Is HS Baseball just like rec ball all stars?

It's only rec ball all stars if you're a travel snob. It's a great attitude to alienate yourself from all the other parents. It's a horrible attitude to pass on to your kid.

I'm just asking a question

I am against travel ball but my son wants to do it

I think I know what you're asking, and my answer would be it's more like All Stars.  In our LL we always have 12 teams of 12, and the AS teams are 12 of those so, yeah, that's fairly close to the percentage of rec players who eventually make a HS team. But it's a different group of kids. By the time they are of HS age, some of the AS players have burnt out or moved on to focus on others sports, or on girls, cars, drugs, etc.  Meanwhile a few non-AS players have blossomed into legit HS players and a few others have ground it out enough to earn a seat on the bench.

Thank you for that response

What is your objection to travel ball? 

Where does your son play in Summer?

I had some friends with travel ball saying that it is too intense and me and my son had a bad experience at 11u. We play with a local league travel team now but my son has convinced me to move onto a higher level.

No high school ball is better because of several,of the things already mention.....plus all star rec ball,is usually 12 of the best players at the same age....where the starters on high school will be the best players of a range of 14/15-18 ( freshman to Seniors)

....and it's not coached (usually) by 2 of the dads.

Maybe 4-years before your kid and 4-years after your kid of the best All-Stars, plus add-ins from other areas, districts and transfers and move-ins... 

 

Plus, the 60/90 field weeds out a bit of kids that couldn't keep up or found other interests...

I'm gonna take a shot here and assume you're from NJ and that the reason HS ball in your area maybe  more like rec ball is because you're in a small Group 1 school which typically has a small pool of players to draw from that may have a hard time fielding freshman and JV teams. A bad Group 4 school can typically beat up a top Group 1 school any day of the week (there are exceptions of course). Where my son played, most of the HS players came from the local rec league and the top players made all-stars and typically, those were the ones who made the high school team with some who played on some B teams or non-allstars that developed later into HS players. There's really no formula because a lot can happen between 11U and HS. Too many variables such as quality of local leagues, size of towns,the weeding out of players when the hit 60/90 etc. Travel ball exploded after my son graduated and legion is dying so maybe it's a little different today as far as the travel scene goes but at the end of the day, the kid that can play will make the HS team no matter where he plays. IMO, spending thousands of dollars on 11U travel teams a waste of money if you have a decent rec program or a good local all-star or local travel team. If the rec league is too laxed and you got players who aren't really that engaged, it can be frustrating to the player who wants to compete, hone their skills and really learn the game. Maybe then you look for alternatives if HE shows that he wants to play on a more advanced team. I believe once they get on the 60/90 diamond and are getting closer to playing HS ball and maybe have a goal of playing beyond, then they should be playing on teams that want to compete and not just have a relaxing day at the park.

Thank you for the replies but zombywoof my son is now 15u.

IMO Travel ball is not about snobbery it's about getting your kid to play at the next level. I didn't want my kid to play travel ball at age 9, but I was left with little choice if I wanted him to be able to play with kids who could catch the ball.  My son wasn't learning anything by softly throwing the ball at first base because if he REALLY threw it the 1st baseman wouldn't have been able to catch it.  That wasn't doing my son any favors in the learning process, but you can't fault the other 9 year old boy who was just learning how to play...that's what rec is, a learning ground to see who is serious about baseball, who has the skill to progress, and who wants more than 1-2 days a week for 8 weeks.

 

My son is not in High School yet, however, I am told your high school team level varies on how big of a pool you can draw from.  For example, my son's soon to be high school has a Varsity Team, a JV team AND a Freshman team and still cuts more than 100 kids a year from tryouts.  When you have a pool that large you can get the cream of the crop.  If your school has 1 team, and very little cuts I imagine it would be a lot like rec ball all-stars.

I think in this discussion size matters.

 

If you are in a area where there will be 100 kids trying out for 10 spots - then getting out and playing more games against better competition at 11,12 & 13 will pay off at 14 when you have to make the HS squad. 

 

On the other hand if it is you and the same 10 guys from the rec all star team trying out for the same 10 spots - then yep it is rec ball all-stars.

 

As far as Travel good vs. evil it is probably both at the same time.  Cost can be high, attitudes can balloon out of control, but it does allow for a lot of Dad/Son time and you can visit some really fun places to play baseball. 

 

Like anything else if you have a level head and recognize it for what it should be - trying to play as many games against players that are better or equal talent to improve your own game - then it can be a very worthwhile pursuit.  It also does not need to cost more than $1,000 - $1,500 or so per year if you live in a big enough area that you can drive 100 miles or less to tournaments to find good teams to play. 

 

They way I did it with my kids is we found teams that played the local stuff but did a week long summer deal somewhere as a family vacation.  Cooperstown, Myrtle Beach and Disney.  Some of the most fun ever and best money I ever spent on my family.  I'd do it again in a minute. 

 

 

It depends how many tournaments the team enters and how many higher profile tourneys. Let's say you have 15 kids on a team, every kid needs cleats, 2 pair of pants, at least 2 jerseys, batting helmet, team bag, socks, belts, hats...that price could easily be $400 x 15 = $6000, plus field practice time could be another 2K, then there are balls, registration fees for the team...easily another $1500.  So you have spent $9500 (plus any paid coach fees) and haven't stepped foot on a field and a typical weekend tourney is $500+.

 

So, I guess if you only want to play in a hand full of tourneys then yes $1000 per year is fine...personally I would want to pay more to play more.  Baseball is a business, there are sponsorships and such to alleviate the cost, but 2-3K a season is not out of the norm for a competitive Travel ball team.

Too hard to make a comparison. There are just too many factors

 

Where Im at we have a Frosh A team, Frosh B team, Sophomore team with the option of running a Soph B team as well, A JV team and a Varsity team.  Though the Varsity and JV team are one, the kids who don't play in the V game get to play in the JV game the next day.  In addition to all this we end up cutting about 50 to 80 kids the freshman year and then a handful every year after that.  

 

Needless to say we have a big pool to pull from.  We are very competitive in the area usually winning our conference and going deep in the playoffs every year.  We have won state's 3 of the last 9 years.  The players on the freshman A team are usually higher level travel team players.  The kids who make the B team the frosh year play on mid to lower level travel teams and usually contain a kid or two from rec-league all star teams.  By the time the kids are at the Varsity level most of the lower level travel team and rec-level kids are weeded out.  There are some exceptions here and there but for the most part the players we are left with are all on higher level travel teams.

We are going back about 7/8 years here but we had 2 caps, 2 pair of pants, 2 belts, 2 jerseys (t-shirts) and that cost about $150 per player.  Stuff like cleats, gloves etc. are costs regardless of rec league or travel.  We bought helmets once and they were about $40.  There was no mandate to buy new uniforms spring to fall and back to spring again.  If your kid fit into them you could wear them out as far as we were concerned.

We played about 12 tournaments a year at $350 per which is about $4k.  With 12 players we were taking in about $900 per month.  We practiced at a local HS on an unused softball field way back behind the school - $0 for field.  Throw in bases, tees, baseliner, balls and umpire fees for practice DH and we were spending about $7k per year and playing about 75-85 games and practicing 3x a week.  We did not collect dues during downtime so most of the time dues were $700-750 per player.  Uniforms were about $150 to start but as players wanted more caps, pants etc.  they would drop $25 or so as needed.  During the winter we had about 15 practices in Jan and Feb at the local hitting cage.  It was a $5 on the spot fee for the time since it was about $50/hr and we got 10 players most of the time.  When you rolled up a couple of weekends in hotels and the misc. Uniform etc., we kept it pretty close to $1,000. 

 

The once a year weeklong trip was an add on cost for the family for travel, hotel, food etc. but it was sold as a family vacation centered on baseball.  Some people stayed at expensive places and others not so much and 1 or 2 actually camped.  So the years we went to Cooperstown it was an additional $700 for the player and the vacation costs.  My feeling is if you are going on vacation anyway - this is a wash.  If you had t pay the extra $700 for Cooperstown it still was less than $2k to play a solid level of baseball and have about 175 games/practices during the year to hone your skills.

 

Yes were a Daddy Ball team in the strictest sense.  We wanted our kids (ours and the others in our care) to play a better level of baseball than the rec league to prepare for HS, without spending a bunch of money and to spend time with our sons.  We were spectacularly successful in achieving those goals.

 

Not dropping $300-$400 on three vests, expensive pants or bags etc. helped keep costs down.  We made a conscious decision that we were paying for baseball not clothes.  We looked like a rec team and played good sound baseball.  I think when we showed up to play teams that knew nothing about us it was actually an advantage because we looked a little rag tag.  I know my kid had dirt on his white pants that made them a nice khaki color - that caused me to take a lot of grief from my wife that was always upset he looked "dirty" but I on the other hand thought that was wonderful.  

 

We played in about a 100 mile radius and got to see teams from all corners of VA and some from MD, NC, NJ, PA.  In our other travels we probably played teams from another 20 states over the years.  We had fun and didn't go broke doing it.  Of our 12 players 10 made HS teams but a few quit to play other sports like basketball or lacrosse.  About 7 of them had full HS playing days at very competitive schools.

 

$700 for Cooperstown...gesh, I wish!  Guess that explains the cost difference...inflation even hit baseball.  The cost for 13 kids and 4 coaches to play at Cooperstown THIS YEAR is $15,215, or $1170.39 per kid!

 

Agree about the uniforms though...no need to spend 1K per kid on things that just get dirty and outgrown.

I had 2 kids go twice between 2004 and 2008.  They have done a masterful job there of selling their brand.  I always thought the facility itself is subpar for the money being generated.  In 2008 the plywood was wearing out - the fields were supplemented with turf in high traffic areas and the dimensions are too small.  Hopefully upgrades have been made since then.

BUT - playing teams from Utah, MI, TN, TX, CA, FL, IL, NY, AND MA in the same week - priceless.  That is a GIGANTIC hook if you have a baseball itch that needs to be scratched.

My short answer to the original question is "absolutely not".

 

Here's a funnel to illustrate.

 

Let's say that there are 2 or 3 "rec leagues" in one's city.  In addition, there may be another two or three "travel" teams that are based out of same said city.   In addition to that, there are elite kids who play for national caliber travel organizations who live in a given school district, within that city, yet play elsewhere.  

 

So, in the above illustration, in a four-year age range...you might have 400-500 age appropriate kids playing baseball.  Of that group, there may be 4 to 5 different "All-Star" teams, representing 50-60 kids.  Of those 50-60 kids, 16-20 of them may make the JV team  at the high school.  Of the JV kids, let's pretend that 60-70% will spend some time on the varsity before graduation.

 

So, in the end, you have 12-14 kids in the same age group, who will spend some time on a varsity roster.  This of the original 50-60 "All-Stars".  Next year...one group falls off, as another is added to the funnel!

 

As an aside, there are some JV programs that play a few "local travel teams" in fall ball.  The JV teams are mucho bettero than the travel group.  As in all things, I would say that the above would be fairly illustrative of many of the competitive high school districts, and less so in areas where the population may be smaller, or where baseball is not the sport of choice.

Heels makes the right point.  In our league at 8 for coach pitch there were 21 teams with about 13 kids each so +/- 250 kids.  There were neighboring leagues that overlapped covering 3 HS.  In either of my sons classes...the top 30 kids+/- were siphoned off by 10U for travel and never looked back.

 

Of those 30 kids about 10-12 became 2 or more year starters in HS.  But here is the kicker - Not one kid that did not leave the rec league ever wore a school uniform.  They were done playing baseball when they were 13.  My son's 10U travel team used to beat the 12U rec All-Stars.  Could be just the way things were but anyone that could play bailed at 9 on the rec league.

 

What it came down to was - travel teams practiced 9 -10 months of the year 3 or 4 times a week and played 75-100 games.  The rec league practiced 10-12 times all spring and played 12-14 games.  In the fall it was less than that.  Travel ball kids would play as much baseball in May as Rec kids played all year.

 

Who would you expect to get better?  

Back to the OP,  my son's HS team last year was stacked with D1, D2 and JoCo commits and there conf. had some fine ballplayers.  As I think back at there were some teams that had several D1 & 2 players and JoCo's as well.  His team last year was 3rd in state in the largest class.  This year will have even more high level kids in the 6 HS team conf.  B/C we know most of the 2015's he'll compete against. He will pitch against 20-40% kids that have already committed. Of the teams in his conf., there at least 4 to in one case 7 kids committed.

 

Living in a major metro area most of the juice boxers have been eliminated from HS varsity rosters and to call it rec ball would be an insult. 

Ditto!

I would say it doesn't hold true for small schools either. The HS my son will attend has about 200 students. The baseball team is varsity only and carries 16 players. Of those it's typically 4 players from each class. Though occasionally a class may have 5 while another has 3. So if the 12U all star team which would typically have 12 players with 10 12 year olds and two 11 year olds. Then less than half of those 12 year old all stars would be on the HS team. And that's not even counting kids that didn't play rec or kids that moved to the area.

On my sons middle school team there are 14 players. 5 eighth  graders, 5 seventh, and 4 sixth graders. Of those, my son is the only 8th grader to play rec past 8u. None of the 7th graders ever player rec and all of the 6th graders have only played rec. So of the 14 players 5 were rec all stars at 12U and 31 all stars over that three year span did not make the team.

My son goes to an all boys high school. There is not one boy on the team who played just rec ball. A few played USSSA AA ball. They never see the field. But we are down south. 

The conversation also depends on what you call rec ball. In some areas Legion is rec ball. In others it isn't. For the most part, in our area Legion was rec ball. There were very few kids throwing over 82. Yet a few of our high school conference championship team (twice in three years) played Legion. They had to do individual showcases to draw attention from D3s. The better players on the team played travel full time starting at 13u.

My son's HS fields a consistently mediocre V and JV team. About every 4-5 years the stars align and we field a pretty good V team. This might be the year we field a good team. But the JV will be woeful. This is because 75% of players feed into the school from a very small LL program and an equally small Pioneer program. But we have 0-2 military transfers come into the program every year, so every few years, like this year, we get a stud dropped into our laps.

 

But back to the OP, YES, at my son's HS the JV and V teams are 75% from LL All-Star teams and the coaches know them all as they come into the system. Of the 20 or so kids that are likely to make the V team (and 2-3 of the "better" kids are rumored to be leaving baseball for good for a variety of reasons), I'd say about one-third have played at least some (mostly local) travel ball. Of those, maybe half have played mid-level travel baseball and a very few high-level travel baseball (my son being one of them).

 

Ironically, we are only a few miles away from some TOP HS teams in NoVA with most playing some travel ball and many high-level. They also might get 40-50 kids to tryout for JV. We typically get 25 tops so making the team is easy.

In my area HS baseball is generally a "step down" from what many kids are used to.  This is because the "travel" teams generally contain a few kids from each HS.  When they get to HS, you'll have maybe half the team from "prospect level" travel teams and the other half from lower travel teams or rec ball all stars.  It really shows up in pitching and at the bottom of the order. 

I use to think that until my son started playing high school ball. Kinda like using strategy in the NL with the pitcher hitting. Add the high school rivalries, to me its as fun as going to a Perfect Game event with our travel team. Maybe its just baseball and we all love baseball since we are on this site!

Where a kid plays as a preteen is irrelevant. All the kids on my son's large school conference championship team played LL and Ripken. They played community travel (advanced rec) in the summer. It's still the case. The program is still successful. The best kids leave rec for travel full time at 13u. Some of the kids playing high school come up through Junior Legion. 

I think it all comes down to the area.  Where I am it is not like rec ball but its not at a very high level either.  Coahed many years of hs ball.  But I must confess when my son gets hs age I am not entirely sure he will play.  Competition is much better on the travel circuit.  For every one thing that is bad about travel ball there are two things that are good in my opinion.  Hopefully my son will be able to do both.  I still think playing hs baseball with your school buddies has value.  But honestly if it absolutely had to come down to one or the other I would choose travel ball.

Why can't your son play both?

       
       
where my son would go is one of the schools still playing summer ball instead of spring ball.  Makes it hard to do both.  Hopefully they will go to spring baseball.

JolietBoy If your in joliet, il area Im just a little north of you. There are many travel teams that only play on the weekends while the summer ball season is going on. All the kids on our HS summer team play both travel and summer ball with no issues. 

       
       
Unfortunately that is not legal according to the WIAA.  I would be all for it but especially as a coach it would look really bad if my own kid got caught doing that.  I think it should be legal and would solve a lot of problems.  In illinois we did a lot of things that were outside the ihsa rules and everybody just ignored it.  Up here they seem to abide more by the rules.  Glad its working out for you though.  Its good for the kids.  But doesn't the high school coach get a little angry about losing pitchers' innings?

Just realized the confusion.  My handle of jolietboy is from where I grew up.  I have since moved to wisconsin.  I see looking at your profile where you are from.  But now I am north of you!  We should chat on pm sometime.  Would be interesting to see how many of the old crowd are still coaching and going strong in that area!  I really miss the quality of baseball in that area.  I don't think people up here really believe me when I tell them how many kids from where I coached and went to school were drafted.