This is a very good point. It relates to all sports, not just baseball. I have a friend who travels the country speaking as a youth sports advocate. He's a former NBA player. He believes travel sports at a young age drives kids out of particular sports at a young age before they have a chance to physically mature and develop. His view is if a kid gets cut from a travel team at nine, ten and eleven what incentive does he have to continue? He's been told for three years he's not good enough. It's enough rejection for most kids.quote:As travel teams have become the norms, more than more players have been excluded sooner or sooner. As a result, many of them move on to other sports or other activities and forget baseball altogether.
He said in 8th grade he never would have guessed he would become one of the top basketball recruits in the country his junior year of high school. He was a spaz in 8th grade.
When I was a little kid I assumed I would play baseball until I was done with school. Why? Because baseball was fun. It wasn't an aspiration. It was an assumption. I didn't know the difference from D1 or D3. I assumed I would be the 7th generation at the D3 school the rest of my family attended. It was a bit of a shock in high school when my coach told me what schools were watching. Now little kids have D1 aspirations.
Then there's more sports options starting at a younger age. When I was a kid the only rec sports were football, basketball and baseball. Only baseball was available in the summer. The only high school sports were football, basketball, baseball, three seasons of track, hockey and swimming. Our high school now has all this and volleyball, s0ccer, lacrosse tennis, golf, wrestling and water polo. All these sports are available at the little kid rec level except golf and tennis. Given there are four country clubns within the school district I could argue indirectly they are little kid rec sports too.