LL says Too Much Baseball is Not a Good Thing

It's all the other leagues' faults. Everyone should quit playing anything but LL Inc. Just ask LL, they'll tell you.

There is too much ball for some kids. And IMHO, there is no need for kids to start organized ball before 9YO. This business of leagues starting at 4YO is ridiculous.

But to blame "travel ball" for the problem is naive at best.

And the selfrighteous discussion of protecting players, limiting pitcher innings, etc? I have seen a 9YO throw 123 pitches in one game. All within those LL Inc. guidelines. Can pitcher abuse be stopped by LL Inc.? No. But to allude that they do prevent it is misleading.

LL Inc. needs to tend to its own house.

I find it amusing that Steve Keener decries travel ball after hosting a tournament where most parents put there personal professional lives on hold for 60 or 70 days, spent thousands of dollars, and in some cases lost jobs to attend.

quote:

The evolution of ultra-competitive, excessively-expensive, and loosely-regulated “travel ball” has brought Little League unwanted and unwarranted criticism, especially at tournament time.

Any family with a kid that got to Williamsport incurred huge expenses in the thousands of dollars. The kid has played in maybe 7 or 8 tournaments to get there, with starting pitchers allowed to pitch every other game. Their mandatory play rules force coaches to overuse and abuse arms. Teams limit rosters to 10 or 11 to be competitive, leaving them all short of pitching, requiring them to abuse their top 2 pitchers. I'll bet the starters pitched 2 or 3 games a week for two months before they were done. They have probably all thrown over 100 innings in the last 4 months. Please don't talk about abusive travel teams.

Glass houses, Mr. Keener. Glass houses.

LL gets criticized because it is not really baseball in the pure sense. I know of no team that requires every player be in every game, other that LL. I applaud LL for providing the first organized ball for so many youngsters, but how can you play a two month tournament with basicly 2 two-way players on each team, which is what I see every year on TV?

I guess all the teams with more than 11 on a roster didn't get to Williamsport.

Dad04,
The best pitchers would be on the team with rosters of 11 or rosters of 14. They just don't draw from a large enough population pool unless they've pulled some shennanigans or are very lucky to have enough strong pitchers.

The US teams at Williamsport typically had 12 players although 2 teams had 11. The foreign teams typically carried 14 players.

Mandatory play rules don't force anyone to overuse arms.

Having said that, of course Keener was way off base. I guess that all the teams without a large majority of travel ball players don't make it to Williamsport. LL all-star players aren't allowed to play for other teams while they're playing in the LL tournament so travel ball isn't hurting their arms during that time period.

Travel ball has it's place and LL has it's place. In most areas they manage to blend together fairly well.

I think the televising of the LLWS has INCREASED the desire for travel ball.

Think about it...most young baseball players (actually their dads and moms I suppose) dream of playing in a "world series" after watching the LLWS. Its what incited it in large part.

I've heard it many times...even felt it myself. "WOW, what if my young son could play on a stage like that!"

Then the phone call comes..."Mr. ***X, we'd like to take your son with us to the AAU/USSSA/NABF/yyyy World Series."

"GREAT!" we say. And off they/we go.

Ridiculous statement by LL. They helped cause it, now they must live with it...but once the Jeannie is out of the bottle, well you can't put it back very easily.

quote:

They helped cause it, now they must live with it...but once the Jeannie is out of the bottle, well you can't put it back very easily.

very true

CADad

You might be correct about the pitching. It just seemed that each team only had two starters.

quote:

In most areas they manage to blend together fairly well.

Its my understanding that the Maitland FL All Star team played together on a fall team for the past two years, working to get to Williamsport. I am guessing they are not alone.

LL did squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube. It can't go back in. They want all the best players all the time. I guess, at least they are honest about it.

Too much baseball. How can you have too much baseball

Last year's US champs, Conejo Valley had players playing on 2 or 3 different travel teams at the USSSA major level. Only 1 or two of the kids didn't play travel ball and I think that was because they were just very good athletes who were too busy with other sports. I don't know how many pitchers the teams had this year but I know that Conejo had 1 ace, 1 top starter, 1 decent starter, 1 pitcher who hurt his arm, and a very good pitcher who was even more valuable at shortstop so he didn't see much mound time. They really did split up the innings pretty well last year. I went into last year's tournament with 6 pitchers of roughly equal ability and over 5 games didn't throw any of my pitchers more than a total of 8 innings.

The reality is that teams have to be exposed to that level of competition before the LL tournament begins or they aren't going to be able to compete.

OK, so following your logic (which I agree with by the way), you MUST play travel ball to realistically compete for the LLWS championship.

Again, LL has helped to cause this by making their championship so visible. Their criticism of travel ball falls on deaf ears when coming from them.

The big question I have is why do kids who taste the chocolate (travel ball has leadoffs and real baseball) have any desire to go back to rules that were good in the 1960s and before? Why? Because of TV!

justbaseball,
The kids like to play baseball. They aren't quite as worried as we are about it being "real" baseball. They enjoy LL and it's rules and they enjoy travel ball and it's rules.

Hmmm. You ?might? be right. I only have 2 data points that I will tell you about.

Our community has both a PONY league and a LL. Last Fall we had 10 kids from the PONY league and 2 from the LL on our 12U USSSA team. All the kids had fun as far as I know.

When it came time for league signups, the 2 LL kids WANTED to change to PONY...because in their own words, "this is a lot more fun." Their parents (fathers) would not let them...back to LL they went...why?..."because they had a chance to go to Williamsport." They were eliminated after about 4 games in district. Meanwhile the Bronco all star team they would have played on made it to within 1 win of the Bronco World Series.

The "Williamsport voodoo" has the parents more locked in than the kids IMO. But thats just based on 2 kids from my town that had a choice.

They're back with us this Fall...having fun...glad to be back...never will play LL again so they say.

There has been a slow but steady switch from LL to other organizations. This switch has increased over the past 20 years where you see more kids coming from the suburbs rather than the city. USSSA, AAU and all the other organiztions work because of their local influence and governing. You'll find that the best talent wants to play the best teams. Lets face it, those teams don't play LL.

Look for the following to happen very shortly. Someone will put together a travel team at about 8 or 9 and work with the players & team until they are ready to play as 12 year olds. This same team will have placed in several national tournaments and be a true national calibur team. Their will only be one LL program in the area or the coach will start one (so they will be able to take everyone on the travel team & have them in the league) and the coach will have his travel team players sign-up for the local LL like everyone else and they will be eligible. The travel coach will win his LL regular season and be allowed to coach the All_Star team where he will pick his travel ball players. This LL/Travel team will hammer everyone in the LL World Series and LL will talk about how great the team is. Don't fool yourself this will happen and LL will think that everything is great.

cbg,
What makes you think it hasn't happened already? The hard part is making a group of local kids a true national caliber team. Fortunately, a team doesn't have to be quite that good to win the LLWS.