Travel teams are eroding community baseball: Washington Post opinion

The shortstop ranged nimbly to his right, scooped up a sharp grounder and unleashed a strong throw to first base. Seeing the athletic play by my son, a burly fellow leaned against the chain-link fence.

"You've got a nice little ballplayer there," the man, Mike Adams, told me. "You should think about getting him into a full-time travel program. The sooner, the better."

I was a neophyte in the byzantine world of youth baseball, and Adams' husky voice carried the resonance of a father who had logged many hours behind caged dugouts. Yet I had to chuckle. "Mike," I said, "Nate's just 9. Full-time travel baseball, really?"

In the past three years, as an assistant coach with the youth baseball organization in Oak Park, Ill., and as manager of one of its part-time travel teams, I've watched more than a dozen kids my son's age follow the route suggested by Adams. Lured by a chance to compete at a more elite level, they've left local baseball for various full-time travel teams in Chicago's suburbs. Full-time travel baseball means many more practices and many more games — many of them far away. To rise in rankings and win tournaments, some teams, especially in warm climates, play nearly year-round, competing in as many as 120 games per year, more than most minor league players.

Travel ball is not new — it's been around for a couple of decades. But participation in full-time travel baseball has exploded in recent years. For example, in 2000, Atlanta's first All-American Wood Bat Classic tournament opened with about a dozen teams. This Memorial Day weekend, nearly 100 squads from half a dozen states will descend on fields throughout metropolitan Atlanta to participate. The players range in age from 8 to 14. Rebecca Davis, executive director of the Atlanta-based Youth Amateur Travel Sports Association, estimates that there are tens of thousands of travel teams in Georgia and Florida alone.

"The fast growth absolutely blindsided us," she conceded. "Those days of rec ball and local Little League, or just going to the park and playing ball — those days are nonexistent. They're gone. Now, it's all about travel."

That's an overstatement. Yes, Little League enrollment has declined 20 percent since its peak in 1997, from 3 million to 2.4 million. But 2.4 million players hardly suggests that community leagues are disappearing. And many young travel team players also play on their local teams.

Still, it's true that the playing field for youth baseball has changed dramatically since Little League was founded 75 years ago. And with the loss of so many players and their families to travel teams, our community league games have lost a certain sense of community.

Carl Stotz started Little League as a program that would teach sportsmanship and teamwork to preteen boys in his home town, Williamsport, Pa. The first game was played on June 6, 1939, when Lundy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy. The local business sponsorships helped keep participation costs low and root the teams in their communities. To this day, defined areas from which each local league can draw prevent teams from poaching good players from one another.

Travel ball, by contrast, is not cheap — participation fees average about $2,000 per player per year. And teams may invite players from anywhere in the region. Since tournaments and games are usually in other towns, players and their parents must spend many hours commuting.

Some travel ballplayers resemble professional athletes: Year by year, they go from one travel team to another, switching teammates and uniforms, with the name splashed across the front of the jersey usually signifying something other than their home town.

"Where's the local pride gone?" asked Tim Dennehy, pitching coach for Oak Park-River Forest High School's varsity team. "By the time my teammates and I got to high school, we were like family. We were already a team, picking each other up, playing for our community. Now, guys arrive from a bunch of different teams, and they know guys in the other dugout better than they know each other."

There have been concerns about the competitiveness fostered by youth baseball since Little League was in its infancy. As far back as 1957, Sports Illustrated wrote: "The two basic arguments which strike at the roots of Little League pop up year after year: it puts too much competitive pressure on the children; it brings out the monster in too many parents and adult leaders."

That description reminds me of my part-time travel team's first tournament victory in July 2012. The pugnacious coaching dad of the opposing team was so angered by an intentional walk I called, in hopes of setting up a double play, that he refused his second-place trophies and verbally threatened one of my assistant coaches. (I'll admit that it was probably poor form to intentionally walk a 10-year-old.)

But full-time travel teams encourage pressure, and negative character traits, of a higher order.

Dennehy, who pitched in the Yankees system, worries that they are breeding a more selfish mind-set, with some players far more concerned about their individual statistics than team performance. Their teams, after all, are ever changing.

And, of course, the whole system is based on the idea that travel teams offer elite athletes more professional coaching and more competitive play. While the expansion of travel ball may have diluted the level of competition somewhat, it's indisputable that travel players, who log so many more hours at the ballfield, tend to pick up both fundamentals and sophisticated skills at earlier ages. They're graduating from youth play to high school throwing pitches at a higher velocity than ever, and fielding and hitting with more proficiency than in eras past.

But Stephen Keener, president and chief executive of Little League International, questions whether travel ball is the key to something more. "There's this belief that a travel team and a higher level of competitive play will propel a child to a higher place. That belief is misguided," he told me. "There is something to be said for high-quality instruction, but at the end of the day, the player and his personal desire and his athletic ability will determine how far he goes in baseball."

As a parent, though, it's hard to resist the implications of the travel-team websites listing alumni who have gone on to college and pro teams. Who wouldn't want to give their child the best chance at success?

Major League Baseball officials are looking at why higher numbers of budding pitching stars, such as Stephen Strasburg and Jose Fernandez, have suffered severe arm injuries in their early 20s. To a youth-coaching dad like myself, the answer is plain: overuse at young ages.

"I'm doing more and more operations on younger and younger arms every year," said Timothy Kremchek, head physician for the Cincinnati Reds, who specializes in Tommy John arm surgeries. "These kids are being overused and abused. They are playing on too many different teams and throwing too many breaking pitches. It's something we know about, but the abuse goes on. The parents are chasing some sort of dream. It makes me sick."

Kremchek has been instrumental in instituting pitch limits and banning breaking pitches in youth baseball in Ohio. And teams affiliated with Little League Baseball have implemented pitch limits nationwide, which is a start. Still, as Keener notes, many Little League participants also play on travel teams outside their local leagues, while others are on full-time teams, making it impossible for governing bodies to police how much baseball a kid is playing each year.

"For too many kids, the genesis of a kid's passion for playing baseball is being lost in the full-time travel movement," laments Jim Donovan, a Chicago area baseball instructor and former University of Illinois second baseman. "It really troubles me when parents and coaches intervene in the process to the extent that kids just aren't enjoying the game anymore. And believe me, I see this all the time — kids who grab their gear bags, and the bags look so heavy on their shoulders, you know? And the kid's face, it just looks blank.

"The games have become so serious, and so many kids aren't enjoying it. It just breaks my heart when I see a kid reacting like that to the game that I love so much and have put so much faith in."

My son is now 12 and, although we've toyed with the idea of full-time travel ball, he has stuck with our local league (which is community-based but not affiliated with Little League) and part-time travel, progressing nicely as a shortstop and pitcher. Primarily, he wanted to keep playing with his friends. He was also deterred by the intense schedule of practices and games. "The travel kids are always talking about how much they practice, like every day, even in the winter," Nathan told me. "If I went to a travel team, I think my pitching arm would fall off."

I'm glad he's stayed, because I think the most significant missing element in professionally coached travel ball is the father-son experience. No other American sport seems to bond fathers and sons as securely as baseball. There's something about the pacing of the game, the long season, the buildup to dramatic late-inning heroics on steamy summer days and nights.

Take the trophy ceremony on one of those hot nights in 2012. As I was passing out the first-place hardware to my players, lined up down the first base line, my son's turn arrived. I had fist-bumped each player before him. But when Nate jogged up to me, I seized him in a bear hug. A lump formed in my throat that surely was visible from the parking lot.

All the work that we had logged in the batting cages and on the practice fields rushed through my head, as did the sacrifices to my career and aging body. As a tear rolled down my cheek, Nathan looked up at me and said: "Dad, you gotta let go now. Everybody's watching us." I could have held my 10-year-old boy in that hug forever. No amount of paid coaching could buy that moment.

No. Do you?
The whole thing sounds to me like pure insanity though. I’m not talking part-time, I am talking about the full-time travel.
I would be willing to bet that it is the parent driving the child most of the time. A kid has a little talent and fun, and the parent takes that goes nuts. What normal parent thinks it’s actually good for a kid to live a life like that? What about roots? what about stability? None of that exists with a life like that.

I do. Have the experience of being a parent to a travel athlete, that is. Lacrosse, for the record. Women’s lacrosse.

You have read now one article on the topic and you seem to think that you know everything there is to know about it.

You don’t.

She rec’d a full ride to an out of state Division 1 school, and through the misfortune of a knee injury, was red shirted so she was at said school for 5 years. Turned it into a masters in addition to her undergrad.

Now is the youngest assistant AD the prep school she coaches at (in a major lacrosse hotbed location on the east coast) in their history. Also coaches a club team. In two years has been to the championship game twice, winning one of them.

Oh, and in those same 2 years has given birth to 2 beautiful healthy baby boys (married to her college sweetheart).

Frankly, I think my wife and I did pretty well, not that I’d ever consider us normal.

I’m sorry to suggest the following, but like the old Firesign Theatre album says (on this topic), Everything you Know is Wrong.

I have no objection to a youth moving on to travel ball after little league. I would qualify that by saying that to mean if he is a position player and not a pitcher, he would greatly benefit from all the additional repetitions both in the field and at bat. Also, players benefit greatly by playing in a caliber of ball above their age group or above their current talent level.

That being said, pitchers are often abused by pitching once or twice a week from March through November. You wonder where the Tommy John surgeries are coming from? Somebody has to pitch to all those position players who are getting all those additional reps. So, parents- guard your son's pitching arm and rely on pitch counts and make sure he gets a chance to rest his arm periodically- hopefully for several weeks at a time, several times a year. Better yet, let him be a position player who just pitches occasionally. His arm will last a lot longer.

Final words of advice, raise your boy to be a lefty. They stay in baseball forever.

you know what was fun southern rock? This past Memorial Day another Dad and his 7 year old son picked up his schoolmate friend (also 7) and met me and my boy (classmate/friend also 7) at the town’s baseball field.

We spent almost 2 hours in the morning doing BP, ground balls and base running.

It was a great way to start the day and it’s getting our boys needed practice for the upcoming season.

I agree with you regarding specialized sports that are not “pickup” game in nature like lacrosse.

But this whole “specialized” teams are typical new age crap.

You have latin 3rd worlders who play in rags and lousy equipment that end up kicking butt in the majors. Why? Desire and lots of playing.

Same with basketball. Do you think black kids in the cities became great because of travel teams or clinics? No way, tons of “playing” and then if one is hungry, individual practice.

I don’t have any problem with travel ball. I just think kids should play community ball or little league until they turn 13.

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I coached rec council baseball until my son was age 10 or so. By the time they get to that age, too many parents were sure their kids were the second coming of [fill in whoever was the most popular baseball player at the time].

I was a coach because my job afforded me the flexibility to do so (reason #2) but primarily so I could spend time with my son and his friends and share my love of the game with them (reason #1).

I don’t know anything about Cal badmouthing little league, would love to see his comments if you have access to them. A jiffy quick google search doesnt turn up anything.

Do you actually have any experience with children on a travel team? Do you think that every year the roster is completely new and parents don’t make an effort to keep their children on the same teams?

My nephew played for 6 different teams in the 12 years he played travel ball.

He knows lots of kids but never talks to any of them. No friendships were formed.

Of the kids from his longest tenured team that I know, about 6 have been on more than 4 teams and few of them keep in touch anymore.

We had one year were the team was kind of family-like. But after that it was just another minor league business. (My nephew left the team one year later)

My nephew was deprived a normal childhood (with such things as friends and unstructured time to just play) as he was either practicing or playing ball full time.

I hear you. I have even heard parents say “It’s okay if you lose this game, it’s just in-house” to their son. Travel ball is killing our little league. The best pitchers don’t pitch because they are “saving their arms” for the travel game, which is “obviously” more important than the lowly little league game. I feel bad for my oldest son. We are stuck in a SUPER competitive (elite?) little league district. He is a very good all-around player, but not what you’d call “elite”....which means able to hit home runs at will in my town. He can slap singles and doubles just about every at-bat and against the “elite” pitchers, but that’s not good enough apparently. He loves baseball, plays it well and just wants to be able to play and experience it in the summer. He would make just about any other district team in the area most likely, but not in the league we’re stuck with. The same 11 kids have played on the summer team since t-ball. I just wish he had options.

I agree, this sounds like the newest “new age” method of ruining a childs most influential years. My 3 sons still have active friendships with a couple of boys they went to grade schools with, played little league with, participated in scouting with and went thru high school with. It is funny to listen to them talk about the good old times that always end up being discussion about little league ball.

When we moved into our former neighborhood in the Summer of ‘87, we didn’t know any kids lived there until school opened in September. Then each afternoon, the corners near the bus stop were lined with station wagons (eventually SUVs) with Moms waiting to pick up kids to car them to soccer/swim/piano/violin/dance/whatever. ANYTHING but playing in the neighborhood. Often the kid started the day at swim practice at 5am! This is elementary school kids.

The parents’ mentality is that if Suzie or Johnny has the best training, develop high level skills, etc., s/he will win an athletic/music scholarship to XYZ University, relieving mom and dad of that tuition burden. I often wondered what would happen if they just put the extra $$$ into a scholarship fund. Typically, after 13 years the kids are burned out, most aren’t such stars that universities are pursuing them, and mom/dad are still stuck with the tuition bill. In the meanwhile, they’ve had NO real childhood. Sad.

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