My son played rec ball his first year of pitching at 10yo. This was due to a fight between the existing coach and a father who's son was cut on the rookie team. The father accused the coach of picking his son's friends. He conspired to have the coach quit. It worked and then he took over picking all his son's rec teammates. They went from winning 80% to 5%. He was fired about 1/3 of the way through the season. A new coach took over and my son was called up. The coach explained he couldn't play my son because the parents would pull their players. Son continued to play rec and an occasional inning here and there for the travel team. It was an amazing experience and I remember a couple games. One where my son was put in for an inning. Our team was being mercied and he struck out all 3 batters he faced. He was not put back in. My wife sat in the car disgusted and 2 parents didn't know she was there and were talking trash about my son. These people pretended to be friends to our face. The next year every player was gone and the one great player they had quit just before the coach was fired.
My son was on the second worst rec team and that is pretty bad. He pitched in the playoffs against his former allstar teammates and shut them down. They were by far the best team. Pitchers could only pitch 4 innings in rec and we were up by 13 runs when they took him out. We ended up losing.
What really bothered me was that the allstar coach was guilty of what he was accused of. He didn't pick my son in their draft and the coach that got him said he was the last play and he had to take him. He couldn't believe his luck when he saw him play. He confided he had no clue how good he was. O)obviously no one else did either.