Travel Ball features players as young as 6 years old and the trend shows no signs of slowing
After a long weekend of baseball in Jacksonville – four games in two days – South Florida Thunder players piled into their parents' cars for the 280-mile trip home on a recent Sunday afternoon.
If they had reached the final, they would have played a fifth game. But now, after finishing 2-2 and losing in the semifinals, it was time to get back to Palm Beach County. The boys needed to be rested and ready for school the next morning.
Most are second-graders.
Welcome to the world of coach pitch travel baseball. This is not your father's Little League, where the neighborhood kids would get together to play friendly games against each other, representing teams sponsored by the local hardware store or pharmacy. This is a higher level of competition for kids as young as 6 years old who are identified as "elite."
A 6-year-old boy suffered cardiac arrest after a baseball crashed into his chest during a travel team game in March in West Palm Beach. Six-year-old Oscar Stuebe was playing centerfield for a travel team at Phipps Park when an "unspectacular" pop fly ball hit him and he dropped to the ground, his father Riley Stuebe recounted in an interview with WPB-TV, the city-operated TV channel. Oscar recovered but some questioned how a 6-year-old was even playing travel ball.
Most teams that play coach pitch are in the 8U (8 and under) division, but about three dozen 7U teams are registered in the state, including five that play in the South Florida Travel Baseball League. The South Florida Thunder, which practices in North Palm Beach, fields two 7U teams, including the one that played in Jacksonville.
"In the last 20 years, travel ball has developed into this beast," says Palm Beach Gardens High coach Matt Judkins. "The age thing has gotten totally out of hand."
That's one viewpoint. Others say players should have the opportunity to compete at a higher level, even second- and third-graders.
"If you're a really good kid on the 8U level, it doesn't make sense to play rec ball with kids who can't catch the ball and might end up getting hurt," says Oscar Santalo, owner of the Lake Worth-based South Florida Travel Baseball League.
The debate is ongoing, but both sides agree that more young kids are playing travel ball, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down.
How young is too young?
Joey Neering coaches the South Florida Thunder Black, one of the area's top 7U teams. His son plays for the team, which often competes against (and beats) 8U teams.
Neering acknowledges there are "definitely some conflicting views" on when kids should starting playing travel ball. But he says his son actually spends less time on the field with the Thunder than when he played T-ball and made the all-star team last spring.
"We were out there six days a week," he said. "Now it's usually four days a week – two practices and two games, or sometimes only one game."
The trip to Jacksonville was the first true road tournament of the season, Neering said. The team usually plays Palm Beach County or Treasure Coast opponents because there are so many available.
"They're getting more developed now," he said. "It's kind of how you look at it. ... I truly think it's a great experience for our boys and they seem to be loving it."
Jerry Parker is in his first year coaching the West Boynton Cobras 8U team. Most of his travel coaching experience has been on the 10U and 11U levels, and he has faced some distinct challenges working with younger kids.
"One of the struggles we've had with this 8U team is having parents understand that travel ball is more structural, more advanced than normal Little League coach pitch," he said. "Getting kids locked in and whatnot, paying attention, is harder at the younger age."
Still, Parker says, "I believe that if the talent level is there, and if the parents and the kid are committed, and the kid wants to be a baseball player going forward to middle school and high school, 7 and 8 is not too young (to start)."
At the other end of the spectrum is Judkins, who's involved in the upper age groups of travel ball as he prepares players for high school.
"I'm old school," he said. "I grew up in Maine and played four different sports in high school. I'm totally against anything under a 12U age group."
The business of travel ball
Chad Mills is in a unique position to comment on the changing nature of travel ball, serving as both vice president of the Wellington Colts organization and head baseball coach at Benjamin.
Mills is in his 13th season with the Colts. He handles the interviewing and hiring of travel coaches, organizes tryouts and oversees social media.
"We're still old school travel," Mills said, explaining that the Colts employ only volunteer coaches and are one of the few organizations that require travel players to compete in recreational leagues in the spring.
The trend among newer travel teams is to hire paid coaches – thereby increasing the amount teams can charge parents – and to have players on a travel-only schedule. The Colts were unable to field 8U and 11U teams this spring because they couldn't find coaches, Mills said.
"We're losing kids and sometimes entire teams because they think they're missing out," he said.
West Boynton operates in a similar manner, Parker said, although teams don't require recreational league play. "We're a nonprofit," he said. "We take our expenses for the month, divide it by the 12 players, and that's what our dues are. We don't make any money on it – the coaches don't get paid anything."
But the Colts and Cobras are part of travel's old guard. New teams are popping up all the time. More parents want their kids to play travel ball. There's open competition for players, even at the 7U and 8U level, and the gap between the haves and have-nots appears to be widening.
"Back in the day, it was more of the higher-quality kids, the kids that were more advanced for their age," Parker said. "I think nowadays it's gotten more watered down, where just about anybody can say, 'OK, I want to play travel.'
"I knew someone who didn't like the travel team they were on because their kid wasn't playing infield, so they went and started a whole new team. So now you have 12 more players coming out there that probably shouldn't even be on the travel side of things."
Mills summed it up this way: "Anyone can have a team now. ... Youth baseball has become a business. The earlier they get kids in the program, the more money they can make."
The debate over one-sport athletes vs. multi-sport athletes
One of the criticisms of travel ball is that it can lock kids in to a single sport at an early age, especially with fall and spring seasons, and lead to early burnout. But league coaches and officials insist that's not the case.
Neering, the Thunder coach, said his son also plays basketball and football. Two of his teammates play travel hockey.
Mills stresses to coaching candidates that they need to be flexible with multisport athletes. "It's not common sense to have kids only playing one sport at age 8 or 10 or even 12," he said.
Mills even extends that philosophy to his high school coaching. At Benjamin, one of the county's top programs, he has players who also compete in basketball, soccer, tennis and swimming.
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"During fall practice, sometimes we have only a handful of kids because the others are out playing other sports," he said. "To me, that's fantastic."
The spring travel season is winding down now, with Memorial Day tournaments bringing it to an unofficial close. The 7- and 8-year-olds will have a couple of months off to enjoy summer vacation. And then it will be time to get ready for fall.
Travel ball, for better or worse, is here to stay.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Baseball coaches divided over Coach Pitch Travel Ball for 6 year olds
