My 11yo son had such a bad experience with district LL last year, he's not doing it this year. From coach selection to player to selection, to bad practices, parent behavior, player behavior at games and practices, you name it, our LL and his manager (son was a 9 on 9-10 team) got it wrong last year and it was a terrible experience. I wrote an email to the President, VP and Coaching coordinator (the was no All Star director last year) afterwards that got basically ignored, frustrating because I know all three of them. The manager from that team got a majors team this spring.
New President, VP and All star director this year. All star director and another board member asked why my son wasn't playing, I forwarded the email from last year. They did not let that manager have a district team this year, so at least that was good. It would be difficult to be more jaded/cynical than I am when it comes to most youth sports and our local LL in particular.
I'd much rather he do AAU baseball, but those guys seem crazy, double headers every Sat and Sun, trips out of state etc. There doesn't seem to be anything in between.
I think our town based AAU travel team, which operates under the same governing body/organization as our LL, does OK with this (I asst coach my son's 11u team) but we do have occasional doubleheaders back to back days - those usually do suck. Weather cancellations are part of the reason. We use volunteer coaches, which makes it harder and harder to compete with the professionally coached teams as the kids get older, but saves costs. This season, starting Early April, we played 21 regular season games, and we're knocked out of playoffs in second game this past weekend. Did a tournament at Ripken in MD Memorial Day weekend, 4 games. Reg season done, we have tourney over 4th of July at Hershey PA. Will practice a couple times a week, and try to do some scrimmages before tourney to keep sharp. So 30-35 games, vs 15 ish for LL, plus All Stars. We are done 4th of July.
Yes, travel expenses are added for the tourneys, but our costs to participate are probably less than half of professional travel teams. That includes the once a week practices indoors mid January, which included professional coaching for the kids. We don't requires kids to prioritize baseball over other sports until April, so the hoops, hockey and indoor soccer players can continue doing their thing. My son even managed to stick with spring soccer, which lost in any scheduling conflicts with baseball, but he got to 70-80% of practices and games. Nothing is perfect, and I would never say it always runs smoothly, but we bat the whole team except for the playoffs, move kids around position wise vs dedicated slots, and pitched 11 of 12 kids in season, with 6-7 steady pitchers.
The advantage I think over LL is more practices (not necessarily case if LL coach is motivated) and games vs better competition. We chose to play in hardest division this year, and our record showed it, but we expected that going in, and the kids competed well even if the record was not great. Also moved up to 50/70 field. Tourneys are as much about fun as the games. It definitely is more crazy in certain ways than LL, but I'm not sure it's necessarily a worse crazy than the stories I've read of heard here. Downside is kids not playing with all their friends, a more intense baseball experience (we ask and expect them to be focused and practice and play hard) and more costly. Other age groups in our program have played less games, done only local tourneys, and kept costs down more. This year's 12u team did both AAU and LL, which meant a more limited AAU schedule. Not all towns do a separate travel program,but we've had enough baseball interest in our town to keep it going for over a decade. Perfect no, but I think benefits worth it so far - this was my son's 4th travel season. He still plays other sports - soccer, hoops, will do some golf and tennis this summer, and he skips fall baseball by choice, which I prefer so as to give baseball muscles a good rest.
There are some other town based travel baseball programs in CT that pull off a less crazy season in AAU, too. Not sure if your town or nearby ones are an option. Or start your own! Lol. All of this being said, I don't think not playing travel ball is necessarily a bad thing or disadvantage, or dictates no future in the sport at HS level and beyond. Talent, love of game and desire to do well will carry the day, as is avoiding burnout. My son will keep doing travel only as long as he enjoys it, and that time may be coming to an end - a less busy schedule playing with other friends could win out next season.