Travel Baseball shuffle

We'll be transitioning from 12u to 13u, typically a big change. I'm also going to try to take us from a tournament team coming out of a single league to more of a true travel team. We won't be a select team but we should be a bit stronger. It will be interesting to see if there are enough kids and parents willing to support this approach. We just had a fairly strong local travel team fold due to finance "issues" so it will be interesting to see where those players go.

The shuffle begins!!

I have been contacted by four teams already... Hard to believe that my 11U is being recruited!! He is getting a kick out of it though.

Unfortunately we don't have any teams with the quality of coaching that Redbird provides so the selection of a team is not a simple one.

Ultimately the team he selects is his decision. My only rule is that whomever he decides to play for, he finishes with.

Hey Rob, any chance of you moving to South Carolina????

Ross.

Is it me, or does it seem like the stress level seems go down as the kids get older? Maybe it gets worse and I'm just out of touch. Possibly the parents seem to realize that their kids will end up on a team, and they won't get left out in the cold. I've also tried to look at it as the parents are only trying to do what is best for their kid. (Though some parents are NEVER satisfied).
One of the leagues we were previously involved in had a very strict recruiting rule. No team could contact a player on a team in that league, period. (Now I'm sure there was a little bit of that still going on, but it seemed like a good rule.) Our team does not recruit from other teams. We will only advertise an opening and talk to people after they show an interest.

CADAD, your right 12 to 13 is a pretty big jump. Best of luck to you.

Redbird, how did you guys finish at the AAU nationals?
Did Boomer play with your team again last week?

We just finished our season on Sunday and we were going to have a few changes to the team but we are now qualified for the elite 16, so I don't know what kind of changes we will end up with. Every year we normally have two or three kids that change. It is always their choice to change as far as I know they have never cut anyone.

bandito dad

I'll answer the Boomer question. He played in the USSSA AA Nationals in Winston/Salem, NC for a SC travel team Carolina Stars. He had a great Tournament batting .575 and pitched as a closer. His team finished 6-2, 3rd overall. The winning team was from Indiana (Indiana Pony Express). AAU rules did not permit adding Boomer to Rob's roster.

Boomer's Dixie All Star team (Dentsville, SC) won the state championship and is headed to the Dixie World Series next month. He gave up Dixie All Stars to play in Cooperstown. I asked him if he felt badly that he wouldn't be going to Alabama with his team and he said yes, but he said the Cooperstown trip and playing USSSA & AAU was worth it.

Ross.

Anybody heading to the ECTB in Reading, PA next month? My son is on the 13U Minnesota Blizzard team. For that tournament they'll be playing in the 12U Division.

Jason

Ross great to hear that Boomer is still doing well. We won USSSA Major in Henderson,NV last week and that was alot of fun as well. We are talking about going to Coopertown next year as 11's.

Ross,

There are always possibilities but not this year. Tell Boomer we said "Hey".

banditodad,

As Ross said, Boomer could not pay with us. We played pretty poorly at AAU Nationals. (The 10 year olds showed up) We finished 9th.

I saw you guys won USSSA. Congrats! We will try to qualify to meet up with you guys at the Elite 16.

We are kicking around Cooperstown as 11U but we haven't decided yet.

Travel Team Shuffle...I heard 2 Major 10U teams broke up around here. Not surprising though after hearing some of the infighting between parents and parents/parents and coaches on the teams at various tournaments. I'm sure the phone calls will start coming in to our team's coach soon.

Hey Bandito Dad - congrats on the WS win in Henderson. My son's 10U team (KC Wildcats)planned all year on going, but in the end, we just didn't have the dough to make it there this year. I'm sure we will meet one of these days!

jjinmo

Thank you. It was alot of fun but very very hot!!!!! 112 degrees every day. There were some very good teams, and alot of good baseball. Our toughest game/games came from the Texas Heat who we have played I believe 9 times this year with them winning 4 and us 5. We were the winners of our bracket and they had to beat us twice. They beat us on Saturday 2-1 with us making two errors in the first and they scored on both. We did beat them on Sunday 6-5 with them making a couple of errors. Our kids were on such a high coming off a big win from the Heat that we scored 17 in the bottom of the first against the California Yankees.