Hijacked? That's a pretty strong word. Without high school baseball there would be very little travel baseball. In fact, there would be very little baseball of any kind.
Scouts still attend high school games, just like they always did. Not very often did scouts in the 60s or 70s or 80s show up at just any high school tgame looking for players. They went to the games where they were most likely to see a prospect.
That is the same these days, but maybe even more so. Many prospects are identified during the summer and fall and then get scouted heavily during their hs season. Top prospects will often draw large numbers of scouts to their hs games in the spring. This is a benifit to the players on the hs team and the opposing team.
In our state (Iowa) years ago you would hardly ever see a scout at a hs game. Now that players are identified, we see as many as 30-40 scouts at certain games.
The truth is, nothing has changed regarding scouting hs baseball. Certain games might have lots of scouts, most games will have no scouts. It's always been that way. There are not enough scouts to do it any other way.
The money thing always bothers me. We don't know what travel teams charge players. It's different from one team to the next. There are several teams that don't charge players very much and there are some that don't charge players anything. All these teams pay an entry fee, that is what we do.
All that said, if you were a scout or college recruiter, would you go to individual games to hopefully see a prospect or would you rather go to a place where you know you will see 100s of prospects? Once those players are discovered, their hs team will see scouts.
High School baseball has always been the most important stepping stone and it still is. Travel teams and organizations do not hold these events during high school season. High school baseball is very special and we would never do anything to change that. Especially not something like HIJACK it!
Regarding East Cobb... We don't speak on their behalf, but check and see if their best players see any scouts at their high school games in the spring. Kids like Jason Heyward, Kaleb Cowart, Chevez Clarke, etc. have seen tons of scouts at their hs games. Everyone on the field they play on sees tons of scouts that day. Some of that is due to what scouts saw during the summer.
Also, remember this... There are only certain events that draw huge crowds of scouts and recruiters. Those are the events that have proven to have many prospects over the long haul. Most of travel baseball is played without a lot of scouts and recruiters present.
Parents are never "forced" to pay big money! There are other ways for people who can not afford to be on a high priced team. Rather than complain, they should spend their time searching for answers.