Oh for Christ's Sake.....People complaining about the rights and wrongs of end of season trophies

[reggiecleveland]

I like all the little kids get a trophy better than picking awards at the end of a high school season. My school gives out athlete of the year and I stopped participating. These awards just lead to hurt feelings. If the MVP is obvious no award needed, if it isn't then there the season ends on a bad note.

 

[Archer1979]

Agree to disagree, but I also think that travel baseball has gone from being a great motivator for kids to being one of the worst things to happen to the fabric of American Society (totally seriously), so YMMV.

You may be right on this. Our town is somewhat small so travel teams don't really play into it. For the most part, our tournament teams really had no cuts since so few would commit to the summer schedule.

Is your experience that it creates a separate class of student athletes too early in the process? If so, I could see this being an unintended (or maybe intended) consequence.

Full disclosure in this in that I tried to create a travel team for soccer but I insisted that it would be unanimous participation as it was going to be either a travel team (which much better competition) or part of the local league (in which we never lost a game for four years straight). Couldn't get it started since it was pretty much a 50/50 split whose numbers would have been too small for two teams but too many for one. There were a lot of halftime instructions that you could only kick it with your left foot (or had to pass five times before trying to score)... basically trying to get the kids to work on skills other than scoring.

 

[AlNipper49]

I agree with travel ball. The pain in the ass factor is there but what is really the incentive? You wake up at 5am on Saturdays to go play teams you'll never see again in the hopes of winning a $2 ring? It's complete shit.

We play travel ball. The team was very hand picked. It has an amazing coach who is in it to build character for the kids. That's it. He wants to win, of course, but never has he for a microsecond prioritized winning over making the kids better people. It's not for everyone but it works for us.

 

[Rick Burlesons Yam Bag]

Is your experience that it creates a separate class of student athletes too early in the process? If so, I could see this being an unintended (or maybe intended) consequence.

No, I feel that it creates meaningful division within communities, and that is literally ripping apart America.

I guess I should explain.

If you look at baseball travel teams today, the vast bulk have immensely high fees, and a number of the kids who play in them are getting supplemental coaching outside that is frequently expensive. The travel team I played on as a kid had a 6-7 game season where we basically played the adjoining towns. Now, you travel to a different state to play in a tournament at a site that has 16 diamonds, a hotel on site, restaurants, etc. It is a $750 weekend for most families, and you are playing in 3-7 of these each season. In addition, travel seasons now run at the same time as rec. So most kids play one or the other.

Inherently, this closes the door on a lot of good athletes whose parents either don't have the money or the time to give. Needless to say, if you go to the average travel team tournament, most of the kids are white, and the parents are generally - at minimum - moderately affluent.

And here is where shit breaks down. Because of that overlap in seasons, and because of the perception of prestige, good-but-not-yet-great athletes end up not playing baseball. And while this is bad for baseball, it is even worse for society. It is hard as shit to meet other adults in a social setting. Adults meet each other and get out of their echo chamber through work, but mainly through their kids' activities (also, swinging sites, but let's table that. We get it cheekydave, you get weird). And for better or for worse, you learn about people, expand your horizons and get reasonable insights while sitting on the sidelines in a stupid folding chair while drinking something you wish was alcohol.

Rec baseball (and softball) was a pillar of communities. I believe this with all my heart. By eroding and creating a class gap that removed a ton of white folks from rec baseball, travel ball has helped take a divide that has always been there in American society and increased it a thousand fold. We bowl alone, but we also now sit on the sidelines in spring and summer only with people who live in our own echo chamber. It's fucking horrible.

 

[Rick Burlesons Yam Bag]

Everyone MATTERS on a team and should be valued, but not everyone is EQUAL. It's important to recognize everyone, but it's also important to recognize and highlight excellence.

As an Offensive Line coach, and an offensive person in general, I would have to say that this is the most idiotic horseshit I have ever read. Wait. your email on Deflategate was dumber. Still though.

 

[BaseballJones]

LOL

 

[Archer1979]

No, I feel that it creates meaningful division within communities, and that is literally ripping apart America.

I guess I should explain.

If you look at baseball travel teams today, the vast bulk have immensely high fees, and a number of the kids who play in them are getting supplemental coaching outside that is frequently expensive. The travel team I played on as a kid had a 6-7 game season where we basically played the adjoining towns. Now, you travel to a different state to play in a tournament at a site that has 16 diamonds, a hotel on site, restaurants, etc. It is a $750 weekend for most families, and you are playing in 3-7 of these each season. In addition, travel seasons now run at the same time as rec. So most kids play one or the other.

Inherently, this closes the door on a lot of good athletes whose parents either don't have the money or the time to give. Needless to say, if you go to the average travel team tournament, most of the kids are white, and the parents are generally - at minimum - moderately affluent.

And here is where shit breaks down. Because of that overlap in seasons, and because of the perception of prestige, good-but-not-yet-great athletes end up not playing baseball. And while this is bad for baseball, it is even worse for society. It is hard as shit to meet other adults in a social setting. Adults meet each other and get out of their echo chamber through work, but mainly through their kids' activities (also, swinging sites, but let's table that. We get it cheekydave, you get weird). And for better or for worse, you learn about people, expand your horizons and get reasonable insights while sitting on the sidelines in a stupid folding chair while drinking something you wish was alcohol.

Rec baseball (and softball) was a pillar of communities. I believe this with all my heart. By eroding and creating a class gap that removed a ton of white folks from rec baseball, travel ball has helped take a divide that has always been there in American society and increased it a thousand fold. We bowl alone, but we also now sit on the sidelines in spring and summer only with people who live in our own echo chamber. It's fucking horrible.

Ok. That makes sense. We could have had this problem with our tournament teams as it generally required us to travel to Central MA for a weekend. We got around that by subsidizing those that couldn't afford it. This is where the league as a whole came in as dues were required (unless you were a family in need and the fee was waived). We would also host tournaments as well as other things throughout the year and had league-merchandise that we would sell along with concessions. Made a lot of cash with those that we would use to get equipment and use for subsidizing the families in need. Baseball was by far the town's most popular (and expensive) sport so we did what we could to help.

 

[LeoCarrillo]

Is the argument against participation trophies that we should reward the losers less, but not do anything about the excessive fellating of star athletes?

This is so utterly and completely and totally through the bullseye.

 

[Rick Burlesons Yam Bag]

Ok. That makes sense. We could have had this problem with our tournament teams as it generally required us to travel to Central MA for a weekend. We got around that by subsidizing those that couldn't afford it. This is where the league as a whole came in as dues were required (unless you were a family in need and the fee was waived). We would also host tournaments as well as other things throughout the year and had league-merchandise that we would sell along with concessions. Made a lot of cash with those that we would use to get equipment and use for subsidizing the families in need. Baseball was by far the town's most popular (and expensive) sport so we did what we could to help.

See, I think that the way you are approaching it is bang on. Unfortunately, in much of NJ at least, we don't see that type of approach. Kids in dire need will get help, but for a lot of kids even though it won't prevent their parents from putting food on the table per se, they don't have the ability to pay that money comfortably and then sacrifice the time to go out of town 3-4 times a year and spend the night. Youth rec baseball (and softball) is dying in multiple towns in NJ but travel ball is exploding. Many of the rec diamonds that used to look immaculate look decrepit, and the high dollar pay-to-play places look so good Mo Vaughn would consider taking a date there. It stinks.

 

[Archer1979]

See, I think that the way you are approaching it is bang on. Unfortunately, in much of NJ at least, we don't see that type of approach. Kids in dire need will get help, but for a lot of kids even though it won't prevent their parents from putting food on the table per se, they don't have the ability to pay that money comfortably and then sacrifice the time to go out of town 3-4 times a year and spend the night. Youth rec baseball (and softball) is dying in multiple towns in NJ but travel ball is exploding. Many of the rec diamonds that used to look immaculate look decrepit, and the high dollar pay-to-play places look so good Mo Vaughn would consider taking a date there. It stinks.

It’s one of the advantages of living in a small town. All the players are needed or there is no tournament team. No town team for the tournament means that the players have to catch onto another towns team, which then means that the parents that would have been coaches are just parents again…. Which simply can’t happen.

 

[AlNipper49]

See we have all 3. There is rec / little league. To get into a tourney team you need to play rec.

Travel is broken up into three buckets
- kids who like playing baseball and want to play more - 20%
- kids who are really good and need to play around kids as good as they - 10%
- kids whose parents think travel ball is like an all star team - 70%