Traveling for baseball events right now

May I ask how old is your son?

@ARCEKU21 posted:

Hopefully not opening up another can of worms, but just getting thoughts from families who may be in similar situations. What are you thoughts on traveling for baseball events right now? Son was invited to one of the featured upcoming PG events and we have been back and forth about going. It's either a 12 hour drive or 2 hour flight. Clock is ticking and have to make a decision very soon. 

I was looking at some of the recent national events. It looks like they had 295 attendees at the 14u National Showcase this year which is almost exactly the same as last year with 296. So it looks like people decided to show up for that. 

I can share our approach, no idea if it's typical. 

My son is a '22 catcher looking at D1 HA schools ranging from P5 thru the Ivy. He just joined a travel team that plays multiple national tournaments (our previous club didn't go east of Arizona). Despite the dead period, we flew from SD to Atlanta for WWBA, wearing N95s and goggles on the plane rides, avoiding restaurants, masking up, etc. Since then we've driven to Utah and NorCal and will be flying again to Wilson in mid-September. 

We had to weigh the opportunity (reps with a new travel coach who has strong college relationships) against the risk (small but non-zero chance of contracting the disease). We decided to roll the dice while taking as many precautions as possible. My daughter is a '23 volleyball player who's in the process as well, and the same goes for her (although volleyball has been MUCH slower to reopen than baseball).

Just one family's approach, but I hope it's useful as you work through this.

Oski’s strategy is a sound one IMO.

Personally, I would do the drive, as it does help reduce your exposure, allows for maximum financial flexibility, and (I would hope) will be an enjoyable drive for you and your son. Plus throwing him in the drivers seat as much as possible gives them valuable seat time under your supervision (something that I consider very valuable for those under 20). This is our strategy for FL events this fall as school allows. 

Flights are super cheap right now. We flew from West Palm to Boston and back for a family trip on American with every seat full. Just masks. Used hand sanitizer a lot. Didn’t feel at risk one bit.

We then drove to Atlanta because it was a tournament and we would be there a week. Stayed in a Courtyard Marriott and ate at several restaurants. Wore masks when out and about the entire trip. Used hand sanitizer. Also found the best BBQ I’ve eaten at a place called David Poe’s.

We’ve driven to Ft Myers twice and to Orlando 3 times. Stayed in hotels and ate at restaurants each time. I will say Ft. Myers was easily the most relaxed with safety measures I’ve seen all summer and I definitely used more hand sanitizer there. It was mostly the lower income area that didn’t seem to care at all. If you went to the newer part of town they were more strict.

The tournaments have all been pretty packed. It’s not as busy as normal, but busier than I expected. 

If you are concerned about safety, I don’t feel any less safe than I do with my normal every day activities. So far this summer I’ve heard of two incidents, one was the first week practices were open a kid on another team tested positive so they cancelled the summer for the whole team, the other was a mom of the ace on my son’s team got the Covid and that kid hasn’t played for two weekends in a row. The kid has not tested positive yet and has shown no symptoms. 

During my 17 years [1987-2004] with the organization of 650 players each year for the Area Code games and tryouts.

I would receive many phone calls and e-mails from parents. "we are planning our summer trip can you confirm our son" for the tryouts.

There was no cost to the player. Unless a pro scout recommended I would not send an invite.

We had over 120 college coaches & pro scouts at each tryout. Many players earned scholarships.

No parent ever ask how I could achieve the event without "charging" the players.

"save your money"!

Bob

The 14 day self quarantine killed a few trips for my kid. 

I think that was a great thing and era Bob.  Unfortunately there are a lot of people making money off of youth sports now.  I've learned a lot over the last several years.  You really do have to force yourself to look objectively at your kids to see what are realistic goals for them.  My 2023 is 5ft8in and although he plays good D, hits for average... He is fast but not crazy fast. Blowing thousands of dollars to chase a p5 dream is just not reasonable. 

@2022NYC posted:

The 14 day self quarantine killed a few trips for my kid. 

I'm in an airport soon on a flight to see my son play a few games. He is playing in a "Covid state."  I am flying from a "good state" to another "good state." I've read the quarantine rules for my state and it is not in effect if your stay in the covid state is less than 24 hrs. Adding up my trips to his games' location  and back to the good state hotel (only about 1/2 hr one way), I'll be well under the 24 hrs. I'm sure that it will be worth it though.- watching my son play ball and catching up with a buddy I haven't seen in 25 years.  Same type of thing when I dropped off my younger son from college- only stayed 17 hrs. 

@Dadbelly2023 posted:

I think that was a great thing and era Bob.  Unfortunately there are a lot of people making money off of youth sports now.  I've learned a lot over the last several years.  You really do have to force yourself to look objectively at your kids to see what are realistic goals for them.  My 2023 is 5ft8in and although he plays good D, hits for average... He is fast but not crazy fast. Blowing thousands of dollars to chase a p5 dream is just not reasonable. 

Great point made here. I think there are people blowing the money chasing an unrealistic dream and then people who spend the money because their kid likes to play. At least that's it for me. My son plays on good teams and is a good player, but he needs to add 20lbs to get a sniff at any college.

Growing up my family didn't have two nickles to rub together. My first pair of spikes were very used from Play It Again. I had to mow lawns to get the money to pay the registration fee for my teams and leagues. I worked hard and started a successful business with and can comfortably spend money on baseball whether he plays in college or not. On the other hand, I see people go into significant debt to buy the $500 bat, the week in a hotel, the $350 glove. 

We live in LA, and have driven to a few tournaments In AZ, as California is shut down. I don’t see a problem for the parents, can social distance and mask at games, folks at hotels are distancing, and order take out food. It’s more a question for the players, especially gathering in the dugouts. If the tournament enforces some additional rules and coaches keep remindIng players it’s doable. We are trying to get additional live game film for our 2021, so for us it’s worth it. If he was younger, not so sure. Really a personal choice, my son was a bit worried after a few trips to AZ, so we had him tested, Came back negative.  Good luck.

A lot of my son's younger friends played/traveled all summer, no one on the team had Covid.  I've said in the past, myself and my family of six have been on 12 planes this summer and will be on four more in the next week.  None of us have had Covid.  Be seen, lots of kids are out there, and lots are committing.

Well it looks like the possible hurricanes coming up through Florida then to Georgia and the one up through Texas may make the decision for us. 

I guess I am on the opposite side of the spectrum for what people have experienced this summer. My son has been practicing/playing since end of May. I have been helping out with different teams in the organization through the summer. We have had about 8 kids catch the virus between three teams and a couple of parents. All have recovered and are fine. Interesting enough that most of the cases came after two of the teams traveled to the same area out of state 2 weeks apart. 

Looks like we are headed to Ft. Myers for the WWBA Underclass Championships and then over to Jupiter a few days later for the WWBA World Championships. Anyone else going to be down there?

We are in FM for the Underclass and the Sophomore WWBA's. I highly doubt they get to hold the WWBA WC in Jupiter. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any major events being held in Palm Beach until next year.

***I just talked to my friend who is pretty high up the org chart at the county level in Palm Beach. He's been doom and gloom all summer and he said if the numbers stay where they are he doesn't see the county trying to prevent it.

Palm Beach is moving to Phase 2.  This could cause a spike. Unfortunetly due to large crowds that show up, this could not allow the event to happen if the NCAA opens up the dead period.  

@TerribleBPthrower posted:

We are in FM for the Underclass and the Sophomore WWBA's. I highly doubt they get to hold the WWBA WC in Jupiter. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any major events being held in Palm Beach until next year.

***I just talked to my friend who is pretty high up the org chart at the county level in Palm Beach. He's been doom and gloom all summer and he said if the numbers stay where they are he doesn't see the county trying to prevent it.

We were originally going to try to do the Sophomore but instead our head guy decided to combine some of the 2022's and 2023's into one team and do the Underclass and then have some of them hang around to play in the WC a couple of days later.

Hopefully if they do have to move the WC, they announce the change soon. Starting to look at hotels between the two cities and also what to do with the time between the two events. 

@TerribleBPthrower posted:

We are in FM for the Underclass and the Sophomore WWBA's. I highly doubt they get to hold the WWBA WC in Jupiter. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any major events being held in Palm Beach until next year.

***I just talked to my friend who is pretty high up the org chart at the county level in Palm Beach. He's been doom and gloom all summer and he said if the numbers stay where they are he doesn't see the county trying to prevent it.

You were right. PG just moved the World Championship to Ft. Myers. They moved the 14u Championships to Panama City Beach.