Random Cubs Musings

[jersey cubs fan]

A kid can play as much baseball as he wants. Tons of opportunities almost year round.

 

in some of the country that's true

[Banedon]

A kid can play as much baseball as he wants. Tons of opportunities almost year round.

 

My boy plays city rec league in spring and plays competitive tournaments in spring and summer. Then a light schedule in fall.

 

Better than video games or being a couch potato.

 

My 6yo son plays hockey, soccer, swims and will start basketball this fall (not all at the same time), and still plays video games and watches tv. They aren't mutually exclusive.

[bukie]

A kid can play as much baseball as he wants. Tons of opportunities almost year round.

 

in some of the country that's true

Yeah, around here, there is immensely more interest in youth soccer than youth baseball. My son's youth baseball league (combined boys and girls) had just under 60 total players age 4-6. The same area's fall soccer league (also combined boys and girls) has 130 players age 5-6, not including the players that play in the U8 traveling league.

[Guest]

A kid can play as much baseball as he wants. Tons of opportunities almost year round.

 

in some of the country that's true

 

At only some income levels. Organized baseball is cost-prohibitive compared to soccer and football.

[Tracer Bullet]

A kid can play as much baseball as he wants. Tons of opportunities almost year round.

 

in some of the country that's true

 

At only some income levels. Organized baseball is cost-prohibitive compared to soccer and football.

 

Wait what. Organized baseball is more costly than organized football? Are we talking flag football?

 

Clearly soccer is the cheapest. But baseball is also pretty cheap for young kids.

[jersey cubs fan]

A kid can play as much baseball as he wants. Tons of opportunities almost year round.

 

in some of the country that's true

 

At only some income levels. Organized baseball is cost-prohibitive compared to soccer and football.

 

Wait what. Organized baseball is more costly than organized football? Are we talking flag football?

 

Clearly soccer is the cheapest. But baseball is also pretty cheap for young kids.

 

Football with pads sure isn't cheap, but neither is baseball. You can play a pick-up game of football with one football. Baseball requires a glove for each kid, plus a bat and balls.

[Tracer Bullet]

Organized baseball isn't that expensive. Depends on the league fees but a glove is like $15-20 for a kid.

 

I wouldn't call it prohibitively expensive, esp if we're saying football is not.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The difference is that football is pretty much only the school team, or maybe a park league team for younger kids. If you want to play baseball in high school, you better have been on the right (read: expensive) travel teams since you were about 4.

[Guest]

Yeah, my point was more that for low-income families, keeping kids in baseball is expensive because you have usually have to be in a club team post-little league. Football is available most everywhere starting in jr high. I'm pretty sure that most jr highs don't have a baseball team, unless they're private (again excluding low income families).

[XZero771679666304]

Yeah, my point was more that for low-income families, keeping kids in baseball is expensive because you have usually have to be in a club team post-little league. Football is available most everywhere starting in jr high. I'm pretty sure that most jr highs don't have a baseball team, unless they're private (again excluding low income families).

 

Our junior high didn't have a team, but there were three different leagues that were cheap and accessible. It definitely helped if you could invest in your own equipment, but all that was required was a glove and a modest-moderate (depending on the league) fee. And the the same was true of just about every town in our area. Unless you were absolutely terrible or in abject poverty, you could find a spot on a team.

 

Football opportunities were more limited, for sure.

[neely crenshaw]

You can't equate what was around when we were kids with today's costs. Baseball has gone to travel teams at early ages. Yes, there is little league but it is nothing like it was. Most places it is a "park and rec" program for players who aren't good enough or able to afford travel. If you look at the LLWS almost every kid is also on a high end travel club.

There are teams that it costs 1500 to try out...with no refund. I met a 9 year old travel coach from Florida that was paid 65,000 a year to coach the 9 year old team.

It's not little league at the neighborhood park anymore. Little leaguers might play 25 games a season, travel ball teams (even in the north) can play around 100. We played a team from Apocka (by Orlando). He had 11 players that only played baseball(this was at 14) We were playing at disney in january. He said it was their last tourney of the year, and then they would get 2 weeks off and start the new season. That's hard to compete against playing only little league.

[XZero771679666304]

You can't equate what was around when we were kids with today's costs. Baseball has gone to travel teams at early ages. Yes, there is little league but it is nothing like it was. Most places it is a "park and rec" program for players who aren't good enough or able to afford travel. If you look at the LLWS almost every kid is also on a high end travel club.

There are teams that it costs 1500 to try out...with no refund. I met a 9 year old travel coach from Florida that was paid 65,000 a year to coach the 9 year old team.

It's not little league at the neighborhood park anymore. Little leaguers might play 25 games a season, travel ball teams (even in the north) can play around 100. We played a team from Apocka (by Orlando). He had 11 players that only played baseball(this was at 14) We were playing at disney in january. He said it was their last tourney of the year, and then they would get 2 weeks off and start the new season. That's hard to compete against playing only little league.

 

Of course there are those (and they're not all that new), but they're not by any stretch the only options for kids to get on a field and play competitive ball, and I think that's what we're talking about here.

[Sammys Boombox]

You can't equate what was around when we were kids with today's costs. Baseball has gone to travel teams at early ages. Yes, there is little league but it is nothing like it was. Most places it is a "park and rec" program for players who aren't good enough or able to afford travel. If you look at the LLWS almost every kid is also on a high end travel club.

There are teams that it costs 1500 to try out...with no refund. I met a 9 year old travel coach from Florida that was paid 65,000 a year to coach the 9 year old team.

It's not little league at the neighborhood park anymore. Little leaguers might play 25 games a season, travel ball teams (even in the north) can play around 100. We played a team from Apocka (by Orlando). He had 11 players that only played baseball(this was at 14) We were playing at disney in january. He said it was their last tourney of the year, and then they would get 2 weeks off and start the new season. That's hard to compete against playing only little league.

 

Of course there are those (and they're not all that new), but they're not by any stretch the only options for kids to get on a field and play competitive ball, and I think that's what we're talking about here.

 

There is a large percentage of the country where the current choice is 1. Pay literally thousands for your kid to play against halfway decent ball players sacrificing nearly every weekend and neglecting your other kids or 2. Play rec league and get left way behind kids who are nowhere near as talented but they get good instruction and plenty of repetitions.

 

At age 10 or younger.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

And come junior high, let alone high school, you would have to be a total superstar to make the team ahead of someone who has played in the unofficially official travel teams for the last eight years.

[Sammys Boombox]

And come junior high, let alone high school, you would have to be a total superstar to make the team ahead of someone who has played in the unofficially official travel teams for the last eight years.

 

Yep.

[Guest]

And come junior high, let alone high school, you would have to be a total superstar to make the team ahead of someone who has played in the unofficially official travel teams for the last eight years.

 

Yep.

No. Most of those kids are on the travel team because one or both of their parents are living vicariously through them. It's a brag wall. Talent will out. The kids who are on those teams because of talent don't pay a lot to play on the team. Someone else pays. It's the way these things operate.

 

Also, often the coaching on those teams is abysmal. The way kids get better is in the offseason when they go to skilled people to get private lessons or small group instruction. That does cost money though. But if they talent isn't there to begin with it won't matter.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

BACK ON TOPIC.

 

Dioner Navarro leads the Cubs in wOBA. Hope they can re-sign him.

[Sammys Boombox]

And come junior high, let alone high school, you would have to be a total superstar to make the team ahead of someone who has played in the unofficially official travel teams for the last eight years.

 

Yep.

No. Most of those kids are on the travel team because one or both of their parents are living vicariously through them. It's a brag wall. Talent will out. The kids who are on those teams because of talent don't pay a lot to play on the team. Someone else pays. It's the way these things operate.

 

Also, often the coaching on those teams is abysmal. The way kids get better is in the offseason when they go to skilled people to get private lessons or small group instruction. That does cost money though. But if they talent isn't there to begin with it won't matter.

 

All of what you said is true, but the point is these travel leagues make the rec leagues absolutely atrocious in almost all rural/suburban areas of the country. Most of the kids who play travel ball are not near good enough to justify it, but them playing travel ball guts the rec leagues.

 

I've seen every side of this. I have coached a travel team, umpires hundreds of travel games, watched one of my brothers play hundreds of travel games which meant my other brother and myself got stuck in rec league. Thankfully, no travel team materialized in my age group so our rec league did not suck, but my other brother got left way behind. I started on the best two teams our HS has ever put out. He got cut after sophomore year on a much worse team (same HS). He was a better athlete and more driven than me. My third brother is 12 years younger than me. The rec leagues now are a total joke compared to when I played. He's been playing travel since he was 9. My parents can't afford it, but his loaded coach insists on paying for everything because he thinks they're going to win state when they're in HS. I want to scream at him, "You have no clue what their competition is going to be like! How can you claim this group of 12-year-olds is going to win state?"

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Think Wellington Castillo stinks defensively behind the plate? You're wrong. He's great. Here's why.

[davell]

Think Wellington Castillo stinks defensively behind the plate? You're wrong. He's great. Here's why.

It's been noticeable from the beginning of the season. Whoever that dude is that's been working with him has earned a big raise. That said, I didn't realize he's come THAT far as quickly as he has.

[TruffleShuffle]

is that really true?!? the cubs gave the rays a choice of castillo or chirinos and the rays chose chirinos? i thought chirinos would make a decent mlb backup, but jeez, i'd take the younger player with more upside in a deal like that.

[Guest]

For whatever reason, the sentiment among analytic fans at that time(outside the Cubs) was that Chirinos was basically a league average MLB catcher ready to plug in for 6 years of quality production. You and I understand that as lunacy, but we also weren't super high on Castillo at that time either, even with his bounce back offensive season.

[Gmoney08]

And come junior high, let alone high school, you would have to be a total superstar to make the team ahead of someone who has played in the unofficially official travel teams for the last eight years.

 

Thats just not true. Talent rises to the top.

 

I played at one of the top baseball programs in the state (ranked nationally multiple years) and I'm friends with alot of the top HS and travel coaches.

 

Plenty of talented Rec kids or kids from partial travel teams or inferior travel teams end up making the HS teams over fulltime travel kids every year.

 

 

One HS coaches could care less what travel program your kid came from as an 8th grader, the varsity coaches dont care who you are till maybe freshmen year but more often then not until you prove something on the sophomore level (whether its as a freshman or a sophomore).

 

The varsity coaches also know that a good percentage of these travel teams are ran by dads who created the team just to get many times his inferior son in travel ball, or to get his inferior son off some other dads travel team that wasnt playing his kid alot.

 

There is so much travel talent that comes to high school each year that truth be told they werent even better than the top Rec players or the small time travel players when they were 11, let alone now at age 14 and 15. These kids think oh well i played travel so I'm a guarantee starter on the freshman team and then end up cut from the team because of better kids who either didnt have the money to play travel ball, didnt want to play travel ball, or were just late bloomers.

[Derwood]

Just found this video I made for Opening Day 2009. Makes me sad how this team used to make me excited, and now I barely care

[illiniguy]

The difference is that football is pretty much only the school team, or maybe a park league team for younger kids. If you want to play baseball in high school, you better have been on the right (read: expensive) travel teams since you were about 4.

In no way is this true. My younger brother didn't play on any fancy traveling teams and moved right before he started high school. He played all four years of high school, was first team all state, and lead his team to a state title. That other crap is a nice way for people to make money off of families thinking that their kids have to do it.