Travel Team Definition

There are essentially two kinds of travel teams. There are teams where the coaches can recruit their roster. There are teams that are community based. The roster has to come from a defined area. 

 

At 9u and 10u my son played for a community based travel team in the summer after rec in the spring. It was the Ripken all star team for the town. In addition to the Ripken tournament they competed in local Ripken and LL invitationals. The only purpose was to play into the summer.

 

At 11u and 12u I put together a team in the USSSA Sunday doubleheader league. The league was considered AA level. All the players on the my team were prospective LL all stars from our LL. We played on Sundays concurrent to the LL season. It was considered all star prep. Both years LL all stars went into August. 

 

At 13u (kept the team at 14u and 16u with some roster adjustments) I formed a USSSA Majors tournament team. The roster was comprised of some of the top all stars from the LL district. The idea was these were kids who wanted to develop into high school players. The USSSA site was 45 minutes from home. We did one non USSSA tournament as a change of pace. One location was three hours away. The other two were about two hours away. This was the only non school ball my son played.

 

At sixteen showcase tournament and scout league ball started. I believe everyone understands what this is.

When the kids were younger we would call their summer team a travel team. We would travel throughout Florida and play the best teams we could, not to win the hardware but to play better teams to get better. Our son played on this team at 10 years old and now he is playing with the same organization at 18. When the kids reach the 16u and beyond we call it showcase ball. The difference is now they are playing in scouted tournaments to hopefully get that opportunity to play at the next level. Our showcase teams are not recruited, instead they are picked from our local area. this past year we made it to the PG 17U playoffs and finished in the top 24 teams and finished overall in the top 49 teams for the year. Not to shabby for local talent amongst the recruited power house teams. Have fun while they are young, it goes by way too fast. Our son leaves for Furman this fall to start his new chapter in his studies and baseball.

I think differing definitions of travel cause the majority of travel agruments. Everything from if you sign up for a league and players are drafted then it's not travel but everything is. To it's only travel if you team packs up and drives all over the place for tournaments. Travel teams that play a few local tournament to travel teams that train year round. And then you have everything inbetween.

I've seen countless argument where by the end both parties realized they agreed with each other they just had a different definition of what they were discussing.

There are just too many different levels and set ups of travel to define it.

I think if you are not playing in a league, but playing in tournaments, you are playing travel baseball.  How far you have to travel to do that really is relative.  If you come from a small rural area without much baseball going on, the travel demands may be extensive.  I am from North Georgia, not far from East Cobb and now Lake Park.  Teams around here can play some of the best competition in the country and not have to ever travel more than an hour or two.  If you are playing LL or Cal Ripken or Legion or some type of league baseball, I would not consider that travel.  If all your team does is play in tournaments, you are playing travel.

It has been my experience that the definition of travel ball varies by age.  I am in GA and we have 6u travel ball teams (no I'm not kidding), and you can't compare the same definition to a 17u travel ball team.

 

So, from 6u-13u Travel ball seems to mean you don't play out of one park, that is rec ball, but you "travel" 0-90 minutes away to other parks to play in tournaments hosted by triple crown, USSSA or even small tourneys being put on as a fundraiser of sorts at small parks.  You may play in a tourney that has 4 other teams in your age group or there may be 40 teams depending on the size of the tourney.  You typically have a final tourney that is somewhere grand like Ripken, Panama City Beach or Cooperstown for 12u.

 

At 14u the definition gets murky with the change to the 60/90 field size. There are still the traditional travel ball teams but some 14u kids can be in 9th grade which means they may be playing at the PG events nation wide.  I have seen 17u local rec park teams that only play out of one park, 17u local travel ball teams, and the 17u teams that travel across the country and can be composed of kids from across the country.

 

So, I think maybe there should be a qualifier when speaking about travel ball such as my son plays "local" travel ball, or my son plays "national" travel ball.

 

 

CaCo3Girl, I don't think this is necessarily true.  As I stated in my previous post, this is relative.  As you know, I am from the same area as you.  For teams in our area, all the way thru 18u, there really is no reason to travel nationally.  Some of the biggest tournaments/showcase events on a national basis are held right in our back yard.  Teams travel from all across the country to come to the 15, 16,17 & 18 PG events right here in our back yard.  At the MOST, a team from around here may travel to Ft. Myers for the PG BCS events or to Jupiter for the PG tournament there, but other than that, there is no need to travel nationally to be considered a "travel team". 

But there are travel teams that travel nationally....the OP asked for a definition of travel team, I don't know if there is just one.

 

But yes I agree, with Lake Point and ECB at our back door WE shouldn't have to travel far to get decent views and decent competition.  But what about the kid who lives in a non-urban area and the closest "big city" is like 300 miles away?  The OP spoke about having 5-7 clubs in his area...we have that within a 5 mile radius of my house, most people don't.

That's why I said the extent of the travel necessary is relative.  It doesn't make a team from Woodstock, Georgia NOT a travel team because they play local events that are considered national competitions. 

 

I'm sure there are other areas of the country that are very similar.  Florida, Texas and California are three states that probably have teams that don't need to travel very far to be seen and play exceptional competition.  I'm sure there are others.

 

I don't think it is a matter of how far you travel, but the fact that you don't play out of one park and or in a league that makes you a travel team.

It seems here in the St Louis area, the term is "select" team.  Either you play on a rec team, which is the same everywhere, sign up in a league, practice a few times, play your 12 games.  Or you try out and are "selected" to play for a team.  Then there are various levels of what kind of select team you are.  And pretty much everyone in your age group knows what level you are.  Select teams usually play in leagues through the week, and play on the same fields the rec teams play.  Then do tournaments on the weekend.

 

The competition is actually pretty good so there wasnt a whole lot of travelling, unless you travel to the other side of the metro area.  Some teams would go to SouthHaven MS, or Columbia MO, or even Kansas City, but that was about it, unless you went to cooperstown at 12, which I believe only 1 team my sons age did.  My son is 20 now, so this could be changing by now, but I dont think it is.

 

Once you hit high school summer ball, then the actual travel begins, doing the Perfect Game stuff and the like.  Go to Iowa, Atlanta, Florida, etc.  

I hate the term "select" team.  That's a soccer term...lol.  Select soccer...and travel baseball are essentially the same...at least here in Ohio.  Now we have travel teams who are calling themselves "Columbus Select"...or "Cleveland Select".  It sounds ridiculous in my opinion....lol.  I would say travel baseball is any team that has a tryout...and regularly plays teams from outside their "local" area...meaning more than 25-30 miles...and plays in at least a couple tourneys that involve teams from more than their immediate area. 

I thought the definition of a travel team was, it cost ten times or more than a local rec. or LL team. lol