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.

Where are you playing that has hotels at $500/night?

BTW, the “stay-to-play” is all bullshit. Usually just the coaches have to stay at the hotel.

My kid played for both a local DMV and a national travel team and they both were very transparent that players could stay anywhere they wanted (usually rented an AirBnB with other families) even though the tournament would send out threatening emails.

We started at 8U but my kid is the type to go out in the backyard and play sports by himself, watch sports, read books about sports, etc. I did a travel sport as a kid and loved it so we figured we’d give it a shot at 8U. He’s now 10U and begs for extra training. He is the type who has never once complained about a practice, waking up early for a game, missing out on birthday parties, etc. If he decides he is done at some point, we will follow his lead, but for now he loves it.

Also, we use the tournaments for travel (some are near a beach or mountains). So it can be nice family time. There are also usually lots of siblings around for our younger one to play with.

One benefit to starting around age 8/9 (when many teams form) is getting in on the ground level. At this age there does seem to be a loyalty to the returning kids trying out even if they say there isn’t. This is of course assuming your kid meets the relative skill level, is coach able, shows up on time, your family isn’t a pain, etc. I doubt they’d cut a solid kid that gets along with the team for an unknown kid who is just slightly better.

That said there does seem to be turnover every year and new teams forming (e.g. an A and a B team) so it’s not impossible to make a team closer to age 13+ if your kid is good.

If you do it though I think going in with the attitude that it’s for fun, exercise, new experiences, team bonding, self challenge, etc. is the way to go. The parents who go into for a D1 scholarship are a whole different breed.

And of course your family needs the time and money or you’ll be miserable.

My kid is playing in college and we didn’t start until 11u and played for a team that didn’t travel to any overnight tournaments until 13u.

In fact, since Patriot Park opened in Fairfax I was told that team doesn’t even travel at all through 14u (when that organization ends…they don’t field HS age teams).

We also never played Summers…there really wasn’t any point until summer after freshman year in HS…and even then only if you were comsidering playing in college and were told you had a legit shot.

Not all travel programs are the same. Some are more local, less travel especially at younger ages. If parent lead team, I would look for a team where the coach/parent played at least high school, hopefully college ball. If that team's win-loss record stinks, still go there because he's probably sacrificing wins for player development.

My wife was initially against it at 9U, but quickly saw how playing with/against better competition made him better. He loves it...but it's baseball and always a lot of public failure, which is a great life skill.

Find a good fit and give it a try. Like Daniel Tiger says....gotta try new things because they might taste good!

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.

I think they is very bad advice for many of the competitive high schools around there. Many of the travel kids won’t even make our high school Jv team. I don’t see anyone who just plays rec making it.

Sounds like you’ve made up your mind, OP and I admire your ability to say eff it! We did travel ball for all 3 boys (plus some AAU basketball mixed in). My oldest is now a full-fledged college grad and the others are in HS (so still playing club plus high school ball).

Oldest went D3. Second is better ball player but wants a more normal college experience. 3rd is TBD. Problem with 3 is that oldest started at 9u travel so the others followed. Needless to say, I’ve been a travel baseball mom for a long.damn.time.

It’s a definite time suck. As others have said, your summer is lost. Vacations (if you can call them that) are long-distance tournaments. There’s always drama on every team- and we’ve definitely seen a few! There’s managing overly competitive teammates and parents. There’s never any time, frankly, to do much else. No summering on the coast, no trips to Europe during break (b/c spring break and winter break = training too!), all grandparents came to us for the most part (and had to sit through several baseball games while here!)

That said, my boys loved it. Travel ball was the cornerstone of their childhoods. I’m sure there are plenty out there who scoff and think it’s a waste. But, really, what else can you wish for your kid but to do something they love with their friends (yes, friendships grow too- even on competitive teams!) every weekend. All of my boys are happy and healthy people who would not have wanted it any other way. I, too, have enjoyed the experience but didn’t end up with the lifelong “team mom” friends that you see bandied about on IG. I was there for my kids, who absolutely wanted to be there, so I was ready to jump in and do my part for them.

If a family chooses to go forth with club/travel sports, it must be driven by the kid’s desire to play and- as said- the whole family must be on board because it’s a huge sacrifice.

Now may not be the time, OP. But if your son loves it, you may want to revisit it in a few years. As long as he keeps playing and practicing, he’ll have opportunities to shine.

PP: Thanks for the replies; this is definitely not for us!

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.

If you're in NoVA, you've missed it. Tryouts were the month of May. There may be a handful of teams still searching, but most are done with evaluations.

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.

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.

Travel sports are a lifestyle choice.

Do you like money? Because you won’t have any going forward.

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.

I'd never put an 8 year old in travel. Nor would I put ANY kid in travel who was not absolutely begging to do it. It is a really huge commitment and has to be 100% kid-driven.

DS (8) is finishing up spring rec baseball. We've a handful of comments from other parents encouraging us to look into XYZ travel team. Any advice from anyone that's gone down this road? He certainly likes playing but we have zero expectations from him for sports outside of playing through the season after he commits to it.