Gas prices vs baseball

Due to gas prices, we are making less trips to watch our son play summer ball...and are content listening to the internet feed.

My son's travel team decided to cut 4 tournaments this summer (including AAU Nationals) because of the insane gas prices. Tough decision to make for the boys but we also have to pay the mortgage!

quote:

Originally posted by JT:
Due to gas prices, we are making less trips to watch our son play summer ball...and are content listening to the internet feed.

Sadly true here as well. I've also picked up a second summer job to help defray his travel expenses.

quote:

I wish my PreRunner got over 20mpg.

Texas Crude, I just got back Sunday from watching my grandson graduate from Clear Creek HS in Houston and after driving in Houston traffic for three days I can see why your gas mileage is low --- stop and go traffic in the Houston area means 0 to 85 mph in less than a mile . It took me three hours of white knuckle driving to get from Belaire to the Bass Pro Shop at the Katy Mills Mall. Then on the way home I had to face the Texas winds gusting to 35 mph. I think got 17mpg while in Houston.

quote:

Have you made changes ---- planning to? If so ---What?

It isn't the gas prices, it was the $3,500 increase in college tuition and the $5,000 increase in medical insurance.

My son doesn't know it yet but when he comes home from summer ball, I have to tell him that we can't afford to send him back to college this fall. His baseball is over after this summer.

I drive a TDI (Disel) VW getting 30mpg on your gallon and 40 on the imperial gallon. I got this my second one last year and it is a great car with a 5 year full warranty with 5 year road assist.
I still have cut back on intercounty games I used to really enjoy in Toronto and Brantford Ontario. Lots of ex pros and college guys but I haven't been to 1 game this year.

Disel is $136 a litre in Canada and there are 4.5 in an imperial gallon. I fill up in NY state and save $13 even after thye bridge fee.

Grateful as well that we don't have to bear the expense of following our youngin' around in travel ball ... he used to play on a team that was headquartered 20 miles away and 3-4 games/week plus practice would have broken the bank.

We want to see son play professionally now that he is closer to home but closer still isn't close ... nearest league team is 4 hours away, and his home field is 6 hours away, so we may not go as often as we had hoped.

Have been trying to convince hubby to get a 3rd vehicle ... he drives a Camry (carpools to work, thank goodness since it is 45 miles one way) and our second vehicle is a very big F150 4x4, and with gasoline at $4.50+ here, I believe it would be wise but he thinks it would not be cost effective. Maybe that's his way of keeping me out of the stores spending the savings on something other than gasoline. LOL

Our club host about 8 tourneys a year with 25 to 30 teams per tourney. This year we have about half the entries. The reason given is the cost of gas.

My state is looking to combine the two largest classifications so that teams don't have to travel so far for games.

IVLBB,

I am sorry to hear that. We are in same boat, my son is about to go off, and we are seriously talking of a JC becuase we dont think we can afford it now. my husband works OT and it has been reduced to nothing, we do all the extras on OT money. My son has a partial but we will still be left paying 24,000 a year. I am disabled and we just started really putting it on paper and we will have to give out house up. tough times for a lot of people.hope your son can find a diff. school to go to. good luck

quote:

Originally posted by ILVBB:

quote:

Have you made changes ---- planning to? If so ---What?

It isn't the gas prices, it was the $3,500 increase in college tuition and the $5,000 increase in medical insurance.

My son doesn't know it yet but when he comes home from summer ball, I have to tell him that we can't afford to send him back to college this fall. His baseball is over after this summer.

How many politicians and college presidents children will ever have to go through this. It is very sad and is really starting to make me sick.

ILV, fan, and anyone else in that same situation.

As my son was transferring from a JuCo to a 4 year a few years back, we experienced a change in circumstances as well. Fortunately (through advice I got here), I had filled out the FAFSA forms in January. I went back to the FAFSA site which offers a Change of Circumstances application. I then contacted his coach and explained the situation and what I had done. Nobody would ever tell me definately, but it was my impression that the school's administration had some control over the Pell Grant dispersal and that the coach was my son's advocate. Between the coach 'finding' some assistance (this was under the old NCAA rules, however) and a Pell Grant, we were able to keep him in the planned university.

All it takes is a little time and it certainly can't hurt. Now, there may be deadlines involved, so have a read asap:

FAFSA

Best of luck,

Pensacola to West Point and back...2500 miles...yikes!

(the 40 hours driving time notwithstanding)

The college tuition crisis is truly an outrage. Colleges are now willing to pay full tuition for kids whose parents do not hold jobs, yet they are unwilling to help the good kid from the family with hardworking parents who cannot afford to pay over 100,000$ in 4 years.

It's outrageous how schools priviliged schools are willing to set an arbitrary salary number and say they will pay tuition for anyone making less. They say that if the parents make under x dollars, they get free tuition but if the parents make x + 1 dollars, they have to pay nearly their entire salary.

ILVBB - I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. Please don't give up hope - when one door closes, another opens.

Take care.

I'm spending more and saving less. It's still nowhere near what we spent in the summer before travel ball.

ILVBB and others,
I am so sorry and all of this makes me so sad and mad, really.
We are empty nesters but still feeling the crunch but I won't complain.
FPL (florida power and light) just was granted permission to raise rates by 16%. I don't know of anyone who recently got a 16% raise?
Our son is close and we thought we would be up for a lot more games, but round trip about 125 is just too much if he is not playing.

I won't go into how the GREENshirts are the same as the BROWNshirt NAZIS singing the same anticapitalist sound using different verses. The damage they are doing to our way of life is enormous.

That said, the solution is carpooling of the team players and parents. Take the roster and arrange for rotating carpooling to move the team and parents to the venues.

My son is in a Collegiate Woodbat Summer tournament right now and the players all carpooled and are staying four to a room.

We all prepaid for the projected gas bill with players paying for food. It worked out to be less than $100.00 for this tournament.

ILVBB you are in our prayers.

JMO

Although it features s****r....CNN is running a feature on this topic today.

I am just glad we did all of our traveling last year.
I do not think we would have been able to afford this at all this year.
I sure feel for you guys

Somehow people will find a way--they always do

Daughter played in a tournament this weekend about 2 1/2 hours away. We carpooled. I didn't like it as much as having my own space and that minivan was crowded with equipment, luggage, players and parents. Still, our part of the gas bill was $25. We will have to do that a lot more this summer. We play in 6 more overnight tournaments. BTW, don't think that hotel rooms are cheap. We couldn't believe that our "locked in price" jumped when we got there. They cite a provision that allows them to change the price given... I read it and sure enough that provision was there. So, make sure that if you have a "locked in price" that it is really a "locked in price." Now that I think about it, I do realize that they cited conditions when I made the reservation and so, I messed up.

Gas isn't the only major cost in traveling now to play. Food is out of control as well. We made a plan to have fruit etc. available for the players and took some food. That really helped. All in all, if you make decent plans, you can still get by at close to the same cost as last year. You do have to make concessions. JMHO!

One team (not ours) had a parent who took up a $2-3 per day fee from the players at the beginning of the tourney and then was responsible for a run to the local mega store (Walmart, Costco). They bought 2 cases of water per game, a assortment of snacks and a bunch of fruit. Really cuts down total cost for the team if you are not hitting the 7-11 for a water and a granola bar.

Texas Crude, I'll take a guess that you've never driven a Lariat.

ILVBB, I hope your not serious. If my memory serves me correctly, your son did really well at Trinity this past season.

This thread really puts things in perspective. Our team has started car pooling and we are seeing fewer parents at the games. We are playing all tournaments within our state. The kids each give me $1.00 and I go and buy peanut butter, jelly, bread, fruit,and water for our meals. I am sick of peanut butter . We have changed our schedule to keep all tournaments within our state.
FAN of the Game: You need to check with SS, if you are disabled, you should be able to get some help with your son's tuition. My cousin had all of her college tuition paid because her mom was disabled.
I hate to see anybody not get their degree because we have money hungry oil men. It is a shame that they are making record profits and we are all trying to find a way to buy peanut butter and jelly.

tigermom,
he will still get his degree. there are a lot of factors in this process and dont want to get into them on the board.But it will all turn out fine in the end. Jcs are not the end of the world. its all gen ed the first two years anyway.so good luck to all of you traveling. I too am glad we are not doing to much this year.We wouldnt be able to afford it.Everyone will have to pick and chose what they will attend.

The price of a gallon of gas is $0.12 cents per gallon in Venezuela, but would anyone want to live there? The Venezuelan despot leader just imposed a law that requires every citizen to rat-out their neighbor or face four years in prison if they express a negative thought against the regime.

But they've had some very good baseball players come from there to play in the MLB. So you see even in the face of complete idiocy in the government people try to do the best they can with the lot in life they are dealt.

When a commodity like oil is bootlenecked by cartels, political restrictions are imposed against required production to meet demand that is driven by imagined boogy-man dooms day green house gas scenarios, and to the point that carbon emissions are viewed as harmful rather than what they are; as oxygen is to humans, carbon dioxide is to plants, trees and all other botanical life, then you end up distorting the true value of the commodity, not the cost to produce it.

Follow the money in all of this and you will find the address to Al Gore's house.
JMO

This thread is hitting home as we speak. I am flying to the 16U J.O.'s next week and my wife was going to drive out there go well. Unfortunately we cannot afford for both of us to go now since the gas prices are ridiculous so only one of us will be in attendance....

Part of me feels like I'm sad that I won't be following son around this summer since he's not playing. Reality though is that I wouldn't be able to constantly travel as I have in the past. We have also traditionally taken a couple of baseball roadtrips - MLB and MiLB. We may still do something small... but it will be much more limited.

My entire lifestyle has changed and I believe will continue to change. I plan errands, etc. to try and maximize everything I do.

quote:

When a commodity like oil is bootlenecked by cartels, political restrictions are imposed against required production to meet demand that is driven by imagined boogy-man dooms day green house gas scenarios, and to the point that carbon emissions are viewed as harmful rather than what they are; as oxygen is to humans, carbon dioxide is to plants, trees and all other botanical life, then you end up distorting the true value of the commodity, not the cost to produce it.

Follow the money in all of this and you will find the address to Al Gore's house.

Oh boy here we go. Just kidding folks, go shopping!!!

quote:

Originally posted by spizzlepop:

quote:

When a commodity like oil is bootlenecked by cartels, political restrictions are imposed against required production to meet demand that is driven by imagined boogy-man dooms day green house gas scenarios, and to the point that carbon emissions are viewed as harmful rather than what they are; as oxygen is to humans, carbon dioxide is to plants, trees and all other botanical life, then you end up distorting the true value of the commodity, not the cost to produce it.

Follow the money in all of this and you will find the address to Al Gore's house.

Oh boy here we go. Just kidding folks, go shopping!!!

is this a troll? I mean I've been called a Nazi and a terrorist by this guy (or gal) and I'm getting tired of it. (Even though I like Volkswagens and Hummus)

ILVBB, naturally I am very sad about your son and this situation. Please keep in touch, and I wish you all the best. I'll keep hoping something works out, somewhere, somehow, because E clearly has a future in this game.

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by LLorton:
...carbon emissions are viewed as harmful rather than what they are; as oxygen is to humans, carbon dioxide is to plants, trees and all other botanical life....

ahhh... smell the virtue. Care for a toke LL?

Actually sizzle, that appears to be steam coming from that tail pipe, probably because of a blown headgasket. The harmful stuff is black or invisible, usually produced by pre 1996 vehicles. The new ones hardly polute at all.

quote:

Follow the money in all of this and you will find the address to Al Gore's house.

Now you're giving him more credit than when he claimed he invented the internet (which we all know was created by Fungo who had help from GotWood on the picture parts).

quote:

(which we all know was created by Fungo who had help from GotWood on the picture parts).

This year, it hasn't impacted our travel ball schedule, but that is almost certain to change next year. We're still going to East Cobb next month, the JOs next week and San Diego in late July. One thing that has changed is that we're playing more at home and having other teams come to us. Fortunately, between having a good field to play on and being a program that others want to play, they're willing to come to us more than us traveling out of town to play them.

Next year, I doubt that we'll go to East Cobb but the JOs in Arizona will still be on our 16u's calendar. Most of the Connie Mack programs have been talking about trying to consolidate our travel, and I expect that most of the northern CA teams will play a schedule that keeps us on the west coast for the most part. We're likely to coordinate tournaments so that we all can play within a couple hundred miles of everyone's homes and not do the longer travel any longer.

Hey Spizzle -

You DO realize, don't you, that the carbon LL mentions as the boogeyman Al Gore wants us to fear is carbon DIOXIDE, not carbon MONOXIDE.

So your picture of the tailpipe is just an example of visual demagoguery.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, regardless of what AlGore and the rest of the global warming alarmist crowd wants you to believe (and apparently you have drunk the kool-aid.)

Rather, carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth. Among other things, it is PLANT FOOD. You exhale it with every breath you release.

If you really have bought the fiction that we need to accept draconian controls on our lifestyle to limit CO2 emissions, I invite you to take the lead. Park your car and stop breathing.

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." - HL Mencken

Yup the carbon scare is r5ight up there with the Y2K BSW.
Canada is toying with a carbon tax. A new tax to fight carbon emmissions. How droll that is.

The public are most gulible it is unbelieveable. If you want to get a tax increase or raise em you just say it's for our childrens future.
When the computer industry played the biggest haks on us was the Y2K where I had people saying planes would fall at of thye sky at 1 min after midnight. People hoarding food. How dumb are we ? Just show a picture of a polar bear searching for a piece of ice to land on.

Unfortunately it affects the true issues