Opinion, Best League

As a President of a Pony League I am biased. But here's what I'll say from my observation - it depends highly on how the league is run and where the stronger players play.

Yes, I like the "real" baseball rules of Pony at the younger ages, but if the best run league with the best players in your area is a Little League or something else, thats where you should play if you're looking for competition.

Also, as you get into HS, I think the most competitive situations are with travel baseball, not local Little/Pony/Babe Ruth leagues. Don't get me wrong, those still serve a very important purpose, but the best players should be travelling out of their immediate area to get the best competition they can.

Of the ones you listed, Little League, but AAU or USSSA are both better for competitiveness.

My experience is that Pony Leagues tend to be a bit stronger than LL just because they can draw from larger areas. However, our LL tournament team tends to be competitive with the Pony tournament teams playing under Pony rules and in the tournaments where we've played Pony teams under LL rules we've won easily. Another LL team from our area has the strongest tournament team taken from a single league although I think that one of the local Pony leagues would be able to put together just as strong a team if they could get them off their select teams.

The LL team is probably an exception and they have a reasonable chance of making it to regionals this year.

As an umpire, my vote for is for the PONY leagues. I am not at all denigrateing LL, Babe Ruth, Dixie youth or any other association. I am for any league that provides baseball opportunity to youth.

I do not support the thought of the AAU or USSSA leagues as being better. They may provide more competition, but the limited availability and costs make them alternatives for the few rather than the many.

I am for what benefits the majority of youth players the most.

I live in a town (actually 3 towns within a five minute drive of each other that has PONY and Stewards of the Game. Twenty minutes South and you get to LL and Babe Ruth. Fifteen minutes West and there is Dixie Youth. The local Pony teams have scrimmaged many of each. I would list them in order of strength (competitiveness) in this area:

1)Pony
2)Dixie Youth & Babe Ruth
3)LL
4)Stewards of the Game

AAU and USSSA are a notch above any of these with AAU having a slight edge over USSSA but USSA has closed the gap significantly over the past 2 years and are almost a dead heat as most of the better travel teams play in both.

I agree with the post about PONY being good, but traveling team being better.
I live in a town based on PONY, yet I am on a select or "travel" team that basically plays under PONY and USSSA rules, just depends on the tournament

PONY travel league.