Local Weekday games - Not happy

Consider it practice for college ball. Weekend series are Fri, Sat, Sun. Every other week players miss Friday classes. They often get back late Sunday night/early Monday morning after a long bus ride. There can be mid week non conference games two hours away. That's four hours round trip plus a game on a school day.

Yes but the colleges provide travel. 

I hear you ED.  They forget who pays for this chit. 

Weekday games should be evening. 

And ED, after traveling around northern IL and getting rained on the past few weeks, I have a great solution.  What we need around here is a "Lakepoint" lite.  A four turf HS field complex, with lights and all the amenities.  And there is room next to the Sears center.  Plenty of room, easy access and no homeowners to complain about the lights. 

That way the kids could play at 8 pm instead of 8 am. 

Dealing with that too. Our varsity summer team only has 3 kids who can drive. 2 of those are still in probationary period and cannot have any passengers. The JV team is even worse off. Even the night games are hard because you have to leave early enough to get across town and fight all the traffic. We have a game an hour away tomorrow (that's without traffic). It starts at 6 pm, but caravan leaves at 3:15.

Curious how do they get umpires. Around here most have jobs to work around.

Most of the kids playing won't play college ball. 

Heck many of the younger kids may not stick with baseball. He has legit complaint ESP since they r not driving age. 

I'm not sure most of these umpires could hold down a regular job.

School ball, travel ball, showcase ball, rec league ball, Legion ball - they're all trying to work around each other's schedules and accommodate everyone or at least the majority. Our rec league does a decent job planning weekend games during school ball season and weeknight games during travel ball season. Fortunately, Legion ball starts after rec ball.

Very simple solution, have your kids do other activities in the summer, especially since you say most of these kids will never play in college.  Save your time and money for when the summer travel ball really counts, if they show college potential.

Don't you all ask what the summer entails before you hand over a check?

And dont worry, your boys will not hate you because you didnt sign them up.

It's not the teams.  It is the tournament directors.  They jam them full with limited facilities and no lights.  Thus, the move games earlier and earlier in the week and day.  We had one tournament try to do it with half the schools still in session due to snow days. 

As long as you guys keep signing up, they will keep jamming in more and more teams.

Before the 14u season our local USSSA organization raised prices and created some rules teams didn't like. Eight of the teams (mine included) fot together and discussed creating a supper league or play each other in tournaments each week. Afterall these teams were often among the final eight. It netted out we were going to bypass USSSA and cost them a lot of money. Very quickly they said, "Let's talk." As TPM said if you keep signing up they will continue to abuse you. You have to threaten to hit them in the wallet.

Interesting.  My 2017 in Chicagoland plays HS ball M and T and doesn't play on his club team until usually Saturday and Sunday.  We did have a Th and Fr game last week but were warned about this when the schedule came out.  This was an abnormality due to a conflict between a couple of different showcase events.  The college guys were tied up two evenings so they moved our event around to make sure they could show up.

For us this is a laid back schedule as he is no longer playing football or basketball so he does not have football camp, 7on7s, basketball camp or Summer Basketball league. Plus he now drives so we just need to show up for games.

When you see the schedule, it will say something like June 25th to June 28th.  So you know you will have games on Thursday and Friday.  I remember it being a drag when they would be morning or afternoon games.  Sometimes you get lucky and they would be evening games.

When I started dating my wife in college, she was an Elementary Education major.  When we got married, I knew having a wife off work all summer would have its advantages.  I never thought taking our future son to 10 AM weekday baseball games would be one of them.

Can't believe they have kids playing during the day during the week. Then again, they had us playing double and sometimes triple headers on weekends in 100-115 degree heat.

Just saying. This did not happen in past years. Most local tournaments scheduled all TH/FR games at night. I say most. Specific tournaments we knew of some day games.

This is the 1st year where we've had tournament or round robin schedules during the week only.

That being said, of course we would have signed up anyway. They love the game and are pretty good.

Oh well, I'll have weekends off. Won't know what to do.

I see the "honey do list" coming. Yikes!

Sad thing is, I won't be watching them play and enjoying the ride. <sigh>

For regular local games - during the week,day games are a pain. 

If it's a tournament that had specific dates - like the 24th through the 27th, then I would expect that my team should be ready to play first thing in the morning on the 24th and the last game could be on the evening of the 27th.

There's one rather large organization that runs HS tourneys in Florida that I swear I will not let my kids play in again because their scheduling is so bad.

The straw was a couple of weeks ago.  A 3 day tourney Friday, Saturday Sunday.  20 teams attending. Some local, some a few hours drive away. Figure about half are staying in hotels. 3 game minimum.

I figured that would be 5 pools of 4.  Tops from each pool move on. Nothing complicated.

But no....

Decided to have 2 pools of 10 teams.  Play 3 random teams in the pool, then take top 2 teams from each pool.  So you end up with coaches not only trying to win games - but trying to shut out their opponents while also running up the score.

You know, I could live with that.  It's dumb, but whatever...

What really killed me was the scheduling. You would think Fri-Sun - 3 game minimum - okay play 1 on Friday, doubleheader on Saturday, playoffs on Sunday, or swap Fri & Sat. Seems reasonable.

Nope.

Scheduled 1 game for Friday. 1. For the whole tourney. 1 single game.

So now you have some teams playing 1 on Saturday, then a double header Sunday morning, or vice versa - then having to immediately start playoff games if they make it.

No matter what you had to play at least one 2hr game Sunday morning. Maybe 2. Then another 2 playoff games that are 7 innings - no time limit.

Really?  Did I mention that our team was scheduled to play a game at 8:30, then another at 11:00 - which seems fine except the second game was scheduled at a different park a half an hour away.

Ended up having to pay for Friday night in the hotel, which wouldn't have been needed because our Saturday game wasn't until noon.  Couldn't cancel the hotel because the schedule didn't come out until Thursday evening.

Okay - rant over. 

My son is a 2017.  He is playing in the Will to Live Northwestern Invite this weekend.  The tournament is supposed to take place in Evanston, IL - home to Northwestern U.  Every team out of the 24 in the tournament was to have at game NU's stadium.  Stadium is undergoing renovation which has been known for at least a year even though the company running the event did not announce until yesterday that no games could take place there due to the construction.

Location for the tournament is listed as Evanston.  I could understand playing in some adjoining towns but the closest a game will be played to Evanston is 35 miles (Gurnee).  Games are also being played at 2 complexes in Aurora (58 & 54 miles), 2 complexes in Elgin (40 & 44 miles).  The games are scheduled all day Thursday through Sunday.  Only two of the 50 scheduled games are under lights. None of the games will be played in the same county as Evanston!

This is completely asinine.  Especially for the teams coming from outside the Chicago area.  Assuming they are staying some where near Evanston they will easily spend 4-5 hours a day getting to Aurora and back through summer traffic in Chicago.

My son played two weeks ago in the 16U Cincy Flames Summer Classic - Wood Bat

3 times as many teams but all played in relatively close proximity to each other.  Very smoothly run event.  

This weekend - feel like a Bait & Switch has been pulled.

Part of my post above included this tournament you are talking about.

My 2016 is in it.

I limited my complaint to the day scheduled games.

However, we weren't happy about this switch either.

Took two stressful adults, hours to schedule a ride for our 15u. Since most of the other parents on our team work also.  Had thoughts of dropping him off at the field 3 hours before. were going to scope out the area for shelter for him in case of some major storms still going through. Finally got a at home mom from my 2016's team to bring him to his field later.

The landscape of travel ball is changing.

More inconvenience and more and more cost.

And complete inconsideration to parents and families.

Parents of upcoming young players. Be prepared.

They're taking a lot of fun and joy out of the experience.

Hate to tell you, but it has always pretty much been this way.  I'm from Georgia near where the PG WWBA is held.  Prior to Lake Point, when my son was playing in these events, the tournament was listed as being out of East Cobb Baseball.  However, they only have 3 full sized fields there.  So, the games were spread out over 30+ high schools.  Games were scheduled all day, every day.  Although most teams had to travel in and stay in hotels, we had the luxury of staying at home every night.  However, there were fields that were 1.5 - 2 hours away.  That is one way.  Because we were local, his teams usually entered multiple events.  So, when he was 15, they entered the 15, 16 & 17 WWBA.  Three weeks of one game per day at some field that was usually not close at all.  At 16 they entered the 16, 17 & 18 WWBA.  Same thing year after year.  I would imagine it is a little easier now with 8 fields at Lake Point.  Fewer HS fields are needed, but the fact of the matter is, the tournament was spread out.

Bottom line is, there is no way to put on a big tournament without playing during the day at multiple fields.  The more teams in the tournament, the more field time is required.  There would be no way to host a tournament out of just a couple of fields with only night games.  It would not be physically possible.

I think if you want to play against the best in the best tournaments, you are going to have to play during the day and you are going to have to drive.  And the best tournaments draw the most teams, so your chances of this happening increase.  Really not much you can do about it unless someone builds a mega complex in your area that can accommodate all the teams that want to play.  I don't think one big enough can be built.  If it was, it would cost so much that no one could afford to play there.  

I think part of it is that travel ball has morphed into the norm and park ball is considered a joke by many.  Our first visit to PG/Lakepoint and I was kind of disappointed with the pool competition on average.  We did get beaten by the one really good team, but the two others were really just good park ball teams.  We need to get a little better to get out of pool play but I suspect we will again finish 2nd in pool play next time - two lesser teams and the one really good team destined for the bracket.  I wonder how many teams play multiple events at PG and never advance to the bracket round.

A LOT!!!  My son played on some very competitive teams in HS and played multiple PG events every year.  Never advanced to bracket play.  Some teams don't advance because they are as you described above.  However, some don't advance because they are more focused on getting all their kids in the games in order to give everyone exposure to the recruiters that have come to watch them play.  I'm not saying that those teams do not have depth, but I am saying that they are playing more for exposure than having expectations of winning the tournament.  There are, however, many national teams that are there solely to win.  And they will do what they have to in order to win.  If that means some kids don't get in - so be it.  If it means that they bring in "ringers" - so be it.  

I agree that PG has become a tournament for all and many teams don't have any chance of winning.  But, there are many good teams there.  And there are plenty of opportunities for players to play in front of recruiters from different schools from all over the country.  Many recruiters depend on this tournament to see the players they are interested in.  My son was asked when he was pitching during the tournament so a recruiter could come see him.  He wasn't asked IF he was playing in the tournament, he was asked when he would be pitching.

Hope this makes sense.

My post specifically is aimed at the 2nd tier type tournament organizations.

You don't get the bang for your buck with these. And they're growing.

Waste of time and money

PG is different, and brings a status of excellence and a huge following in the baseball circles. 

better off playing a couple PG tourneys and locally hook up with surrounding teams in your area to form a league like RJM says.

Well, if they are not worth it, I wouldn't enter them.  The principle remains the same.  The more teams that enter, the harder the logistics are to keep the games in a small geographical area.  Maybe your coach can focus on getting your team to do team showcase type events at specific schools.  My son's team did some of this and it actually helped.  If you see that there are a bunch of teams entered into the tournament, I would assume that there will be day games and that they will not all be played at the same field.  Your coach will have to use some common sense when signing up for some of the events.

It's really a matter of personal choice.  Do you want to play in big tournaments to maybe get the kids seen by recruiters or do you want to play in small events or games just to get the kids better and leave it up to the kids to expose themselves to college recruiters.  Either way is viable.  Either way will bring the desired results if it is gone about in the right way.

My concern is how the event was marketed.  The switch on Northwestern is one thing.  Not playing a single game within 35 miles of Evanston is another - the event was advertised as being held in Evanston - not at fields 35 or more miles away.  Makes it quite difficult for a family to have any semblance of vacation, which travel team families make of tournaments.  

As mentioned we were in Cincinnati two weeks ago and was able go on 3 college visits plus see some local sights while playing in a tournament. Cincinnati listed the fields beforehand.  We knew the schedule a month ahead of time.  

Plus the schedule for this event is almost impossible to read as the font size is minute.

I did not mean to slight PG and I am sure the bracket play is exceptional.  From the looks of it, the two teams we beat were not getting exposure for multiple players.  If that was their goal then they were sadly dissapointed.  Conversely, the team that beat us may very well have been getting multiple kids expousre - the difference being that they were all really good.  Looking back at the pool records it seems like alot of teams went 0-3 while playing on remote fields - felt like they just happened to be close by and figured PG was as convienent as any.  Put in a nicer fashion there seemed to be a much wider gap of excellence between the best and worst teams than I expected going in - I actually thought we might be one of the weaker teams.  Now all we have to do is get better and maybe sneak up on the "bracket" team when we play them.  As I am new, does there seem to be alot more "local" teams playing at Lakepoint (compared to 5 years ago at East Cobb) with the skills gap widening?  We were happy to have someone working the scoreboard at some of the remote fields and the idea of a few scouts hanging out to watch two "unknowns" was not realistic.  If we had knocked off the "bracket" team, I am quite sure our first bracket game would likely have had a draw of scouts based on the other team.

Not complaining (realize its my choice), but rather trying to throw out my opinion as to why the team counts have gone up (at all age levels) necessitating the use of a bigger remote field network and "intra-tournament travel" (just coined the term....).

You know, I don't really know.  I tend to think that some teams start to view the trip to Georgia for a PG tournament much like they did a trip to Panama City Beach for the Grand Slam end of the year tournament at 13 or 14.  I think maybe some teams know they don't have a chance to win and some teams maybe have no idea what they are in for.  They just know that PG puts on big tournaments and they want to go, or are supposed to go.  Because going to a PG event is just what you do once you are in HS.  

I'm sure many teams and players think that just showing up will give them a chance to play in college.  But, we all know that's not true.  There are many misinformed and uninformed people out there.  Not everyone has the benefit of being a member of HSBBW to read and learn about this process.