RJM posted:PitchingFan posted:I believe it is still an attempt at a pure representation of talent in a local city. The problem is the guys who have intentionally formed a team to get to Williamsport by manipulating the process. They are in an area that does not have LL so they form a league and restrict who can play. They play the minimum games and win. LL is a recreation league. My problem also is when they talk about these being the best kids in the nation. The best teams in the nation would destroy these teams and hit dingers all day long out of those parks. Plus they would be astounded by the speed the best pitchers in the nation are throwing. As long as we understand that it is a great opportunity for recreational players it is good. But it has been blown out of proportion.
You can’t compare a team of players restricted to a specific area and a travel team that can fly players in from other states.
The emphasized above says it all. It's the parents and our competitive nature that takes this all to the re-donk-ulous level.
My son played LL through Majors (12U) while balancing his travel baseball at the same time. He enjoyed playing on a team with his friends from school and the friendly competitiveness that came with pitching against your best friend. I can still see the smirks on each of their faces as they battled each other and we all laughed about it after those games. Then there were the games in which he played against kids he wasn't terribly fond of, had that chip on his shoulder and wanted to put them in their place.
Comparatively the quality of play was of course worse at the LL than in travel baseball. many kids played LL because either their parents didn't want to put them into a travel ball environment where it was more competitive, or they simply were awful. But there were some players who are currently committed and or playing for major college powerhouses who played in our league or neighboring leagues. It was good baseball once we got to all stars if you take the artificiality of 60 foot base paths, 46 foot mound distance, 200-225' fences, and those stupid 1.15 bpf bats that were hot as hell. Son now plays with a few of those neighboring LL studs on his travel team and they all laugh about those games, how us parents made them out to be so important and cheered so hard for those guys. Our families had a lot of good times with those rivalries...and so did the kids.