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Originally posted by akfodysvn
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"Select" "Tournament" or "Travel" ball these days and at this level is quite a bit different than it may have been - and those are general terms these days too. Meaning that it's far from 7 days a week practices and such. Yes, he does have a lesson once a week. Yes, there may be a few 2-3 hour practices each week - especially during the summer. Yes, I try to practice with them without them knowing that (games)...etc. Yes, at least 1 day on the weekend is gone in a hotel/on the road for a tournament. However, they are kids and it's not like I live on a ranch where they have to work 30-50 hours, do school and then their sports.
There are teams that are machines by 8u. A lot of money poured into them, they don't smile very much and their dugout is on lockdown. Yes, maybe those kids are happy - I don't really know. I know that's not what I want to do with my kids. "Select" for what I'm doing involves tryouts. However, it's more about getting a group of really good kids together, working on fundamentals and working on that in tournaments. The goal absolutely is to win, but the kids will drive that when they lose. None of the kids want/like to lose on these teams and will push themselves and cooperate more.
Rec ball is awesome a lot of times, but you tend to have drafts/other things where 40-75% of the team does not even want to be there. So yeah - select costs more, but it's worth it if you can afford it/make it happen. Essentially I consider this filter #1 - filter #2 is him making his own choice to work 5-7 days a week at it, get out running, lifting weights...etc. Essentially, to get to the next level he really will have to up his game or he won't make a team at the older ages. However, he has to make that choice. Yes, there are teams/parents/coaches that have their kids doing all that at 6/7/8/9...5...4..whatever, but I decided not to since I don't want to risk burning him out. I will say though, that I totally get it and if done right it's not a bad thing for the kid at all to get in that kind of shape and used to that sort of activity.
My daughter's softball team is nothing but a bunch of girls from Pottsboro, VA, Tom Bean...Bells...small towns. All just want to play hard and when put on a team together they do great against big city teams.
Anyway, don't fall for all the hype out there about youth sports. Ultimately, you have control over your kid and sometimes the best move is to not move up or put a kid on a toxic team. All sports are the same at this age in my book - it's all about fundamentals and start getting the mental side down pat.
I have a rule that my kids have to always be in some sort of activity outside of school. I don't care if it's chess or debate, but something else. Yes, they do have down time but end game is to keep them busy and hopefully reduce the risk of drugs/stupid acts that land them in jail. My thought is I can spend a lot on sports, get mutual enjoyment out of it - or save up for lawyers. Kids that are bored for extended periods of time will get into shit. These days minor things have them in handcuffs.
Plus, they have a blast when they push through some challenge. Whether that's batting, making a throw down to 2 from C to get an out, turning 2 (which was done at 6u), stolen bases, good defense in basketball, good passing, good throwing, catching a huge fly ball to OF...etc.
That's another nice thing about select ball - basically every position is the most important position. (I'd argue P and C are though) These teams hit hard, bunt well and generally are fast base runners. My daughter is C and OF as needed. My son is C and 3, 2 or SS as needed - both are primary at C. They block, do their throw downs and get real physical as needed for plays at the plate. I watch 14u rec players that simply do not play C correctly yet. All this due to better coaching and working hard as individuals. (There is no easy hiding bad kids in competitive ball)
Pitching is something to be careful of - but I just don't know enough about it to comment much. I just see a lot of 10U kids with injured arms, but that can even come from long toss sometimes.
/stopping now.
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