Parents rumble at kids baseball game

[wood 11747]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Obviously football and basketball are extreme long shots for almost every kid, especially gringos.  There's a bit of a different dynamic at play in some of the lesser sports, though.  My son wants to play soccer in college -- he's not looking for a D1 program like UNC or Duke, he'd be cool at Southwestern or some other small school -- and conversations with coaches at those schools have highlighted an important aspect of recruit-ability:  grades.  Their take has consistently been if a kid is a good athlete who basically knows how to play the game and they're pulling maybe 3.5 or so in HS, they'll probably latch on somewhere.  The risk is just way lower.  Is there value in that?  It probably depends on the kid.  Mine is fairly interested in education, and I could easily see him teaching HS and being part of the coaching staff as well.  A small school in Texas is prime for that path.

This is where I am with my oldest boy in Volleyball. He's good at baseball, but as an athletic 6'3" freshman with good grades, he has a chance to be wayyy better and stand out wayyy more in the much smaller boys' volleyball talent pool. And he absolutely loves ROTC. Do they play volleyball at the service academies?

Edited June 22, 2019 by wood

[jimmyjazz 46984]

10 minutes ago, wood said:

This is where I am with my oldest boy in Volleyball. He's good at baseball, but as an athletic 6'3" freshman with good grades, he has a chance to be wayyy better and stand out wayyy more in the much smaller boys' volleyball talent pool.

My kid is "fortunate" to not be big enough even for baseball.  I doubt he'll hit 5' 10" when it's all said and done.  Fortunately he's fast as hell and does not quit.  Now if he'll just put in the time and effort to acquire some more elite soccer skills he'd end up hard to overlook.  He's not lazy, he plays all the time, he just likes doing what he does best, which is running defenses ragged.

Back to the topic of this thread:  so in all honesty, have any of y'all come close to being "that parent"?  I try very very hard to keep my mouth shut in games, but on one occasion my son took a ball straight to the face from about 3 feet away, dropped like a sack of potatoes, got up and tried to follow the play but the ref held him back.  I about flipped . . . tossed my coffee, said a couple of choice words, and then realized what was going on and walked myself off to the parking lot for a few minutes of self-imposed cool-down.  It was a really bad call by the ref.  Either stop play for injury or let play proceed, but to disallow the injured kid from getting back up yet letting play continue was bush league.  Ultimately my son was fine save a cut lip but I was pretty embarrassed with the way I handled it.

Edited June 22, 2019 by jimmyjazz

[RomaVicta 30506]

35 minutes ago, wood said:

I agree, but the problem is that (generally speaking) they just don't. Not anymore. They always have Fortnite or whatever other video game to occupy them when their parents aren't telling them to gtfo the house. And Youtube, and eleventy bazillion shows on demand. We had Beverly Hillbillies and Gilligan's Island. When there was nothing on tv or our parents kicked us out & we got bored, we could go get a baseball game together and be down at the church backstop playing within about 45 minutes. And even the kids that sucked had a general grasp of the game & could kinda play. Try that shit now. There are about 30 kids just on our 1-block long cul de sac, and I'd be shocked if my kids could get enough willing and/or able kids together in a 1 mile radius to form even one team.

Baseball was our Fortnite.

Yea. There's no doubt about all that.  I do wonder about generations of people expecting constant distraction and entertainment seldom forced to sit quiet and alone to just see what floats through your mind. 

Time will tell if it's an improvement or a step back or something else.

[Nueces River Rat 5753]

7 hours ago, Lobo said:

This shit is really getting out of hand.  I don't know what the fuck happened a few years ago but you can't find parents in Texas who don't think their little slugger is going to a Div. I program to play a big-time sport (football, baseball, basketball, maybe lacrosse).  It's not fucking happening, unless you're Somoan or Dominican.  Or a Dominican Somoan. 

And so this shit starts when they're fucking 9 years old.  The "traveling" teams, the elite leagues, the extra coaching, the thousands of dollars in high-tech gear, the private clinics, the premiere league "invitations", etc.  All because people think they're gonna make it all back when Junior gets that scholarship to Texas or Clemson.  First of all accept your child is good at their sport, but not exceptional.  Learn how Title IX works, most of the sports Junior can play at an elite level can't pay out a full ride.  And quit starting fights and being an asshole to the coaches, to the umpires, to the other parents, to the volunteering.  It's not worth the partial books scholarship to Montana State your kid is gonna somehow fuckup anyway because you never set a good example of how to treat people.  

Even if you're convinced your little guy is gonna play wide receiver or shooting guard in the Big XII someday soon...and you're willing to go fisticuffs with the little league commissioner over it...remember this at least:  Each year in this country, the amount of academic scholarship and grant money that goes unused totals in the several billions of dollars.  10-digit number.  Meanwhile, the unused athletic scholarship money barely registers in the millions of  dollars.  10 billion:10 million.  You are doing your child a 1000x more powerful service pulling them from a month of athletics in high school to just scour the nation for scholarships, foundations, and grant programs and then apply for those in force.  Plus, nobody starts brawls at the 1:1 interview panels for those kinda things.  Or shit, maybe they have.  That would be a fun youtube channel, some kinda worldstar for chess team moms.  

You nailed it and then some.  

A few years ago, some friends of ours son  got a 60% ride offer to UT and actually signed .    He ended up going in the 2nd or 3rd round of the MLB draft  (didn't go to UT as a result)  and is now playing Triple AAA ball.    At the time he was drafted, he was on all the top prospects lists put out by all the publications in baseball.   So if one of the top prospects in the nation coming out of high school was only getting a 60% offer to UT, can you imagine what others who are not making these list are being offered?   And  what about the kids who chose to play at a non traditional baseball power without  the deep pockets  or a D2 school?    Maybe 25% to 35% if they are lucky?  

Every April or May,  the posts on my Facebook feed start coming in with parents posing with their kids signing with D3 schools for the most part because by that  time of the academic year, D1 and D2 schools have already allocated their scholarships with signing periods in  the fall and winter.  I have to think either those kids are getting a heck of good deal in  academic based aid because D3 schools don't award athletic only scholies.  Or are the parents are going further into debt to see their kid play sports in college? Are they blinded with the fact they spent so much money getting him/her to this point, they have to see it play out at the next level?  

Now that my sports playing kids are  out of high school,  I cringe at some of the younger parents I know who are making some of the same mistakes I saw and actually participated in.  My oldest played travel ball for a couple of years.  Heck I knew he wasn't going to the next level, but he wanted to improve his skills.  But by the second summer, I had enough because I saw the organizers were using  what I will call the "scab" teams to help fund their "elite"  teams.  In other words, the scabs would play locally and in state while the elites would travel to Arizona, Florida, etc., to all these Perfect Game and other brand name tourneys were they promised scouts from all over the baseball playing world.   

Beside the racket some of these leagues and teams have become, the burnout of the kids and potential for injury is unreal now.  I played baseball through high school and I don't even recall anyone having Tommy John issues.  Now it's a fricken epidemic in some programs.   It all ties into these select coaches playing with the parents minds and "suggesting" the kid give up all other sports and concentrate on baseball 365 days of the year.   Never mind that many college and pro coaches and former players are screaming from the top of mountains to stop this nonsense because it's not healthy for a kid who is still developing.      

[wood 11747]

25 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

You nailed it and then some.  

A few years ago, some friends of ours son  got a 60% ride offer to UT and actually signed .    He ended up going in the 2nd or 3rd round of the MLB draft  (didn't go to UT as a result)  and is now playing Triple AAA ball.    At the time he was drafted, he was on all the top prospects lists put out by all the publications in baseball.   So if one of the top prospects in the nation coming out of high school was only getting a 60% offer to UT, can you imagine what others who are not making these list are being offered?   And  what about the kids who chose to play at a non traditional baseball power without  the deep pockets  or a D2 school?    Maybe 25% to 35% if they are lucky?  

Every April or May,  the posts on my Facebook feed start coming in with parents posing with their kids signing with D3 schools for the most part because by that  time of the academic year, D1 and D2 schools have already allocated their scholarships with signing periods in  the fall and winter.  I have to think either those kids are getting a heck of good deal in  academic based aid because D3 schools don't award athletic only scholies.  Or are the parents are going further into debt to see their kid play sports in college? Are they blinded with the fact they spent so much money getting him/her to this point, they have to see it play out at the next level?  

Now that my sports playing kids are  out of high school,  I cringe at some of the younger parents I know who are making some of the same mistakes I saw and actually participated in.  My oldest played travel ball for a couple of years.  Heck I knew he wasn't going to the next level, but he wanted to improve his skills.  But by the second summer, I had enough because I saw the organizers were using  what I will call the "scab" teams to help fund their "elite"  teams.  In other words, the scabs would play locally and in state while the elites would travel to Arizona, Florida, etc., to all these Perfect Game and other brand name tourneys were they promised scouts from all over the baseball playing world.   

Beside the racket some of these leagues and teams have become, the burnout of the kids and potential for injury is unreal now.  I played baseball through high school and I don't even recall anyone having Tommy John issues.  Now it's a fricken epidemic in some programs.   It all ties into these select coaches playing with the parents minds and "suggesting" the kid give up all other sports and concentrate on baseball 365 days of the year.   Never mind that many college and pro coaches and former players are screaming from the top of mountains to stop this nonsense because it's not healthy for a kid who is still developing.      

All of this, and yeah, the overuse injuries we're seeing with these kids now are crazy in severity and in frequency. Then we identify them as coaches and tell the parent the kid is hurt, and they just tell 'em to 'work through it'. Then we find out a week later that the injured kid is still working with a pitching coach 3 days a week and/or pitching for some team they were hiding from us. Not gonna magically heal up that way. We limit the kids' pitches, but we can't control what they do when they aren't with us, and some of 'em have parents who are either pushing them into further injury or are too stupid to limit them.

[Deej 77676]

Make sure your kids take academics seriously, and become above average at sports, if they can. Get school paid for. Succeed in life.

I had a full ride to School of Mines, half paid by basketball, and the other half by academics. I wasn't that great at basketball, but they were excited about getting a 5-A player. Ended up at UT, because the scholarship  money actually left money in my pocket, but kind of regret it. 

 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Deej

[TwiceHorn 31994]

Thing is, I'm not sure playing college sports, especially at the non-D1 level are worth the candle for kids with grades.  For one thing, it starts looking more like a job than fun, for another, it makes academically competing or even surviving, much harder if you have a major other than fizikal kultur und sport.

All but a tiny handful of the college athletes (football, basketball, baseball, tennis, golf) from my HS gave it up after a year or two.  Really, the only one I can think of that stuck with it ended up playing nine seasons in the NFL.  One did parlay it into Stanford, though.

Edited June 22, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[Deej 77676]

If it ain't fun, stop playing. I regret not playing for at least a few more years. I think I might have done better in college if I'd had the structure of playing sports. Once I had all that extra time on my hands and was free to party, it took awhile to adjust. GPA tanked a bit the first two years.

[Beau Vine 55829]

59 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

Every April or May,  the posts on my Facebook feed start coming in with parents posing with their kids signing with D3 schools for the most part because by that  time of the academic year, D1 and D2 schools have already allocated their scholarships with signing periods in  the fall and winter.  I have to think either those kids are getting a heck of good deal in  academic based aid because D3 schools don't award athletic only scholies.  Or are the parents are going further into debt to see their kid play sports in college? Are they blinded with the fact they spent so much money getting him/her to this point, they have to see it play out at the next level?  

Blows my mind to see kids "signing" with D3 schools.  They're not signing to play the sport.  They're signing to pay tuition there.

[Nueces River Rat 5753]

40 minutes ago, wood said:

All of this, and yeah, the overuse injuries we're seeing with these kids now are crazy in severity and in frequency. Then we identify them as coaches and tell the parent the kid is hurt, and they just tell 'em to 'work through it'. Then we find out a week later that the injured kid is still working with a pitching coach 3 days a week and/or pitching for some team they were hiding from us. Not gonna magically heal up that way. We limit the kids' pitches, but we can't control what they do when they aren't with us, and some of 'em have parents who are either pushing them into further injury or are too stupid to limit them.

My oldest graduated from high school in 2016.  When he was 10 (maybe a year younger or two) is when I first started paying attention to the select thing.  Like I noted, my son was never going to be the next college or MLB prospect and I knew it back then as well.   Anyhow he played Little League and in our area, the LL teams have put all star teams in the state and national tournaments over the years and some of these Select kids played LL just so they could get on one of those All Star teams.  And sure enough, a number of them did make it.   What used to disgust me was some the parents would literally be changing their kids uniform on the way to their  car  after a league game so they could rush to another ball park and play in a select game.  Or if their Saturday was completely dominated by Select, they would skip out on the LL game altogether.  A few season later they put a stop to this nonsense and basically required the kids to be committed to LL by playing X amount of game in order to qualify for All Stars.   I mean if they missed they had to have medical excuse or documented proof they were unavailable and were not playing select on the day they missed.  But that was way past the time we were done with LL.     

You could read it on some of these kids faces back then, they were tired of it.   When the ones that managed to stay with it played their last high school game in the playoffs and lost, you could read their faces that they were glad it was over and most didn't even play an inning of college ball.   I think the parents of these kids were more upset about them losing and their baseball careers coming to a close and were maybe shocked their kids were not balling their eyes out like a few did when football ended in early December.     Oh and yea, a few of them had arm issues and it was 100% due to the fact they were pitching a league games  when they were younger and then turning around later that day or the next, pitching a select.  And because little Johnny was making a name for himself,  the parents just went with it.  And the coaches of the Select team didn't  really care because it enhanced their organization where they could form more teams and keep the cash flow coming in.   

 

[wood 11747]

40 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

My oldest graduated from high school in 2016.  When he was 10 (maybe a year younger or two) is when I first started paying attention to the select thing.  Like I noted, my son was never going to be the next college or MLB prospect and I knew it back then as well.   Anyhow he played Little League and in our area, the LL teams have put all star teams in the state and national tournaments over the years and some of these Select kids played LL just so they could get on one of those All Star teams.  And sure enough, a number of them did make it.   What used to disgust me was some the parents would literally be changing their kids uniform on the way to their  car  after a league game so they could rush to another ball park and play in a select game.  Or if their Saturday was completely dominated by Select, they would skip out on the LL game altogether.  A few season later they put a stop to this nonsense and basically required the kids to be committed to LL by playing X amount of game in order to qualify for All Stars.   I mean if they missed they had to have medical excuse or documented proof they were unavailable and were not playing select on the day they missed.  But that was way past the time we were done with LL.     

You could read it on some of these kids faces back then, they were tired of it.   When the ones that managed to stay with it played their last high school game in the playoffs and lost, you could read their faces that they were glad it was over and most didn't even play an inning of college ball.   I think the parents of these kids were more upset about them losing and their baseball careers coming to a close and were maybe shocked their kids were not balling their eyes out like a few did when football ended in early December.     Oh and yea, a few of them had arm issues and it was 100% due to the fact they were pitching a league games  when they were younger and then turning around later that day or the next, pitching a select.  And because little Johnny was making a name for himself,  the parents just went with it.  And the coaches of the Select team didn't  really care because it enhanced their organization where they could form more teams and keep the cash flow coming in.   

 

Yep. CenTex, which is what our Pony League moved to last year, prohibits players from playing on select/travel teams and also playing on All Star teams in the tournament. Our league enforces the rule. If you're on a select/travel team roster, then you're done with all stars. Of course kids on other teams are still doing it though. We can only field one 14U all star team, and we're young, almost all 13 yos and one playing up as a 12 yo (my kid). At least 2 or 3 of the teams we were playing against were basically all 14 yos with several kids that we know are playing for other teams.

[wood 11747]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

We play on a 9u “club” team. All kids were 8 at time season started and so we were youngest team in the league. We put the team together, but the skill level varies. There are a few that aren’t up to the level of the rest. We won the league and went 12-0. Didn’t play in the postseason tourney and instead played in a Dallas area “select” team tourney for 9u. Got our asses kicked by kids with mustaches and walk up music and dipshit parents. 

...and you know they were lying about the ages of a lot of those kids. We've played teams like that before. I don't understand what they get out of beating up on younger teams with older kids. It certainly won't make them better players & there's really no entertainment value in it.

[XYZ 2154]

There must be some entertainment value in it for the dipshit parents.

[wood 11747]

10 minutes ago, XYZ said:

There must be some entertainment value in it for the dipshit parents.

I shoulda said there's no entertainment value for normal, rational parents/fans.

[Not a cat 5804]

Our community traveling baseball teams are divided into A, AA and AAA.  One dad who is on the board rigs the teams so the AAA team consists of the top 10 kids plus his son.  Problem is, his son is A level.  Like 3 errors a game, batting .050 bad.  The kid is miserable and his teammates all are old enough to realize what's going on and resent it, but hey dad gets to tell everyone his kid is AAA.

Turbo parents just fuck up youth sports.  

[WhatTheBuck 28904]

1 hour ago, wood said:

I shoulda said there's no entertainment value for normal, rational parents/fans.

Those are contradicting terms. 

[NorthLoop 14421]

3 hours ago, Not a cat said:

Our community traveling baseball teams are divided into A, AA and AAA.  One dad who is on the board rigs the teams so the AAA team consists of the top 10 kids plus his son.  Problem is, his son is A level.  Like 3 errors a game, batting .050 bad.  The kid is miserable and his teammates all are old enough to realize what's going on and resent it, but hey dad gets to tell everyone his kid is AAA.

Turbo parents just fuck up youth sports.  

Uggh I had a coach like that. His son was the starting 3B for 2 years. Made an error on almost every ball that came his way. Parents would get livid with the coach after the game if their kid sat any innings when this kid played the full game every game. We even had a pretty good player whose dad up and pulled him off the team and season because of this jackass. 

[NorthLoop 14421]

Oh and speaking of mustaches on kids in select ball - anyone here play any select soccer in the 90's? Remember a team called The Pumas? They were one of the elite teams that went around winning most of the tourneys they played in. Problem was, this was an U-14 league and most of these kids were 6' with facial hair. Half didn't speak English (no racist). Basically a team full of Danny Almonte soccer stars. 

[Guest]

On 6/21/2019 at 11:20 PM, tx 3 putt said:

sport parents are the worst 

My mom pushed sports on us hard.  We loved playing and competing, but most of time as a ute, I seriously doubted that it was necessarily my choice.  Lol.

We had a couple of rules:

1) don’t quit during the season

2) don’t embarrass Mom with our behavior/ sportsmanship...and the flipside of that was she couldn’t act afool in the stands or on the sideline or we were out, if we so chose. 

 

Agree with much of the sentiment in the thread- people have lost their grip on reality in a huge way.  They are delusional about what their kid might be down the road.  In the end they forgot it was about competition, life lessons, and most of all, fun.

Edited June 23, 2019 by slorch

[Reagan1k 3041]

The "select ball" business model is marketing genius.

It feeds parents' egos, kids' desires to fit in, and parlays peer pressure into a cash cow.

Even more brilliant are the "Perfect Game" and similar rating services.  They turn the volume up to 11.

Keep paying to go to showcase events and your "ranking" continues to rise.  

It would probably take dying of the field during a Perfect Game event in order for your ranking to drop.

Go to an event....ranking comes out.....IMMEDIATELY followed by a fresh invite to another event brilliantly fashioned to appear exclusive and due to little Johnny's meteoric rise up the charts.  Rinse and repeat.

 

[Nueces River Rat 5753]

7 minutes ago, Reagan1k said:

The "select ball" business model is marketing genius.

It feeds parents' egos, kids' desires to fit in, and parlays peer pressure into a cash cow.

Even more brilliant are the "Perfect Game" and similar rating services.  They turn the volume up to 11.

Keep paying to go to showcase events and your "ranking" continues to rise.  

It would probably take dying of the field during a Perfect Game event in order for your ranking to drop.

Go to an event....ranking comes out.....IMMEDIATELY followed by a fresh invite to another event brilliantly fashioned to appear exclusive and due to little Johnny's meteoric rise up the charts.  Rinse and repeat.

 

But if you point this out to the real believers  (Kool aid drinkers) in this nonsense,  they will tell you or imply in some other sort of fashion you are only saying this because your own kid sucks.   

You analysis is pretty much 100% spot on.  It should be required reading for new parents or soon to be parents who have visions of little Johnny being a superstar a decade or so from today.    

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

I’ve seen the sales pitch in action before. It goes something like this:

Coach: Timmy is a really good player and we are happy to have him. He’s good but he’s only scratching the surface of his potential. The sky is the limit for Timmy because most people are just not born with what he has and they would kill for it.

Hes a bit raw right now and will need a couple of days with our batting coach to really set him up right. We also have an extra infield drills practice each week he should attend. 

Parents: I don’t know, this sounds expensive and we just want him to enjoy the game.

Coach: I would really hate for you to regret not giving it your all later in life considering his talent. He has real potential and you don’t want him to wonder how far he could have gone if you had let him. 

Parents: I don’t know.....he’s only 7, this seems like a lot.

End of the story: they signed up.

[gsoda3 3358]

i don't think it's parents having delusions of grandeur re their kids as much as it is parents thinking they know everything under the sun about the sport.  i've played, coached, reffed, commissioned, you name it.  it's just people at their nastiest sometimes.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8964]

These parents are counting on Jr earning a 10% scholarship to play baseball at Div 3 NE Nebraska Tech. how dare you call that a strike in his U11 game. You’re ruining his life.

Well. Im a grad of NENT soo fuck the right off.

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

Reading this thread, y'all are making me feel nostalgic for my simple childhood in rural Vermont.  If you had any ambition, you could be on a team.  Coaches would work with you to get your talent where it needed to be, but worse comes to worst, you just end up riding the pine pony.

I don't remember ever having any umpires or referees as young as 13 either.  Most were adults, many the same age as the parents.  I know I refereed a couple middle school basketball games when I was in high school, but that was only as a last resort when someone was ill.  Maybe our parents were just more realistic about our athletic ambitions, but afaik there were never any fights between parents or officials, even when we were playing our cross-county rivals.  I think the worst that ever happened was a parent getting a technical foul from the stands in basketball, and even that only happened once or twice.

Edited June 24, 2019 by hopkinsnhorns

[Huckleberry 34407]

I'm going to be the head coach for my son's baseball team for the first time in the fall. The last couple of seasons I've been the de facto head coach as the guy who volunteered to officially take that role didn't know anything about baseball. Full credit to him, though, he stepped up, went to the meetings, took on the responsibility, etc. I couldn't do so in the past but now that my medically fragile kid is doing better and is actually headed off to college in the fall I think I'm going to do it.

During the standard parent meeting at the beginning of the first practice I'm going to line out the expectations of the parents. They will be told that they're not ever to yell at or even talk to the umpires unless they're the official scorer and are relaying official information. They'll also be told that the kids will have the same expectations and if a kid mouths off to an umpire or makes a huge scene of arguing with a call that they'll be yanked from the game.

I guarantee that the practically volunteer umps at our youth baseball games are going to miss a LOT of calls during the season. Get over it. They umpire better than your kid plays.

I might leave those last two sentences out.

[gyroprotagonist 2597]

my kids are not teens yet and we play just rec league stuff (YMCA, SVAA etc...).  For the most part parents are chill.  I coach just about all of my son's teams and he's definitely 'going pro in something other than sports' as the b12 likes to remind us.  So for most part all my teams' parents are in the same boat and they just want to see improvement season to season.

Funny moment from my  daughter's (who is eight) soccer game.  she has one really good player on the team who scores 90% of the goals.  After the good player scores the first goal, one dad for the other team (who films 100% of the entire game with a fancy iphone rig) starts screaming at his daughter to "shadow her!  she's the only good one on the whole team!!! Just shadow her!!1!!1".  After 10 more minutes of this, his daughter subs out and he summons her over to him.  "Why did you not stay on her!?!  Do you even know what shadow means??!!"  8 year girl answers "no"  I started laughing.

also, adults who yell at teenagers reffing sports should be punched in nose.  

[Guest Lobo]

It's curious that the number of roster spots between High-A and MLB has remained the exact same for 50 years and the number of youth players (aged 8-18) in elite leagues, traveling leagues, all-star leagues, perfect game, et. al. has grown 20x fold.  Must mean a bunch of Uncle Rico's got a lot of wives pregnant.  And just in case those dads still think Junior is special, the number of baseball scholarships (aside from a few clever merit/need-based workarounds like at Vandy---and god bless 'em), has remained constant as well.  

Play baseball because you love and respect what the game has to teach us.  Short of that, get Slugger good at math or the double bass because that's the only way shithead is getting a ride to a proper college.  

[Nueces River Rat 5753]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

It's curious that the number of roster spots between High-A and MLB has remained the exact same for 50 years and the number of youth players (aged 8-18) in elite leagues, traveling leagues, all-star leagues, perfect game, et. al. has grown 20x fold.  Must mean a bunch of Uncle Rico's got a lot of wives pregnant.  And just in case those dads still think Junior is special, the number of baseball scholarships (aside from a few clever merit/need-based workarounds like at Vandy---and god bless 'em), has remained constant as well.  

Play baseball because you love and respect what the game has to teach us.  Short of that, get Slugger good at math or the double bass because that's the only way shithead is getting a ride to a proper college.  

 

I doubt they've increased enough to where it would require all of these select teams to be around for the beginning of the pipeline.  In fact if you read the different stuff out there, baseball is actually losing audience at the MLB and Minor league levels.   One of the first programs colleges will target to cut the  budget or Title IX reasons is baseball.     I think it could be the select leagues have pretty much built a hype and pump system to the point they've identified who THEY think are the top prospects once they get in high school and kids who might have stuck around and played for the love of the game,  give it up.   This is probably more true in communities  where parents can't afford the select league thing, thus minority participation numbers are struggling.   Look here in Texas and when was the last time an inner city high school made it to the state tourney at the higher classes?   Nope, it's the burbs where the participation  for these select leagues is targeted.  

[txhorns 2421]

I played a lot of what would now be called select ball in baseball growing up.  There was only ever 1 issue for my team.  We were playing in a tournament in OKC and were the only Texas team there.  Playing in the championship game against what was considered the most elite Oklahoma team at that age group.  The umpires were so clearly biased against us that we ended up having all three of our coaches thrown out plus 2 parents.  Had one of our players get hit in the back by a fastball with the bases loaded and wasn't given first base because he didn't get out of the way.  Any close play went in favor of the Oklahoma team.  We had 6 balks called against us.  I hit a line drive off the pitcher and it bounced off him foul, was called a foul ball.  It was the craziest game I ever played in or witnessed.  Other than that game I can't remember any issues with parents and umpires.  Yes sometimes umpires got called out for shitty calls but it wasn't harped on.  Now that select ball is a thing and any kid who can swing a bat is on a "select" team things have gotten much worse.  It truly is that every mom thinks their kid is a future MLB superstar because he plays select ball.

[Gene Parmesan 4062]

I don't know what driving the surge in select ball.  I don't think it's all because the parents think their kid is special though that's certainly part of it.  I think it's more a gentrification of the sport more than anything.

[Nueces River Rat 5753]

40 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I don't know what driving the surge in select ball.  I don't think it's all because the parents think their kid is special though that's certainly part of it.  I think it's more a gentrification of the sport more than anything.

From my observation, it has a lot to do with some parents making sure their kids name is among the chatter in a particular community or school so the high school coaches will start keeping tabs before they get to high school.  And yes they do start keeping tabs on certain kids while they are two or three years away in some school system and much to the determinet of some of these schools teams later down the road.   Some of these high school coaches want to be liked and they will name drop a kid or a group of kids about how they can't wait to get them in their program and that pretty much tells those late bloomers or hard workers to pound sand and don't even bother to show up to tryouts when they are Freshmen.  I can almost be certain in many high school programs with your younger coaches, they are going to give a kid the time of day who played with a certain select team vs one who decided to go the old school route and play league ball and never play on a select team.   And with that I've seen some teams who used to be consistent  deep playoff teams in high school struggle to get out of the first and second rounds because they've stacked their teams with these kids who play select ball on nine different teams on a year around basis (and are baseball only athletes)  and then expect them to "team up" in January and pull each other out of the fire when stuff gets real.  

 

[Reagan1k 3041]

2 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I don't know what driving the surge in select ball.  I don't think it's all because the parents think their kid is special though that's certainly part of it.  I think it's more a gentrification of the sport more than anything.

IMO it starts innocently enough.  True "Little League" moves too slow for some kids (and their parents) and there are too few games.  Kids and parents want more frequent and better competition, faster paced "real baseball" at an earlier age.

Then, the egos get involved and it becomes important for the parents to be able to go to work and say that their 7 year old is on a select team.....instead of just signing up for Little League where everyone is placed.

Years ago these were "select" teams but today, as long as you can pony up the money, you are "selected".   Back then there may have only been one team per age group in a given community who traveled....actually had tryouts and hand picked a roster..... and the rest played Little League, but pretty soon the coaches saw that money could be made by opening it up and they created clubs with multiple teams per age group.

Finally, parents who's kids didn't fit into those clubs or who wanted more control themselves(See Uncle Rico) would just form their own teams with their buddies.

Today, about 95% of these teams should be called Pay Teams and not Select teams because that's the qualifier....being able to pay rather than being selected.

For the record, I'm all for it if the kid wants to play and the parent wants to pay....I just think a lot of people would be far less disillusioned after years of the grind if they saw it for what it really is and didn't get so caught up in the hype.

 

[Huckleberry 34407]

That’s the kind of bullshit that Huckleberry ought to allow parents rallying the refs. At some point, that home cooking is such bullshit, y’all shoulda just walked off the field. I gather that Huck’s sons team is much younger than that, and at that level, I totally agree that all parents ought to keep their mouths shut at all times. 
Coaching basketball, I’ll jaw at the refs, but I know them all, and it’s generally an attempt to change their thinking on the next call, and even after horribly officiated games, I shake their hands afterwards and instruct all my players to thank the refs. I had a mom once go ape shit on a ref, and I calmly removed her from the scene. 

In that situation I would get kicked out myself and then take my team off the field. Still wouldn't let parents or kids yell at umpires.

Just because the umpires start completely disrespecting the game doesn't mean the parents and players should. And a coach arguing for his team and then withdrawing them in light of corrupt officiating is respecting the game. Parents crossing the line is not. Players doing so is debatable at that age. At least in my opinion.

Don't be chumps just because the umpires are being chumps. I'd either play under protest (and instruct parents and assistant coaches to record everything) or if the tournament/competition doesn't have that mechanism I'd take my team off the field.

[BillyGoatHill 4420]

On 6/22/2019 at 11:16 AM, Beau Vine said:

  When the game was over, she brought me those badass horchuta cookies and beer ( I think I was 19), and did that every game for the rest of the season.  

C'mon BV......19(?), tell the rest of the story. You Peed in her Butt didn't you?

[Nueces River Rat 5753]

16 hours ago, Reagan1k said:

IMO it starts innocently enough.  True "Little League" moves too slow for some kids (and their parents) and there are too few games.  Kids and parents want more frequent and better competition, faster paced "real baseball" at an earlier age.

Then, the egos get involved and it becomes important for the parents to be able to go to work and say that their 7 year old is on a select team.....instead of just signing up for Little League where everyone is placed.

Years ago these were "select" teams but today, as long as you can pony up the money, you are "selected".   Back then there may have only been one team per age group in a given community who traveled....actually had tryouts and hand picked a roster..... and the rest played Little League, but pretty soon the coaches saw that money could be made by opening it up and they created clubs with multiple teams per age group.

Finally, parents who's kids didn't fit into those clubs or who wanted more control themselves(See Uncle Rico) would just form their own teams with their buddies.

Today, about 95% of these teams should be called Pay Teams and not Select teams because that's the qualifier....being able to pay rather than being selected.

For the record, I'm all for it if the kid wants to play and the parent wants to pay....I just think a lot of people would be far less disillusioned after years of the grind if they saw it for what it really is and didn't get so caught up in the hype.

 

 

[wood 11747]

19 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I don't know what driving the surge in select ball.  I don't think it's all because the parents think their kid is special though that's certainly part of it.  I think it's more a gentrification of the sport more than anything.

Select ball is driving the surge by taking so many kids who should really be in Rec Ball, to make money & feed the "Elite" teams. Then Rec Ball gets shittier & shittier & less enjoyable because half the kids don't have a clue and/or dgaf for various reasons. People (even the ones with their heads on straight re: their kids prospects & abilities) then see this and decide that the only way for their kid to learn the game & have a good experience is to be in these 'select' or 'travel' teams.

My kid's head coach and I are thinking of starting our own not-for-profit team for the Fall and beyond just because the clueless/dgaf kids make it so hard for the boys who love the game & really wanna learn. Half of our practices are spent beating our heads against the wall, going over things repeatedly because the clueless/dgaf guys don't show up for practice, don't listen, disrupt, etc, and there's only so much we can do to get them to play along. And then on game day we still have to play 'em. We want a better experience for the boys and for US, but we can't afford or justify paying crazy select/travel costs. 

 

And this:

Quote

From my observation, it has a lot to do with some parents making sure their kids name is among the chatter in a particular community or school so the high school coaches will start keeping tabs before they get to high school.  And yes they do start keeping tabs on certain kids while they are two or three years away in some school system and much to the determinet of some of these schools teams later down the road.   Some of these high school coaches want to be liked and they will name drop a kid or a group of kids about how they can't wait to get them in their program and that pretty much tells those late bloomers or hard workers to pound sand and don't even bother to show up to tryouts when they are Freshmen.  I can almost be certain in many high school programs with your younger coaches, they are going to give a kid the time of day who played with a certain select team vs one who decided to go the old school route and play league ball and never play on a select team.   And with that I've seen some teams who used to be consistent  deep playoff teams in high school struggle to get out of the first and second rounds because they've stacked their teams with these kids who play select ball on nine different teams on a year around basis (and are baseball only athletes)  and then expect them to "team up" in January and pull each other out of the fire when stuff gets real.  

This here is pretty much what happened to my older kid. He started late and only played rec ball & All Stars, but has a better arm than any kid on the JV2 team he didn't make. His upside (on the H.S. level) would be huge had he gotten in the door and gotten all that good coaching and reps, but he wasn't in "Competitive Baseball" as the coach likes to put it, rather than just coming right out and saying he just wants kids from "Select" teams.

Edited June 25, 2019 by wood

[Nueces River Rat 5753]

16 hours ago, Reagan1k said:

IMO it starts innocently enough.  True "Little League" moves too slow for some kids (and their parents) and there are too few games.  Kids and parents want more frequent and better competition, faster paced "real baseball" at an earlier age.

Then, the egos get involved and it becomes important for the parents to be able to go to work and say that their 7 year old is on a select team.....instead of just signing up for Little League where everyone is placed.

Years ago these were "select" teams but today, as long as you can pony up the money, you are "selected".   Back then there may have only been one team per age group in a given community who traveled....actually had tryouts and hand picked a roster..... and the rest played Little League, but pretty soon the coaches saw that money could be made by opening it up and they created clubs with multiple teams per age group.

Finally, parents who's kids didn't fit into those clubs or who wanted more control themselves(See Uncle Rico) would just form their own teams with their buddies.

Today, about 95% of these teams should be called Pay Teams and not Select teams because that's the qualifier....being able to pay rather than being selected.

For the record, I'm all for it if the kid wants to play and the parent wants to pay....I just think a lot of people would be far less disillusioned after years of the grind if they saw it for what it really is and didn't get so caught up in the hype.

 

Yep.  That's how it kind of went down when my oldest played a couple of summers in "Select."    Before we decided to let him play, the organization he played in only had only three of four teams spread out among the different age groups.  It wasn't too long, they had two or three teams PER age group and the owner who had MLB experience was spread out too thin and the quality of coaching and instruction went down the drain.  And along with that, the focus was on his "elite" teams which were the ones who attended the so called showcase tourneys in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, etc.   He had good intentions, but he allowed what he intended to be a small and tight knit organization (which it was for several years) to get out of control and it didn't end too well.  

And your mention of Little League and some of their rules such as not being able to steal on the pitch was probably the number one thing I'd hear from fellow Dads about having their kid play select.  Funny thing is some coaches in the higher ranks prefer the younger kids play with the Little League rules because the Pitcher needs to learn how to get the ball from the mound to the catcher so it can be playable vs not having to pitch out of a position where he's having to keep on eye on a baserunner.  

 

If I had a rewind,  I would have saved all that cash and spent it on private golf lessons for him.   He likes golf although he never played on the high school team.  But he plays now  and of course golf is something you can play for the rest of your able bodied life.   I think he might agree,  

[ChickenSandwich 9921]

22 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

I’ve seen the sales pitch in action before. It goes something like this:

Coach: Timmy is a really good player and we are happy to have him. He’s good but he’s only scratching the surface of his potential. The sky is the limit for Timmy because most people are just not born with what he has and they would kill for it.

Hes a bit raw right now and will need a couple of days with our batting coach to really set him up right. We also have an extra infield drills practice each week he should attend. 

Parents: I don’t know, this sounds expensive and we just want him to enjoy the game.

Coach: I would really hate for you to regret not giving it your all later in life considering his talent. He has real potential and you don’t want him to wonder how far he could have gone if you had let him. 

Parents: I don’t know.....he’s only 7, this seems like a lot.

End of the story: they signed up.

Nailed it

[wood 11747]

15 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Nailed it

I think that MFer called a few of our All Star games this month. We kept getting this same asshole. Example: Our runner overslides third but reaches back and gets his hand on the bag. 3B comes down with the tag, right on top of our kid's hand, which is CLEARLY already on top of the bag. Not even close. I could see it easily from the 1B coach's box. "Yer outta there!". Example 2: Our guy tips a ball that rolls weakly, foul, down the 1B line. Pitcher walks over to pick up what he clearly knew was a foul ball. Plate ump (same guy, different game) yells "Fair Ball". With a confused look on his face, Pitcher throws to 1B. Our kid is out on a ball that was literally never in fair territory. Ump says the ball was fair because the pitcher touched/pick up the ball while he was standing in fair territory. LULZ. You can't make this shit up.

Edited June 25, 2019 by wood

[Beau Vine 55829]

19 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

Funny thing is some coaches in the higher ranks prefer the younger kids play with the Little League rules because the Pitcher needs to learn how to get the ball from the mound to the catcher so it can be playable vs not having to pitch out of a position where he's having to keep on eye on a baserunner.  

We used to call that the Walks & Balks League.

[ChickenSandwich 9921]

15 minutes ago, wood said:

I think that MFer called a few of our All Star games this month. We kept getting this same asshole. Example: Our runner overslides third but reaches back and gets his hand on the bag. 3B comes down with the tag, right on top of our kid's hand, which is CLEARLY already on top of the bag. Not even close. I could see it easily from the 1B coach's box. "Yer outta there!". Example 2: Our guy tips a ball that rolls weakly, foul, down the 1B line. Pitcher walks over to pick up what he clearly knew was a foul ball. Plate ump (same guy, different game) yells "Fair Ball". With a confused look on his face, Pitcher throws to 1B. Our kid is out on a ball that was literally never in fair territory. Ump says the ball was fair because the pitcher touched/pick up the ball while he was standing in fair territory. LULZ. You can't make this shit up.

Hey, Beau had a graduation party to attend. 

[Chuckie Finster 22978]

My brother and I were almost identical growing up when it came to being obsessed with baseball.  Collected cards, watched every Astros game, studied the box scores in the newspaper the next morning, etc.  My playing career naturally fizzled out before high school, but he was much better than me and was all-in with the Select stuff.  All-day tournaments most weekends, occasionally out of state, lessons/practices multiple times per week, teams with no consistent roster, and so on.  He made his high school team, but by the time he graduated it was obvious that the love for the sport had faded quite a bit.  He still casually keeps up with the Astros, but nowhere to the extent that I do.  There are obviously a million reasons to explain why a person changes as they get older, but a study on baseball burnout would be interesting.  Could explain why there are more kids playing little league than ever before, yet the MLB's popularity continues to decline.

[wood 11747]

2 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

My brother and I were almost identical growing up when it came to being obsessed with baseball.  Collected cards, watched every Astros game, studied the box scores in the newspaper the next morning, etc.  My playing career naturally fizzled out before high school, but he was much better than me and was all-in with the Select stuff.  All-day tournaments most weekends, occasionally out of state, lessons/practices multiple times per week, teams with no consistent roster, and so on.  He made his high school team, but by the time he graduated it was obvious that the love for the sport had faded quite a bit.  He still casually keeps up with the Astros, but nowhere to the extent that I do.  There are obviously a million reasons to explain why a person changes as they get older, but a study on baseball burnout would be interesting.  Could explain why there are more kids playing little league than ever before, yet the MLB's popularity continues to decline.

The number of games some of these teams are playing is absolutely insane.

[jimmyjazz 46984]

Reading these stories about select baseball make me glad my kid plays soccer.  

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

By studying the amount of wife beater shirts / jorts in that video, it was obvious that shit was going to go down.

[Gene Parmesan 4062]

Are there any positive results of the current select model in the end.  Are HS teams any better and are the truly elite more college ready or does the burnout factor outweigh positive gains? 

[wood 11747]

9 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Are there any positive results of the current select model in the end.  Are HS teams any better and are the truly elite more college ready or does the burnout factor outweigh positive gains? 

It helps some coaches' bottom lines, but I think that's about it, really.

[Nivek 17332]

I don’t know about select baseball or even little league. We just play at the local clubs. I’m not traveling like a pro team would. I also don’t want the sports the kids are involved to negatively impact their bodies or development.

My kids are also involved in gymnastics recreationally and while I am happy to see them getting stronger, some of the little girls there have alarming physiques. The boys seem to a bit better balanced with only a 1 or 2 of them being able to be picked from a lineup about what sport they play.

I’ll got talk with Chris Hansen now, about gymnast moms.

[jkates 336]

41 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Are there any positive results of the current select model in the end.  Are HS teams any better and are the truly elite more college ready or does the burnout factor outweigh positive gains? 

As with many things, it depends on where you are and what team your kid is on. Although many select programs only care about winning, $$$, and whatever sort of "prestige" comes with winning teenage baseball games, there are a few select programs that care about teaching, development, character, hard work, etc. Kids from those teams are net assets to their teams in HS and beyond.