OK Wes. That's great. You got your shot in. Way to go.

Let's get back to the point of this thread.

Fair enough. I will go back to lurking.

One thing that changed with the PG takevoer of USSSA in Austin is now we have no idea where the tournament is going to be until Wednesday night. With USSSA we would generally know by MOnday or Tuesday if we were going to be in RR, Georgetown, Temple, whatever. Not sure why it changed because the promotion company is the same.

Here is hoping for something north of Austin this weekend. We are leaving for Branson Monday morning.

agsalaska said:

---

One thing that changed with the PG takevoer of USSSA in Austin is now we have no idea where the tournament is going to be until Wednesday night. With USSSA we would generally know by MOnday or Tuesday if we were going to be in RR, Georgetown, Temple, whatever. Not sure why it changed because the promotion company is the same.

Here is hoping for something north of Austin this weekend. We are leaving for Branson Monday morning.

---

Well, Nels and Walkoff still run it, as you mentioned. It wasn't the switch that changed things, it was covid. Nels had to scramble for fields when NEM, Taylor and Old Settlers were closed. The fields have all opened back up, but TPS sold to Gateway, there were some other changes and now the tournaments are stacked with so many teams.

WES2006AG said:

---

This argument is a perfect embodiment of why most of us laugh at the select baseball people. Have a good friend that drops a lot of cash for his coach pitch select team to travel all over and play in weekend long tournaments. He is convinced that his kid will be behind if he doesn't, even though we all know there is no correlation to a 7 y/o and what they will eventually be.

For some perspective, I don't have kids but have umpired some of these select tournaments and the life or death attitude the parents have would be funny if it weren't so sad.

---

Weekend long tournaments? Crazy!

Same way in Houston. You can sign up for a "Baseball USA" tournament and play anywhere from Crosby, to Sealy, to Brenham.

baseballaficionado said:

---

agsalaska said:

---

One thing that changed with the PG takevoer of USSSA in Austin is now we have no idea where the tournament is going to be until Wednesday night. With USSSA we would generally know by MOnday or Tuesday if we were going to be in RR, Georgetown, Temple, whatever. Not sure why it changed because the promotion company is the same.

Here is hoping for something north of Austin this weekend. We are leaving for Branson Monday morning.

---

Well, Nels and Walkoff still run it, as you mentioned. It wasn't the switch that changed things, it was covid. Nels had to scramble for fields when NEM, Taylor and Old Settlers were closed. The fields have all opened back up, but TPS sold to Gateway, there were some other changes and now the tournaments are stacked with so many teams.

---

So the problem is the increase in teams?

That would make sense. Most of our tournaments in 8u and 9u were 8 total teams. Now we are averaging 12-14. And with two or three divisions per age group instead of one or two.

We enjoy the travel and stuff, but its a lot easier to get a hotel room in, say, Dripping Springs on Monday instead of Thursday.

Alaska do yall home school?

Kingwood pinto - I love rec ball bc I can coach. I think his group is going to form a select next year. Not sure if we'll be wanted or just invited bc were friends


Kingwood softball 6u - lol my daughter is so bad. Gives me ammo to make her a golfer!

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

---

Alaska do yall home school?

---

No. Belton ISD

Jimbo referred to this…something to effect if kids playing pick up hoops where you win, you stay. He said, his best friend wasn't good so he didn't want him in his team.

PhatMack19 said:

---

-The bad kids are really, really bad. Like don't know how to stand in the box or throw a baseball. We didn't have kids like this. Our bad kids would almost be All stars now. The gap is way way bigger than when grew up.

Moral of my story- Get outside and play with your kids!! The neighborhood games we grew up with don't exist anymore.

---

I coach a team of 3-5 year olds. You're spot on. 1st practice I could tell which 3 year olds play with dad/brother (they can hit off of coach-pitching, and know how to stop a ground ball), and which 5 year olds get dropped off at the country club daycare while mom & dad go to the gym (picture "Smalls" from Sandlot, can't even hit off the tee).

I almost feel bad giving offense/defense play of the game awards (helmet stickers & baseball cards) because it's generally the same kids each week (the ones who play in the yard).

Mrs. Mosdefn wanted 30 minutes to prep/cook dinner in peace, especially days I'm not home yet, so we bought a "Hurricane" trainer which now lives on the back porch. Junior must be outside from 5:00 to 5:30 each night. He gets to pick between shooting hoops or hitting baseballs to pass the time, and he's quite good without any adult effort.

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

---

That last line is exactly the problem, kids don't learn to play organically anymore. They only learn to play when they are on a team. Heck I'm pretty sure at like 6-7 I could run an extremely effective hot box because we played it all the time on the sidewalk growing up.

---

That's why Latin America has taken over. Playing sandlot baseball for hours & hours everyday is way better than a few hours of team practice a week then a whole lot of hours inside on the Xbox.

It's a bit disingenuous to claim Latin America has "taken over" when they're still a distinct minority in MLB.

That being said, in the DR, Cuba, and Venezuela until recently a lot of their kids end up in academies when they're 8-9 years old where all they do is play baseball and go to school some. And MLB funds a good deal of them. Which is not unlike soccer in the UK and Europe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_Major_League_Baseball_players_by_nationality

Over 72% of the players in MLB are from the USA. The Dominican Republic is second with just over 11%.

Long way to go for them to "take over."

Here's what I have seen over the past few years at 'little league' level….

On a 10U team with twelve players….
-2 to 4 that have are talented/coached and likely don't want to deal with select or want to play with the neighborhood friends.
-4 to 6 that can play baseball, but the only time they are picking up a baseball is at practice and in a game…so they are not improving.
-3 to 5 is some sort of combination of playing their first season, parents wanting their child play a sport, or don't have the skillset.

I would say 1/3 of the kids playing select at 11U and under should likely be playing in some sort of little league format. Our all star team played in a handful of tournaments last year and I saw the same level of talent (or less) on many of those squads we faced. The select kids played more games in the season and had more practice/game jerseys. Select baseball is a business and families are going to continue to buy into the format.

Completely agree, but just imagine, if Select ball was truly just Select...where the best played the LL/Rec teams would also get better because those 1/3 kids who shouldnt be in select would be in Rec, would be in the upper tier of their team and play more and have more fun instead of never being allowed to play INF or not playing much at all on their select team.

The whole system gets better and everyone saves money if select is actually select like it was in the '90-'00

Or even, God forbid, all kids play regular league ball and save select travel tournaments for Summer/Fall

What you mentioned is why there are different levels in select ball. Depending on the governing body there's AA, AAA, and majors.

I can promise you that there are huge differences between AA and major level teams and there's still typically a big gap between AA teams and league teams, even all-star teams. Of course, this is highly dependent upon the individual leagues.

Part of what you get by playing select, even at the AA level over league is that you're typically going to have more committed kids who put in work outside regular practices vs. league where that's rare and lots of parents don't bother to get their kids to practice regularly. And it doesn't happen overnight but most new teams start out at AA with the goal to progress to AAA and major level competition.

If a kid wants to play in HS and isn't a pretty above-average athlete and they're not playing select by 14 the odds of being able to do so, at least in bigger schools or schools with good baseball programs, are going to be very slim.

You think they care about arm care in Latin America? You think they are worried about burn out and taking time off from a sport?

Thats great news.

As far as the discussion re: rec. vs. select by baseballaficianado in response to Lonstar_Ag09, a few things to note. Many kids just want to play to have fun and as it get more intense and competitive to have fun, it is then not fun and they lose interest so that is one argument against select baseball. Also going select where it becomes a year-round and 5 night a week activity can lead to burnout and it not being fun at all.

My 10 year old plays on a select soccer team in Dallas, probably one of the top 20 U10 teams in the State of Texas and top 50 in the country. His team and he individually is good enough they are getting invites to international tournaments, coaches come watch us play, etc.

My 9 year old plays rec baseball and loves it but he just all about it being fun. It is a HUGE transition from coach pitch to kid pitch that he is struggling with and that is when the sport of baseball loses many kids either due to fear of being hit by the ball while batting and the game slows down tremendously in the field for the first 3-4 seasons of kid pitch. In his last 2 seasons of coach pitch he probably struck out a grand total of 3 times across 2 seasons and 100+ plate appearances as the leadoff hitter. Transition to kid pitch, a huge struggle. Select is certainly better than rec. for this as the pitchers are better and there is a chance to actually swing the bat. My son, he probably has one or two more seasons of baseball before it is no longer fun for him or he can't quite get over hesitation in the batter box, etc.

A 10 year old kid playing rec. baseball is not behind on anything, right now, but with each passing season and year he will fall behind as far as being compared to all kids playing baseball his age. But so what, rec. league sports are great and many more kids play rec. league than select and it is great for the kids and the families. If the boy is serious about wanting to play baseball past 15 and play on the H.S. team, etc., then yes you would want to transition him to select sooner rather than later for sure.

My 2 pesos.

agsalaska said:

---

One thing that changed with the PG takevoer of USSSA in Austin is now we have no idea where the tournament is going to be until Wednesday night. With USSSA we would generally know by MOnday or Tuesday if we were going to be in RR, Georgetown, Temple, whatever. Not sure why it changed because the promotion company is the same.

Here is hoping for something north of Austin this weekend. We are leaving for Branson Monday morning.

---

I'd bet that $ was the reason for the change more than anything. Personally I liked USSSA's website better. Otherwise about the same. Still starting 8 am games 10 minutes late waiting on an umpire. Wondering if the umpire can see or is sober for the game (there actually are a few good ones). Games running way behind because of poor planning and long breaks between games. Yea it's about the same. 22 teams for our tournament this weekend in AAA. I still think it was better when we just played American Legion but that ship has sailed.

Speaking of umps, what was this weekend like for those of you who played? Our first game yesterday, 1 ump behind home plate. He was fine despite our opponent railing on him every single call he made. But that is nothing new for them, they do that every game they play. Both fans and coaches. We saw several other fields at Scrap Yard had the same thing. We ended up winning 11U open and had two umps the rest of the way yesterday. I had read before the weekend that people were saying there were going to be shortages.

We played a AAA tourney in Liberty, MO and had some fantastic umpires. They took charge and were cool.

One of them even announced very loudly to everyone before the game the expectations:

"I'm the head umpire, I'm in charge, you're here to watch your boys play, the boys are here to have fun and get better, The boys have feelings, you have feelings, and I have feelings. Let's be cool and have a good time. Play Ball!"

This dude was so cool nobody even thought about arguing with him.

Bassmaster said:

---

Speaking of umps, what was this weekend like for those of you who played? Our first game yesterday, 1 ump behind home plate. He was fine despite our opponent railing on him every single call he made. But that is nothing new for them, they do that every game they play. Both fans and coaches. We saw several other fields at Scrap Yard had the same thing. We ended up winning 11U open and had two umps the rest of the way yesterday. I had read before the weekend that people were saying there were going to be shortages.

---

My oldest got his cast off 3/17 and his team played the USSSA Super NIT at Scrap Yard on 3/19-3/20. They were second place in the 12U AAA division to a team that's major level in PG. Anyway, the umps Saturday were terrible. I mean beyond bad.

My boy tried to go on Saturday but he wasn't ready. He couldn't really swing the bat well enough and the range-of-motion and strength weren't there. He pitched one inning on Saturday and sitting directly behind home plate the ump called ball 4 on pitches he just grooved down the middle. The best I can say is they were pretty bad for both teams- inconsistent zone and some bad calls in general but they were bad for both teams.

The worst on Saturday was the field ump- kid on second and the ump is positioned between the mound and second base but offset a little. Pitcher goes to pick off the kid from second and the kid is clearly hugging the bag before the tag is put on him. Field ump is facing home the whole time and doesn't even turn his body, just sort of looks over his shoulder to see a play that's almost directly behind him and calls him out. Regardless of whether or not the kid was out or safe the ump had no possible way to see the play and make the call.

Sunday for bracket play we had a different crews that were much, much better. No real complaints there except for one play where we had runners on 2nd & 3rd and there was a passed ball. Runner on third scores and the catcher's throw to the pitcher covering home hit our runner as he slid across home plate. The ball caroms off into the corner and the kid from second was hauling ass and he comes around to score too. But then the opposing team's coach protests to the umpire and says that the throw that bounced off the runner hit the on-deck batter (who had backed up against the fence to get out of the way) and the runner who came around from second had to go back to 3rd.

Neither umpire saw it hit the on-deck batter but they caved to the coach yelling. However, even then I'm 99% sure that if it did hit our on-deck batter (which it didn't) it's a dead ball and the runner gets the next base which means the kid who never stopped running from 2nd and was half-way home when the alleged touching occurred should have been granted home.

In the championship game it was a really good crew.

It was fun baseball to watch too. My boys team had 1 error in 5 games. That error ended up probably costing us the championship but it was a really tough play- runners on 1st & 2nd with 2 outs, batter hits a chopper to 3rd and the 3rd baseman has to charge full speed to play the hop but the kid running is fast enough there's no chance to set his feet & throw. Instead he throws on the run and sails it- kids on 1st & 2nd come around to score and they take a 3-1 lead. We end up losing 5-2.

Oldest was off this past weekend but will play this coming weekend. He's been working his butt off doing rehab and if he gets his timing back at the plate should be close to 100%.

My 7-year old had his first tournament this past weekend in Beaumont. That **** is a riot but a lot of these parents need to calm the hell down- it's 7U baseball and half the kids on the team have never played select before now (including mine) and there's 2-3 kids who are fairly athletic but I'm not sure they've played baseball before. They went 1-3 but had a ton of fun and got some great experience but I think all the boys were more excited to get Dippin' Dots from the concession stand.

And going off on a tangent here but- where are the hotter moms? Youth soccer or youth baseball? Because there's a couple moms on my younger boy's team who are smoke shows and there were a lot of hot moms at the ballpark this past weekend.

The hot moms might be the only redeeming quality of youth select baseball.

If one error cost the game how did the runners get on 1st and 2nd........
It's usually a lot of things that cost a team a game. Got out hit, out pitched, out coached, but hardly ever one thing loses a game.

docb said:

---

If one error cost the game how did the runners get on 1st and 2nd........
It's usually a lot of things that cost a team a game. Got out hit, out pitched, out coached, but hardly ever one thing loses a game.

---

Both kids walked to get on 1st & 2nd after getting 2 outs.

Both pitchers in the game pitched outstanding and the defense was tremendous on both sides. Very evenly matched and that one play was the turning point. It was an extremely tough play and I'm not down on the kid at all but the coaches scored it an error and that's what gave the other team the lead.