How Parents Can Create Change in Youth Baseball & Softball

There are a lot of problems with travel baseball and softball - and youth sports in general. As a parent or coach, what can you do to encourage and create change?
📘 My mental skills book for athletes - This Slump Shall Pass - Get your copy here 👉 slumpshallpass.com
📣 My Books, Social Media, Shop, Courses & More 👉linktr.ee/danblewett
❤️ LOVE THROWING, My Free Program: danblewett.com/lovethrowing
🚨New to Baseball? Free Cheat Sheet: danblewett.com/baseball-cheat...
📬 Email me a question 👉 danblewett.com/ask-dan-blewett/
💪 My baseball strength program 👉 earlyworktraining.com/baseball/

[@msmliars908]

Thanks Dan. So I run a 13u team. I did so after the last coach left, and the parents wanted to keep the team in tact. So I did just this. I created a hybrid model for the boys, where we play a league, 16 games, and we do one out of town tournament, and a few other local one on our area. The kids have thrived in this. Focused and driven. And the parents seem to love the system that is now in place. On top of the baseball we are also able to do many things outside of baseball, that has only made them better teammates and players. They get to play a good amount of games, and we have kids from travel teams asking for spots on the team. It’s been extremely rewarding. The kids love it.

[@tompaul7741]

Coach Dan great video. It is truly an issue with travel sports today and I did hear that some clubs are trying more local "national" type tournaments which is great. Getting kids involved to play backyard sports is so critical. We have taken the fun out of sports. Thanks.

[@MrChuckwagon55]

I hope these kids appreciate how lucky they are to have you making these videos, providing real, unfiltered, important life affecting information that I’ve never seen any coach provide before. I say on every video I wished I had him when I was in HS. I played pro (probably had the weirdest path to pro ball because I didn’t play college and wasn’t drafted out of HS) and he’s better than any coach I’ve ever experienced. He basically provides the cheat codes of the game and the realities of what to expect at what levels. I had none of these advantages. Other than just playing the only instruction we got at Baseball Camps was a stupid form letter to send to schools you think you could get into. He also provides context about the positive effect of the game and growing your character for life, being a man, a good person. I wish I had a mentor like him.

[@DanBlewett]

thanks! appreciate the comment, and no worries on the other messages from before. You're good. Thanks for watching and sharing your stories.

[@dsbranch9144]

Agreed. The best ‘select’ teams that any of my kids played on were all administrated by parents and the coach was hired directly. Big pain in the rear for a couple of the dads who organized the team, however, it was cheaper, more family focused, and everyone had a better experience.

[@DanBlewett]

yeah, i can imagine it was a lot better. The problem now is that tournament companies, essentially, are dictating how everything works from the top down - they set the fees, schedules, and then travel orgs are stuck making it work, and it flows downhill.

[@MH-Tesla]

We did a local tournament one weekend. The next weekend we do our one over night tournament, but half the teams were in both because they did the same thing and the teams for the state we went to were in our state. LoL. It was seriously the funniest thing to find out. That was 12U and the first time we did an overnight tournament. My son was actually being recruited to join the National team and I said no, not spending that much on baseball and he preferred to play with his friends.

[@DanBlewett]

yep. this happens all over. You start to feel real silly driving 3 states over to play the same kids you'd have played back home, at no added expense. Even further, we once had a local college coach had to drive 3 hours to watch one of our kids play - when both the coach and our player were from the same town. We couldnt avoid that at the time, but it was another reason I shook my head at the stupid traveling format we were forced to acquiesce to

[@1969EType]

There is nothing worse in travel sports than travelling 8 hours in the car, making it to the championship game...and playing an opponent whose home field is 8 miles from your home field. Tournament Directors, please pay attention where your teams are coming in from. Another way change can be created in youth baseball and softball is to require all parents to umpire at least one game. I have encountered several leagues doing this and it has improved the entire experience of youth ball for everyone.

[@matt8445]

I don't think I can possibly like this enough.

[@HardballHQ]

I love what you are saying. It is a difficult hill to climb but I've been fortunate to be involved with independent teams trying to make the change. One of my sons did play on a team that was, for lack of a better term, a big travel franchise team. It was very expensive, they traveled farther from home than felt necessary, and largely ended up playing the same kind of teams they could have played at a closer tournament. More recently my kids played local travel as part of a travel baseball league. Teams schedule local games against other travel teams and have an end of year tournament. In addition, some of those teams will attend other tournaments both in and out of town. It is a step in the right direction but I miss the neighborhood cook outs that were recreational baseball. I'm currently working on a summer ball program that will help give high school students a more development oriented summer ball experience. My sons first year of summer ball was almost all games once high school ball was out. This was especially true given how far his HS team went in the post season causing him to miss the summer ball practice window. It's a difficult task but I'm fortunate that we found a local college to partner with and I hope it will provide players with the right balance of games and training. To anyone out there thinking they wish there was another way... it's worth the fight to give it a try in your community.

[@DanBlewett]

good work! Keep it up. It's funny that the "new" model you're mentioning - scheduling local games with one end of year tournament...is the same model I grew up playing (and you probably did too). A big part of the fees we're not addressing is the training - strength training + instruction - which is a part of the big fees. You can strip those out, but it's important that people (not saying you, just as a general statement) understand that the big $$$ is for more than just the umpires and uniforms, so comparing to what you and I got as kids...it's an apples to oranges comparison. I didn't pay much to play, but we didn't get anything packaged in like what is offered now. We just got to be on a team and we'd practice once, maybe twice a week. No other instruction. No strength training. The training has real value, but is a large piece of why it's so pricey.

[@HardballHQ]

@@DanBlewett Training was the driving force for a lot kids going to travel baseball. Now I see more and more programs providing less training in exchange for more games. I think finding that old school feel with new school training is the sweet spot for most kids. There are exceptions but there always will be exceptions. What I'm seeing in my area with both middle school and high school kids is a significant need for more strength, speed, and agility training at all levels. Even when you can't train skills, you can always train your body. Thank you for all your videos. My boys and I love what you do.

[@CP-zj1hx]

I really enjoy listening to you and watching some training vid's as well, but what do I say to my son who will be a junior if he doesn't make the high school JV or V teams? After being told he's ready from top professional baseball coaches. Some whom have played in the minors and some in the MLB.

[@DanBlewett]

Is this rhetorical? I’m not sure what you’re saying or asking. If he doesn’t make the team you tell him that life is hard and that even when you do your best sometimes you don’t make the cut and all you can do is keep trying or pivot to new things. Life keeps going.

[@user-bn8zl9ph6e]

I totally love and agree with what you're saying but it also seems like college coaches are part of this driving force. My DD travel does tournaments where college coaches are going to be watching and looking for players to recruit which is what my DD is hoping for. My DD is a sophomore in high school and so it seems that if she doesn't go to these big tournaments and camps she won't have a chance to be noticed, seen or recruited and that's what we've been told. It is starting to seem like only families who can pay for all of this are the only ones that have a chance. My husband and I sacrifice a lot for her and we are ok with it because she is our one and only but what about those families whose children have the same dream but can't afford it. Their child could be amazing and never have the opportunity to get noticed because of $$$. I don't know even where to start with the change in regards to this.

[@DanBlewett]

yeah, its a little different in softball vs baseball, and I do think the softball "showcase" tournaments are more well-stocked with coaches, whereas baseball tournaments are usually barren, with only the top tournaments with top talent really drawing coaches to attend. But, the main tool for recruiting is still to email coaches - especially schools within 1-2 hours - with video, etc. And that costs nothing.

[@MichaelSheeley]

I agree with all of this. The challenge in being a group of parents that try to organize is the local rec leagues. As you mention, club teams are more incentivized to work with parents where rec leagues have to follow what they think are rules defined by Little League or they are run by “daddy ball” parents who only want a league they can control. The rise in corporations owning youth sports is more of a symptom of a market opportunity created by the existing “corporate controlled” rec leagues who don’t want to innovate or change. When they hear of a group of parents starting to organize, they do whatever they can to end it any way they can. It is really sad to watch. Parents are then left to choose between existing club teams or poorly run rec leagues.

[@DanBlewett]

All fair points. I think what will end up happening - if people want to push and make it happen - is another step in between rec and expensive travel. Rec leagues have had a large gap in competition and player competence for 30 years - I played rec and travel both as a kid, and even then, 25+ years ago, I still didn't have much fun playing rec because I had teammates who couldn't catch throws to first base. That gap is worse now. So it's hard to know if that's what we're trying to bolster, or if it's finding another step between rec and travel. I think having leagues that are local, a step above rec but still affordable and perhaps subsidized in some way for low income families - is possible.

[@MichaelSheeley]

@@DanBlewett agree. I think the question is if travel ball or local rec will fill that gap. Feels like travel ball is filling it. That’s what people are sensing when they talk about the “delusion“ of travel ball. Not super competitive but still super expensive.

[@HardballHQ]

I think you nailed it. The growth of a middle ground between big business travel and recess level rec will do wonders for the majority of kids playing baseball.@@DanBlewett

[@bradtaylor940]

I'm contemplating opening a small indoor baseball facility. There's no way I'm going to charge an arm and a leg to use it. It's possible to both make a living and serve kids and families.

[@DanBlewett]

...it's not easy. I did this for a living. Myself and my business partner did not take home very much. Won't go into the numbers, but it's a hard business when you have commercial rent, utilities, insurance and all the other overhead to pay. There were many different reasons I left the business - and would never open a facility again--the economics is one of them.

[@jeffmilroy9345]

That saddens me to hear you say more than you know. Part of the toughest challenge is when a kid gets in their high school teens and you need more than an economy size family room to toss in to season an arm during preseason frigid weather. Some good pitchers in my experience are ADHD to some degree but alternatively able to hyper-focus on the mound. That means some may not be premium candidates academically or well regarded by teachers/coaches. I literally was threatened with being arrested for trespassing by a high school athletic director for merely preseason tossing with my son in the high school field house. What would she know about the thousands of hours training an arm from age 7 to 14? Where else do you season and tune a freshman arm at 60'+ pitching distance if not in a field-house or at an indoor batting cage facility?

[@jeffmilroy9345]

My kids and were visiting near the west Chicago loop and noticed that a picture we took matched a scene from "Hardball". One thing led to another and we tried to save the church that was used as a backdrop in the movie "Hardball". Believe it or not we got in contact with the author of the book and got his support to try and save it and convert it to an inner city baseball facility. (I mean it is in the former projects redevelopment area right)? Long story short - the church was bought out by another party and razed for development. What a shame - it was a natural baseball mecca. There are a lot of church edifices being sold. Maybe you can find one.

[@Gotcho1977]

It's $6,500 at one U12 near me. The local Rec travel league got destroyed by FOMO parents believing the $6,500 team is better.

[@DanBlewett]

that's so much money. It's not an apples to apples comparison between rec and travel - with all the instruction and training you get for that money - but it's still out of control, and there's no in between where kids can get good development and coaching while not pushing their family's finances into despair

[@user-tg6zq5bh2c]

How about Little League? The travel ball organizations are saturated, most of them are a glorified Little League Today. And to pay that kind of money for Little league Coaches running Travel Ball Teams is a joke. Years ago, you had to be a very good athlete/Baseball player to make any Travel Team. Now it's all about MONEY. Thats why you see multiple Travel Ball/Daddy Ball Organizations. Community Baseball with your local kids playing with their friends and enjoying their youth still can be a great learning experience. Best Times where Coaching in Local ALL STARS winning a District Title playing against Community All Star Teams. Fans of Little League Baseball Filled the Stands from all over our community. Just my 2 cents.

[@DanBlewett]

Little league seems great. But they don't have it in lots of towns.

[@thomastisdale2320]

Why do organizations not develop travel leagues with in a certain radius. Travel ball does not fit all communities. Larger metro area maybe it makes more sense. We are atown of 15,000 and probably 125 boys per school class. We presently have 2.5 million dollar field and 14 boys playing in the 10-12 grade levels playing . If dads can pick out who will play varsity ball at the age of 9 I say go to a race track or cassio and make real money. The 12 players that played travel ball at age 9 routinely end up with 4 to 5 players at high school level. Our high school has to take away opportunities to play as a result of the low number. Stupid!!!!

[@jeffmilroy9345]

Why take away opportunities to play? If all the interested candidates were put on teams and allowed to play intra squad and build up official high school stats, there would be no question who should play. The players with the best stats should automatically get on the roster. There are kids who athletic directors and/or high school coaches simply dont like or value and they are turned away and lose out. And the program loses out. And college loses out. And the pro levels lose out. And ultimately the fans lose out.

[@davidboatman925]

Travel ball is a cash grab. Don't get sucked in.