Recommend Rec. Ball for Travel Ball Players ?

[Empire United]

Hey guys, I apologize if this was asked somewhere before. I couldn't find a thread on this topic and the seach function seems to disable quite a few keywords (IMHO).

Question is, do you recommend your travel ball players to play rec. at all ? Would you recommend it for certain age groups but not others ?

Pros/Cons ?

We generally recommend it for our 10U club for live pitching (batters) and for our pitchers to get a bit more pitching time. I can see some obvious cons, at the least scheduling conflicts, increased risk for injury, to just plain too much softball (is there such a thing? ) and I could easily come up with a dozen more cons in addition to pros. Certain parents also like them to play rec. others absolutely not as that was the whole point in their household to play TB was to get away from rec. And of course the whole Allstar vs. TB April1 rule to consider.

Thanks for your input.

[2bucketdad]

At different times I have been on both sides of this coin, at first believing that they could do both with no problems or conflicts, however I am no longer of that opinion and there are a number of reasons...first is most girls that play travel ball will find they can coast while playing rec ball and still be dominate and as much as dad or mom likes them to look like they are always on fire, they will coast when they can and not only is it a hard habit to break, but often causes there skills to suffer...next if you have a child that is dominate and she stays focused and pushes herself and gives 100% effort you will no doubt have parents and coaches that complain that so and so should not be playing in this league, so and so throws too hard and little sally first year rec baller can't catch the throw from third to first when she throws it so rec coach asks her to take a little off of it when throwing to sally...the only way we had any success was my oldest was on a travel team that was associated with a rec league, the travel eam had 12girls on it and there was 12 other girls signed up for 12U so we split the travel team up and then split the others up and it made for some very interesting games, however when we had to interloc and play other rec associations they were still dominate and able to coast and tournament play suffered...Sorry so long and hope it helps some...

[GIMNEPIWO]

I concur mostly with 2bucket ... and the "coasting" can be detrimental ... but here is what I hear the kids saying ... they like playing Rec or Fall League Rec because it's fun ... not so serious ... and as a Coach, what I like to do is let them play different positions and move them around ... and it's cool to hear how supportive they can be of the true "Rec" players who are playing where they normally would be ... I had one Travel Gal who was "always" a pitcher or mid infielder ... 2 years ago she almost blew a gasket when I let her Catch ( with her parents blessing ) ... another ( pitcher-infielder ) Travel Gal never got to play first in her entire ball life ... her Dad ( hose-head ) over heard me ask her if she wanted to try it ( he said "h#*l no" ) ... when he walked away she asked me if she could please play first ... and of course, every catcher wants to get out from behind the dish ... So, if scheduling allows it ... maybe it's good for the gals to have a little fun ...

[softball_parent]

yes there can be to much softball. Mine is out of college and I saw many girls burn out early (yes I know many will debate burn out) and as Sam and others would tell you including me many pitchers get injuries from to much use. Let them be kids and go to birthday parties and sleep overs and spend time with their friends. They are only kids once.

[Empire United]

Thanks all for your input. I'd be very interested in hearing others opinion's whether you have direct experience or not.

If I could figure out how to post a poll I would do so, but I can't find the option to do it.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

[Sam]

Thanks all for your input. I'd be very interested in hearing others opinion's whether you have direct experience or not.

If I could figure out how to post a poll I would do so, but I can't find the option to do it.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

I would recommend that your entire team play rec ball....and forget about travel ball until they are 12.

[CheckWriter]

I think it is about 6 years ago now when we made the transition to TB. At least half our team (12s) were from the same rec league (BSox). It was a bunch of the annual All Stars. It would have basically decimated the rec league had they not played both.

We had a good coach. His DD had done college ball and he had taught her to pitch. He had done the travel ball thing years before. The girls were complaining at practice how hard he was hitting the grounders. First friendly, first game, 22 (maybe more) - 0, never got out the opposing team's half of the 2nd inning. They never complained about the grounders again.

They may have gone back to rec ball had it been "separate" but when they had to (in rec ball) check who was on first before deciding how hard they were going to throw the ball before they threw it, the TB became something to aspire to rather than lament or be afraid of. They were playing .500 ball the last month of the season in TB.

Anyway, I think it helped them with the transition, they saw, in just a few months they saw how much they improved compared to the rec kids and they never gave rec ball another thought.

My oldest just singed her NLI to play in the Pac 10.

[soreshins]

Once a player has been on a travel ball squad they should not go back to rec ball unless they are going to stay in rec ball.

[weekend4trvl]

My DD completed 10U's in rec then joined a TB team in the fall of that year. Only 10-15% of the parents in rec knew anything about TB including us. When the next spring rolled around my DD wanted to sign up for rec again. We went back to rec for one more year...not because it was good or bad for her development,but because that's what she wanted to do. When that year was over she knew it was time to move on...she was 12.

[Sftbll4ever]

Once a player has been on a travel ball squad they should not go back to rec ball unless they are going to stay in rec ball.

My dd did rec last year, why??? Her team went dark. We did ask to fill in on some teams, but most teams that knew us said they didn't want her partime and the only way we could play for them is if we stayed. She played rec to pitch. It also helped her A LOT with change ups after that. She was just learning to hit for power on the left side and her slapping was good except for the change. Rec actully helped her with that.

She went back to her travel team after they came back and she actually misses rec., but loves travel.