The World of Travel Baseball

I spent a good part of the weekend driving JP to various travel baseball tryouts.  The goal is to find a team for him to play for next spring and summer, so I can spend every weekend driving him to baseball tournaments all over middle Tennessee and beyond.  And so it goes.

Thus far in his life, JP has, for the most part, enjoyed a modest amount of success in whatever he has chosen to do athletically in team sports.  He's not the best soccer player, basketball player, or baseball player but he starts on his middle school teams, competes, and contributes.  He made all of the teams, at school, that he tried out for last year and I suspect it will be more of the same this year, in eighth grade.

Perhaps I will be surprised but he is not going to make all of the travel baseball teams he tries out for over this crazy two week period of  baseball tryouts.  I'm hoping he gets an invitation to play for one or two teams but there are not guarantees.  As a father and, honestly, an admirer, it will be interesting to see how JP handles failure because he simply hasn't experienced much of it to date.  Knowing him like I do, mu guess is that failure will inspire him to work harder to get better.  

As I watched the 14 year old boys walk onto the baseball field at Centennial High School and, later, Christ Presbyterian Academy, I was struck by the sameness of the expressions on most of their faces.  I saw nervousness and uncertainty hidden beneath a mask of stoicism.  I was struck by what I didn't see, too.  Smiling.  Laughing.  The joy 14 year old boys should feel when they're playing baseball.  Those things were completely missing and to be honest, it made me more than a little sad.

All of these boys, of all skill levels, trying out to make baseball team at a cost of, roughly, $1,500 - $2,000 per player.  Trying out now, at the end of summer, for a team that won't play any games until late next spring, after the middle school and high school teams have finished their seasons.  

While I am not a fan of travel baseball, it's a bit like musical chairs.  If I don't find a team for JP now - even though he won't start playing with them until late next spring - he won't have meaningful baseball to play next summer.  If he wants to keep playing baseball, competitively and in high school, he has to play in the summer.  And that means finding a team for him now, because all of the teams will be set by the time next baseball season rolls around.

Truthfully, it makes me miss the halcyon days of the Dodgers all the more.  My one mistake, I guess, is that I didn't take the Dodgers to a few tournaments on weekends to see how we stacked up.  I don't regret that - not really - because we had such a good time playing baseball in the WNSL.  We always were competitive and, in fact, won most of our games as the boys got older.  We did it the right way, too, with coaches who cared about our boys and made sure to provide them with a positive experience.  

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.  The core Dodgers are all still playing baseball on middle school teams or, next year, as freshman on high school teams.  Benton, Wes, JP, JK, and Porter.  And, I guess, that's what matters.  

Still, as I watched a bit of the boys' tryout on Saturday, I found myself wondering what we - all of the parents, mostly dads - were doing.  Travel baseball.  To what end?  That was the real question, to me - To what end?

Are all of these boys going to play college baseball, even at the small college or mid-major level?  Are many of them?  Of course not.  Will they even want to keep playing baseball past high school?  Probably not.  

As Benton's dad, Will, said in a text last night, these are strange times for the boys from a baseball standpoint.  I agree.  

POSTSCRIPT:  At least as of now, JP is going to play for HBC, a relatively new organization started by a a young man who went to MBA and, later, played baseball at Tulane and walked on at Vanderbilt.  I haven't heard back from Midland (Showcase) or Nashville Select and, although they have makeup tryout dates this weekend, my assumption is that JP wasn't on their initial list.  

I am trying - because of course I am - to get Benton, Will, and JK a tryout with HBC.  It would be fantastic if the boys could play together, again, next summer.  I hope it works out that way.

And so it goes.  

JP's middle school cross country team started practice this week.  He'll take some baseball lessons, keep working on basketball with Coach Amos, and we'll let the baseball take care of itself.