and no one else. If it is the local little league, you'll deal with a bunch of parents who won't help at all with anything related to keeping the league running. Oh, and the parents are completely delusional about their kids actual athleticism. Why wouldn't they be? Their kid spends hours standing around in baseball so how would they know their kid is actually slow as a snail. I hate it.

Swim, tennis, lacrosse, hockey and golf parents are just as bad. And I'd never characterize travel basketball parents as normal - full of psychos too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The coaches who run Prime Time are now running the Bishop O'Connell Team. I am guessing its a large organization and the headline may be about other staff- does prime time get/send players to O'Connell or do they get from a different area than Arlington?

The owner of Prime Time is the head coach at O'Connell. Any student can try out for the baseball team at O'Connell. I'd imagine he'll be inviting some Prime Time players to apply to O'Connell to play HS ball with him.

If history repeats, I think it will be the reverse. Kids at O'Connell will have to play for PrimeTime in order to gain favor with the HS coach. This is how it worked for years with the former Yorktown coach, who was/is a co-owner of PT. If your kid didn't play for PT it was much more difficult to make the Yorktown team. It's a pay to play scam!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

Do Legos cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Require you to take short, expensive, overnight trips all across the country a dozen or more times a year? Disrupt your care and attention to any other children you have? Put thousands and thousands of miles on your vehicle?

What an absurd analogy.

Why is it hard to believe that some kids and yes their PARENTS too like this. It's social. Are you the lady knitting in the corner? Then no, it's probably not fun, but I love watching my kids play and I generally like socializing with the other parents in Holiday Inn lobby bars.

Youre a drunk, duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The coaches who run Prime Time are now running the Bishop O'Connell Team. I am guessing its a large organization and the headline may be about other staff- does prime time get/send players to O'Connell or do they get from a different area than Arlington?

The OP was about the owners. They have their hands in all of the teams- even the very young ones. They are petty, emotionally immature, and terrible business owners. They rule with threats and fear. They have a god complex. They do not develop players. Every decision they make serves their own ego.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

You're doing it for yourself, not your kid. Travel baseball is designed to feed the parents' need to compete. The kid is just a proxy for their own unmet need to feel validated and important. Sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

Do Legos cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Require you to take short, expensive, overnight trips all across the country a dozen or more times a year? Disrupt your care and attention to any other children you have? Put thousands and thousands of miles on your vehicle?

What an absurd analogy.

Why is it hard to believe that some kids and yes their PARENTS too like this. It's social. Are you the lady knitting in the corner? Then no, it's probably not fun, but I love watching my kids play and I generally like socializing with the other parents in Holiday Inn lobby bars.

You live in the DMV, a culturally rich community filled with interesting places and people, and your idea of a fun and worthwhile weekend night out is sitting in a budget hotel lobby bar with people you only know because your kid plays with their kids? Do you not have any actual friends or genuine interests? I feel sorry for your kid that you are making them be the vehicle by which you try to make yourself feel like a success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

Do Legos cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Require you to take short, expensive, overnight trips all across the country a dozen or more times a year? Disrupt your care and attention to any other children you have? Put thousands and thousands of miles on your vehicle?

What an absurd analogy.

Why is it hard to believe that some kids and yes their PARENTS too like this. It's social. Are you the lady knitting in the corner? Then no, it's probably not fun, but I love watching my kids play and I generally like socializing with the other parents in Holiday Inn lobby bars.

You live in the DMV, a culturally rich community filled with interesting places and people, and your idea of a fun and worthwhile weekend night out is sitting in a budget hotel lobby bar with people you only know because your kid plays with their kids? Do you not have any actual friends or genuine interests? I feel sorry for your kid that you are making them be the vehicle by which you try to make yourself feel like a success.

I am a DP, you have a very strange perspective on this. My kids play sports to learn teamwork, leadership, persistence, resilience, and time management. Is it the only way to do this? Of course, not, but they have gained some really valuable skills from the experience. My kid played travel ball because they couldn’t get enough …until they were burnt out around ninth grade. Yes we spent many weekends at dingy hotels with the same families over and over but it wasn’t for that. It was for our kids. Your time with your kids is short, the time to explore the “culturally rich“ benefits of DC is much longer. Also, two things can be true, you may spend many weekends at travel baseball tournaments at the same time spending many nights exploring “culturally rich“ experiences in the world. You have such a narrow view on this that you’re losing the argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

Do Legos cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Require you to take short, expensive, overnight trips all across the country a dozen or more times a year? Disrupt your care and attention to any other children you have? Put thousands and thousands of miles on your vehicle?

What an absurd analogy.

Why is it hard to believe that some kids and yes their PARENTS too like this. It's social. Are you the lady knitting in the corner? Then no, it's probably not fun, but I love watching my kids play and I generally like socializing with the other parents in Holiday Inn lobby bars.

You live in the DMV, a culturally rich community filled with interesting places and people, and your idea of a fun and worthwhile weekend night out is sitting in a budget hotel lobby bar with people you only know because your kid plays with their kids? Do you not have any actual friends or genuine interests? I feel sorry for your kid that you are making them be the vehicle by which you try to make yourself feel like a success.

I am a DP, you have a very strange perspective on this. My kids play sports to learn teamwork, leadership, persistence, resilience, and time management. Is it the only way to do this? Of course, not, but they have gained some really valuable skills from the experience. My kid played travel ball because they couldn’t get enough …until they were burnt out around ninth grade. Yes we spent many weekends at dingy hotels with the same families over and over but it wasn’t for that. It was for our kids. Your time with your kids is short, the time to explore the “culturally rich“ benefits of DC is much longer. Also, two things can be true, you may spend many weekends at travel baseball tournaments at the same time spending many nights exploring “culturally rich“ experiences in the world. You have such a narrow view on this that you’re losing the argument.

I was responding specifically to the parent who said they *enjoyed* hanging out at the Holiday Inn bar with the other baseball parents weekend after weekend. I stand by my statement. And your kid can play baseball without doing travel baseball. They can get excerise, learn teamwork, persistence, resilience, etc. from playing on non-travel teams. And if you don't sign them up for this tunnel vision all-baseball-all-the-time lifestyle, they might have a chance to play other sports that they can learn *different* skills from. If every single free moment of their lives wasn't conscripted to baseball practices and games, they might even have time to explore in *other non-sports activities* like having non-baseball friends, learning an instrument, or just having unstructured free time to be a kid -- all of which would broaden their life experiences and perspective while supporting a growth mindset and creating positive mental and physical health benefits both in the short and long term. There is a scientific consensus that allowing kids to have unstructered time is essentially to their long term mental and physical health. Overspecialization is and obessive pursuits (whether the obessession is fueled by the kid, as you tell yourself that it is, or is fueled by the parents' need to feel validated, which is what is really happening) are not good for your kid.

So the argument that "I'm doing it for my kid" is unpersuasive because it's terrible for the kids involved. It deprives them of other experiences, teaches them to chase with tunnel vision one thing to the exclusion of everything else life has to offer, takes away their unstructured time, reduces the whole family life to one activity in which they are the centerpiece (which is both too much pressure and too little opportunity for genunine relationship building and connection within the family) and if they don't burn out on their own it will spit them out the other side with almost nothing to show for the years it stole from them. Your kid may be asking to do it (either because they are feeding on overly-competive peer influences, or - as is more likely - they are feeding on your intensity and excitement when they succeed in baseball) but kids will ask to do a lot of things that aren't good for them. My kid would probably stay up all night if I let him. He thinks staying up late is fun and he enjoys doing it, but that doesn't mean he gets to. Parents who do this travel baseball con tell themselves they are doing it for their kids, but they are doing it because it makes them feel good about *themselves.*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

Do Legos cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Require you to take short, expensive, overnight trips all across the country a dozen or more times a year? Disrupt your care and attention to any other children you have? Put thousands and thousands of miles on your vehicle?

What an absurd analogy.

Why is it hard to believe that some kids and yes their PARENTS too like this. It's social. Are you the lady knitting in the corner? Then no, it's probably not fun, but I love watching my kids play and I generally like socializing with the other parents in Holiday Inn lobby bars.

You live in the DMV, a culturally rich community filled with interesting places and people, and your idea of a fun and worthwhile weekend night out is sitting in a budget hotel lobby bar with people you only know because your kid plays with their kids? Do you not have any actual friends or genuine interests? I feel sorry for your kid that you are making them be the vehicle by which you try to make yourself feel like a success.

I reject your premise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

Do Legos cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Require you to take short, expensive, overnight trips all across the country a dozen or more times a year? Disrupt your care and attention to any other children you have? Put thousands and thousands of miles on your vehicle?

What an absurd analogy.

Why is it hard to believe that some kids and yes their PARENTS too like this. It's social. Are you the lady knitting in the corner? Then no, it's probably not fun, but I love watching my kids play and I generally like socializing with the other parents in Holiday Inn lobby bars.

You live in the DMV, a culturally rich community filled with interesting places and people, and your idea of a fun and worthwhile weekend night out is sitting in a budget hotel lobby bar with people you only know because your kid plays with their kids? Do you not have any actual friends or genuine interests? I feel sorry for your kid that you are making them be the vehicle by which you try to make yourself feel like a success.

I am a DP, you have a very strange perspective on this. My kids play sports to learn teamwork, leadership, persistence, resilience, and time management. Is it the only way to do this? Of course, not, but they have gained some really valuable skills from the experience. My kid played travel ball because they couldn’t get enough …until they were burnt out around ninth grade. Yes we spent many weekends at dingy hotels with the same families over and over but it wasn’t for that. It was for our kids. Your time with your kids is short, the time to explore the “culturally rich“ benefits of DC is much longer. Also, two things can be true, you may spend many weekends at travel baseball tournaments at the same time spending many nights exploring “culturally rich“ experiences in the world. You have such a narrow view on this that you’re losing the argument.

I was responding specifically to the parent who said they *enjoyed* hanging out at the Holiday Inn bar with the other baseball parents weekend after weekend. I stand by my statement. And your kid can play baseball without doing travel baseball. They can get excerise, learn teamwork, persistence, resilience, etc. from playing on non-travel teams. And if you don't sign them up for this tunnel vision all-baseball-all-the-time lifestyle, they might have a chance to play other sports that they can learn *different* skills from. If every single free moment of their lives wasn't conscripted to baseball practices and games, they might even have time to explore in *other non-sports activities* like having non-baseball friends, learning an instrument, or just having unstructured free time to be a kid -- all of which would broaden their life experiences and perspective while supporting a growth mindset and creating positive mental and physical health benefits both in the short and long term. There is a scientific consensus that allowing kids to have unstructered time is essentially to their long term mental and physical health. Overspecialization is and obessive pursuits (whether the obessession is fueled by the kid, as you tell yourself that it is, or is fueled by the parents' need to feel validated, which is what is really happening) are not good for your kid.

So the argument that "I'm doing it for my kid" is unpersuasive because it's terrible for the kids involved. It deprives them of other experiences, teaches them to chase with tunnel vision one thing to the exclusion of everything else life has to offer, takes away their unstructured time, reduces the whole family life to one activity in which they are the centerpiece (which is both too much pressure and too little opportunity for genunine relationship building and connection within the family) and if they don't burn out on their own it will spit them out the other side with almost nothing to show for the years it stole from them. Your kid may be asking to do it (either because they are feeding on overly-competive peer influences, or - as is more likely - they are feeding on your intensity and excitement when they succeed in baseball) but kids will ask to do a lot of things that aren't good for them. My kid would probably stay up all night if I let him. He thinks staying up late is fun and he enjoys doing it, but that doesn't mean he gets to. Parents who do this travel baseball con tell themselves they are doing it for their kids, but they are doing it because it makes them feel good about *themselves.*

Wowza. That was a rather long winded way to tell us that your kid is not particularly good at sports…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t tryouts next week? I mean this kindly, but if your kid doesn’t play travel, don’t they have almost zero chance of making a public high school team?

He's in eighth grade and doing eigth grade tryouts right now. He says it's going well. He may not make the HS team, but baseball is not his primary sport. He's a good player, he just likes other sports better and so doesn't do travel. He could probably play travel if he wanted to put in the time to do it, but honestly it has always seemed like a waste of time and money if it's not your kid's passion or primary sport. I've seen 3 families that we are close with dedicate every weekend of their lives for years and years to baseball in order to support a really passionate and seemingly talented kid who was a star on their travel team. Those kids ended up going to really marginal colleges to play baseball with the hope, I guess, of MLB or transfer to a D1 school. Two of those kids (one is my cousin's kid) left the sport altogether when it was clear they weren't going to MLB or a D1 program. Those 2 kids ended up transfering to a better college after having wasted 2 years at the marginal school. The other kid got injured and ended up not even graduating from the marginal school or any college. I have to think those families wonder whether having their entire lives dicated by baseball schedules for like 8 years and spending their kids's entire childhoods at baseball tournaments was really worth it in the end.

Honestly, I don't get it. Youth athletics are out of control. It's ridiculous that preteens and teens have to specialized to the point of neglecting all other aspects of their lives if they want to play on their school's team. Money and time wise, baseball (and a lot of other travel/club sports) seem like a long con run by a bunch of grifters preying on the fears of parents that their kids won't get into college or won't otherwise succeed unless they follow the travel sport bridge to nowhere.

The kids have fun and the money is not important so I don't see an issue.

And most importantly it’s no one else’s business how families choose to spend their time. If the kid loves it while it lasts it would seem like a pretty awesome childhood, even if some folks feel it’s a “waste” if kid doesn’t go pro someday.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid play with Lego so much, too? I don’t see much of a future in it for him.

Do Legos cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Require you to take short, expensive, overnight trips all across the country a dozen or more times a year? Disrupt your care and attention to any other children you have? Put thousands and thousands of miles on your vehicle?

What an absurd analogy.

Why is it hard to believe that some kids and yes their PARENTS too like this. It's social. Are you the lady knitting in the corner? Then no, it's probably not fun, but I love watching my kids play and I generally like socializing with the other parents in Holiday Inn lobby bars.

You live in the DMV, a culturally rich community filled with interesting places and people, and your idea of a fun and worthwhile weekend night out is sitting in a budget hotel lobby bar with people you only know because your kid plays with their kids? Do you not have any actual friends or genuine interests? I feel sorry for your kid that you are making them be the vehicle by which you try to make yourself feel like a success.

I am a DP, you have a very strange perspective on this. My kids play sports to learn teamwork, leadership, persistence, resilience, and time management. Is it the only way to do this? Of course, not, but they have gained some really valuable skills from the experience. My kid played travel ball because they couldn’t get enough …until they were burnt out around ninth grade. Yes we spent many weekends at dingy hotels with the same families over and over but it wasn’t for that. It was for our kids. Your time with your kids is short, the time to explore the “culturally rich“ benefits of DC is much longer. Also, two things can be true, you may spend many weekends at travel baseball tournaments at the same time spending many nights exploring “culturally rich“ experiences in the world. You have such a narrow view on this that you’re losing the argument.

I was responding specifically to the parent who said they *enjoyed* hanging out at the Holiday Inn bar with the other baseball parents weekend after weekend. I stand by my statement. And your kid can play baseball without doing travel baseball. They can get excerise, learn teamwork, persistence, resilience, etc. from playing on non-travel teams. And if you don't sign them up for this tunnel vision all-baseball-all-the-time lifestyle, they might have a chance to play other sports that they can learn *different* skills from. If every single free moment of their lives wasn't conscripted to baseball practices and games, they might even have time to explore in *other non-sports activities* like having non-baseball friends, learning an instrument, or just having unstructured free time to be a kid -- all of which would broaden their life experiences and perspective while supporting a growth mindset and creating positive mental and physical health benefits both in the short and long term. There is a scientific consensus that allowing kids to have unstructered time is essentially to their long term mental and physical health. Overspecialization is and obessive pursuits (whether the obessession is fueled by the kid, as you tell yourself that it is, or is fueled by the parents' need to feel validated, which is what is really happening) are not good for your kid.

So the argument that "I'm doing it for my kid" is unpersuasive because it's terrible for the kids involved. It deprives them of other experiences, teaches them to chase with tunnel vision one thing to the exclusion of everything else life has to offer, takes away their unstructured time, reduces the whole family life to one activity in which they are the centerpiece (which is both too much pressure and too little opportunity for genunine relationship building and connection within the family) and if they don't burn out on their own it will spit them out the other side with almost nothing to show for the years it stole from them. Your kid may be asking to do it (either because they are feeding on overly-competive peer influences, or - as is more likely - they are feeding on your intensity and excitement when they succeed in baseball) but kids will ask to do a lot of things that aren't good for them. My kid would probably stay up all night if I let him. He thinks staying up late is fun and he enjoys doing it, but that doesn't mean he gets to. Parents who do this travel baseball con tell themselves they are doing it for their kids, but they are doing it because it makes them feel good about *themselves.*

Touch grass and heal.

[Anonymous]

FYI. Skaggs follows every single crazy right wing MAGA profile on IG. He follows all the Trumps. Not that this is surprising but it’s just confirmation that Primetime is trumpy ‘scumbags’ as previously mentioned.

[Anonymous]

What about stars? Also kind of scummy.