I have advice for the parents of youngsters just getting started. So much focus is put on getting ready for HS baseball. Where should my son play youth ball? What travel ball org is the best?? Where should we go for lessons??? All (apparently) based on the assumption that the destination (HS baseball) is similar once you get there. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Every HS baseball program is not the same. They vary widely. They have different goals - some are competitive and some are not. Some play the best players and some cater to seniors. Some have good coaches and some don’t. Some schools place importance on their baseball programs. Others don’t. The most common mistake I see (that leads to huge disappointment) is not doing enough homework to know what kind of program is at the HS in your attendance area. You want to make sure that your goals line up with the goals of the program. I can’t count the times I have seen families knock themselves out getting a kid ready for HS ball only to get there and find out that nobody at their HS cares about baseball. Then they freak out. A better approach, assuming that baseball is important, is to research area HS programs the way you would colleges, and make sure you are getting prepared for the kind of HS program you want. You may decide that a change of course is in order - and you may not. But at least you know what you’re getting into. Even though travel ball is the driving force for advancing most players it can still be very frustrating to be part of a substandard HS baseball program. I know far more people that have been unhappy with their HS baseball experience than those that have liked it. Partly because they had unrealistic expectations and partly because they didn’t consider any options until they were already in the program and unhappy.