There was a tournament at my country club this morning to raise money for a local "select" baseball team. 8 YEAR OLDS!!!!! WTF? At eight years old they need to be swimming, chasing frogs, and playing a couple of months of little league - not traveling all over the state every free weekend. This is how you produce Kevin Costner's character in "Field of Dreams".

Agreed. I didn't start select until I was 13-14, even that was only in the summer

They'll all be burned out by 15. Happens all the time.

There were lots of out of shape dads who were 2nd team all district back in the day working that course hard.

My kid wanted wanted to play select ball. Told him I select to not travel all over the place and actually have a summer.

How do you select the best from a group of 8 year olds? They have developed little athletically and are goofy, uncoordinated and lack the focus necessary to truly learn sports.

It's the teams/clubs and leagues bamboozling money from the parents who think little Johnny is gonna be the next Bryce Harper because he quit picking his nose and fielded a routine ground ball. And a bunch of egotistical fathers. "Daddy Ball" is the worst.

Tie their right hand behind their backs at birth

I did one year of select in the 5th grade and got so burned out, I almost gave up baseball. It's more for the parents than the kids.

Agree with OP. 8 years old is too soon.

Bruce Almighty said:

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I did one year of select in the 5th grade and got so burned out, I almost gave up baseball. It's more for the parents than the kids.

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Yep, my parents let me do it at 13. Hated it so bad that I didn't play again until HS ball junior year. My nest friends parents pushed him full time through HS and he hated it totally by 15.

Benny and his friends, who are 7-8, held a burping contest. Caleb got to W in the alphabet contest today.

B-1 83 said:

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There was a tournament at my country club this morning ......".

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Maybe your butler should donate some money to the cause.

Select Club baseball is where goateed, backwards baseball hat wearing, lifted truck driving ******s send their kids, so that they can feel better about their own disappointing lives.

There's ****ing T-Ball select. I love my boy playing baseball but Pearland is ****ing crazy. Who the hell moves to a town for their little league? I have no problem with my son playing later in his life IF HE WANTS, but I'm not going to force him to play. Part of the reason I rebelled against my old man growing up.

george92 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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There was a tournament at my country club this morning ......".

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Maybe your butler should donate some money to the cause.

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You're going receive a strongly worded retort. Get ready.

Me and my son got talked into playing on a select coach pitch team when he was 7. 54 games later, I said you are going back to league. He played flag football in the fall and this crazy coach was pissed he wouldn't commit to another 30 games in the fall. My boy was a little upset; but played league until 12. He told me at 12 that the only way he keeps playing is if I let him play select. I gave in to him,and a team that wasn't "psycho select" and actually enjoyed it. The Perferct Game tournaments in high school were really fun. He is a freshman in college playing ball now. I guess he really loves the game, and he knows it's "his" thing, not ours. I saw a lot of parents that missed out on enjoying watching their kids compete, by taking it waaaay to serious. It did not look fun for them!

At least they weren't harassing people at a street corner or the grocery store by begging for money to go to the "world series."

We start playing Select once football is over but play in conjunction with Little League, All Stars and Texas Teenage. We hand pick our tournaments and use it as a tool to get more development and reps in conjunction with Little League, All Stars and Texas Teenage.

Fir those putting down Select I'd say go watch some tournaments where you have good Select clubs like the Houston Banditos and so forth. You don't have to be a big town to have a great baseball club as we have made some noise against bigger teams and so has little towns like Rogers and so forth. We just lucky to always have great baseball kids and they played together for years and it pays off. That said they all play football, some also play basketball and run track.

jja79 said:

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At least they weren't harassing people at a street corner or the grocery store by begging for money to go to the "world series."

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Agreed! Damn 3 year old were holding buckets out at Walmart when my wife, 12 year old daughter who plays club volleyball (not select) and 9 year old son who plays league football, basketball, soccer, baseball, etc (really whatever is in season) were walking in and out of the store the other day. Pissed me off because whatever my kids do I pay for. If they don't want to do it I don't force them to. But whatever they do participate in I fund for them. Don't be a beggar at Walmart.

BurnetAggie99 said:

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....go watch some tournaments where you have good Select clubs like the Houston Banditos and so forth.

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Banditos coaches still soliciting prostitutes these days?? [Allegedly]

http://www.click2houston.com/news/banditos-baseball-coach-arrested-in-prostitution-bust

Ragoo said:

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How do you select the best from a group of 8 year olds? They have developed little athletically and are goofy, uncoordinated and lack the focus necessary to truly learn sports.

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Real easy, just choose all the Hispanic kids. They mature quicker and tend to be much bigger and stronger at this age.

Now come high school age.......

BurnetAggie99 said:

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Fir those putting down Select I'd say go watch some tournaments where you have good Select clubs like the Houston Banditos and so forth. You don't have to be a big town to have a great baseball club as we have made some noise against bigger teams and so has little towns like Rogers and so forth. We just lucky to always have great baseball kids and they played together for years and it pays off. That said they all play football, some also play basketball and run track.

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I don't think anyone in this thread is putting down select because they think small towns can't compete...

I think they are saying at 8 years old, maybe you should still let that kid be a kid and not have the equivalent of a part time job.

Crusaders41 said:

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jja79 said:

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At least they weren't harassing people at a street corner or the grocery store by begging for money to go to the "world series."

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Agreed! Damn 3 year old were holding buckets out at Walmart when my wife, 12 year old daughter who plays club volleyball (not select) and 9 year old son who plays league football, basketball, soccer, baseball, etc (really whatever is in season) were walking in and out of the store the other day. Pissed me off because whatever my kids do I pay for. If they don't want to do it I don't force them to. But whatever they do participate in I fund for them. Don't be a beggar at Walmart.

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Walmart matches what they get. It is why you see so many fundraisers outside Walmart

I got burned out on baseball after sixth grade and decided to only pursue an NBA + NFL career.

Many, many "organizations" claiming to be select ball are not select ball. The word "select" implies there is some kind of tryout and if your son is good enough they are "selected" to be on the team.

This is not the case in a majority of the cases. "Select" to many means "are your parents willing to pay thousands of dollars for very mediocre (sometimes horrible) coaching, but still get cool uniforms?". Oh, and if you pay the fees, you can go around and tell all your friends that your son plays "select ball".

Schrute said:

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Many, many "organizations" claiming to be select ball are not select ball. The word "select" implies there is some kind of tryout and if your son is good enough they are "selected" to be on the team.

This is not the case in a majority of the cases. "Select" to many means "are your parents willing to pay thousands of dollars for very mediocre (sometimes horrible) coaching, but still get cool uniforms?". Oh, and if you pay the fees, you can go around and tell all your friends that your son plays "select ball".

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Most organizations like that have multiple teams for each age group that are tiered though. So if you're willing to pay the fee you could sign up a paraplegic, but he/she isn't likely to make the top team. But you're absolutely right about this: it's a business pure and simple, and they will absolutely take your money if you're willing to pay, talented kid or not.

Goose said:

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Schrute said:

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Many, many "organizations" claiming to be select ball are not select ball. The word "select" implies there is some kind of tryout and if your son is good enough they are "selected" to be on the team.

This is not the case in a majority of the cases. "Select" to many means "are your parents willing to pay thousands of dollars for very mediocre (sometimes horrible) coaching, but still get cool uniforms?". Oh, and if you pay the fees, you can go around and tell all your friends that your son plays "select ball".

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Most organizations like that have multiple teams for each age group that are tiered though. So if you're willing to pay the fee you could sign up a paraplegic, but he/she isn't likely to make the top team. But you're absolutely right about this: it's a business pure and simple, and they will absolutely take your money if you're willing to pay, talented kid or not.

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Yep, certainly agree. Organizations will have a "top" team, and usually it is pretty good and well coached. That's the team they advertise with, making promises that they can turn your kid into a great player. Then they'll have 2-3 teams in the same age group and they are much, much less talented - and more importantly they don't receive the same coaching attention as the top team. But you can sure fire bet their parents are paying the same prices.

Rutedown said:

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this is dumb

aggie7911 said:

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Rutedown said:

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this is dumb

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You coaching a select team?

Schrute said:

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Goose said:

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Schrute said:

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Many, many "organizations" claiming to be select ball are not select ball. The word "select" implies there is some kind of tryout and if your son is good enough they are "selected" to be on the team.

This is not the case in a majority of the cases. "Select" to many means "are your parents willing to pay thousands of dollars for very mediocre (sometimes horrible) coaching, but still get cool uniforms?". Oh, and if you pay the fees, you can go around and tell all your friends that your son plays "select ball".

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Most organizations like that have multiple teams for each age group that are tiered though. So if you're willing to pay the fee you could sign up a paraplegic, but he/she isn't likely to make the top team. But you're absolutely right about this: it's a business pure and simple, and they will absolutely take your money if you're willing to pay, talented kid or not.

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Yep, certainly agree. Organizations will have a "top" team, and usually it is pretty good and well coached. That's the team they advertise with, making promises that they can turn your kid into a great player. Then they'll have 2-3 teams in the same age group and they are much, much less talented - and more importantly they don't receive the same coaching attention as the top team. But you can sure fire bet their parents are paying the same prices.

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Might be paying more...Not unheard of for the top talent to play at a significant "discount". It's a big business.

And it may have been discussed before, but how about the parents encouraging select baseball to their young'un because, and I'm summarizing here, "Baseball is more about proper training and repetition than it is athletic ability, so we're investing in select baseball to improve his chances for a college scholarship."

A). I don't care how good the coaching is or how many reps junior gets to take...if he's not at least a decent athlete, he'll be lucky to see any playing time in HS, much less college.

B). You do realize less than 45% of college baseball players are on scholarship, right? (On average anyways, I realize they slice and dice for partials, but dollars to donuts they're banking on a full ride for their kid...who's probably not even in the top half of his select team, but I digress)