OnTheLine85
Well-known member
Great points and you're correct on all of it.Some, but a very small few have paid coaches. Those that do have paid coaches are 99% true select teams. On the other hand, those with a parent head coach are a 50/50 chance, at best, of being a true select team.
With that being said, a team could be a parent coached team, not a truly select team, and still be run by parents with proper intentions and not simply disgruntled and wanting more playing time for their kid. The problem is the snowball effect of so many kids leaving local leagues for greener pastures. At some point, even if you're kid isn't elite, the community league has gotten so dry of talent, you're put in a position to move your kid to travel ball even if he's just average or a little better than average, just to get him around half decent competition.
In my opinion, 80% of all travel ball kids should be playing in their local league, instead of "traveling" and playing against the same kids they would play if they were all at home. The cost to play youth baseball would fall dramatically, and would make the sport more accessible to a lot of talented kids that are priced out right now. Kids that could contribute significantly to the sport, but are instead finding homes at more welcoming sports.
Everyone thinks they're kid is getting college money, and that's honestly what drives alot of this at a younger age. And by the time they're in high school, it's "well, we've come this far, we have to keep playing", even though most people truly know they're kid isn't getting college money. They aren't honest with themselves and their kid.
We all know kids that have played select baseball since 4th grade. We would all also admit a large percentage of those kids never made it anywhere close to any college baseball field, at any level. Same is true for basketball, but even tougher for those kids.
They've destroyed their local leagues and it honestly was never necessary. It just made them feel better being on a "special" team - and that's the honest truth for 95% of them, even though they will come back and tell us how much fun they had while doing it. OK then - just be honest - you did this to take multiple vacations with families you like hanging out with.