PLAY BALL? competition. In a country where the feeling is baseball is slipping as a youth activity – to football, to basketball, to soccer, to video games – travel ball juices up the interest level by the travel, competition and opportunities it offers.
But Adam Kleinert wonders if it’ s having exactly the opposite effect. Kleinert, a graphic designer who owns Hatch Design in Henryville, is the father of two sons and two daughters; baseball coordinator at the local youth park; and baseball coach at Henryville Junior High School. He sees travel baseball potentially diminishing interest in youth baseball because it’ s causing the summer rec leagues to disappear.
“ Because of the entry fees and travel demands, travel ball has become something for the affluent families and the single-child families,” said Kleinert, who turned down travel ball for his older son, Eli( now 13), partly because he felt it wasn’ t fair to his three other children.“ A lot of kids, left off of travel teams and with no other opportunities to play organized baseball in the summer, are turning to other sports.”
Kleinert said a friend pays around $ 10,000 for his son’ s travel ball activity. That includes the entry fees, of course, but also the private lessons and expensive equipment – because, said Kleinert, parents insist on providing only the very best bats and gloves for their sons.( He notes, wryly, that in the Dominican Republic kids play the game using hand-me-downs and makeshift equipment.)
And for what? For those who play, the immediate prize for winning one of the tournaments is a trophy.
The trophy is a nice prize, too, for those who run the teams – mainly because it allows them to recruit other good players, not unlike the way Alabama brings the best high school football players to Tuscaloosa. That recruiting is profitable in travel baseball because of the money the organizers make on the membership fees they charge – as much as $ 1,500 to $ 2,000 per player’ s family. If they have several teams in a variety of age groups, that loose change becomes a sizable profit for them.
The prize for the kids( and perhaps even more so for their parents) is a chance to perform in front of the college coaches and professional scouts who come out to the tournaments and sit in the stands. That means scholarships, pro contracts,
“ IT’ S‘ TOLD’ VERSUS‘ TAUGHT.’ I OFTEN FIND MYSELF SPENDING A LOT OF TIME TEACHING MY PLAYERS THE RULES. AND THEY’ RE IN COLLEGE! THE GAME’ S A LOT MORE THAN HAVING A GOOD SWING.”
BEN REEL HEAD BASEBALL COACH INDIANA UNIVERSITY SOUTHEAST major league salaries, free-agent signing bonuses, endorsements, shoe deals, glove deals, book deals.
Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels earns more than $ 34 million a year – and that’ s just his salary. Little wonder parents want their kids to impress the scouts and coaches.
One of those college coaches whose attention is sought by travel players and their parents is Larry Owens, baseball coach of the Bellarmine University Knights. So, he must love the idea of these tournaments, in which he’ s able to see and assess promising athletes from all over the country. Not so much.“ Yes, it gives kids the opportunity to play a lot of baseball and to travel around the country, and that’ s a good thing,” Owens said.“ But here’ s my gripe. When these kids show up here( at Bellarmine), we’ re having to teach them things we shouldn’ t be having to teach: how to play the game! It’ s little things they should know by the time they get here: cutoffs, relays, rundowns, fundamentals that are not getting taught at the youth level because they don’ t have time to do it.” Why not? Because, Owens said,“ the tournaments are set up only to play games – as many as they can pack into a three-or-four-day weekend. So, kids just play games, they don’ t practice, they don’ t learn, they don’ t develop.”
Amazingly, he said,“ When I was coaching in the minor leagues( he was a pitching coach in the Chicago White Sox organization), those kids didn’ t know the fine points of the game, either.” And that’ s just for the kids who get that far. Many more have been left on the side of the road because they were forced to pitch too many innings in these tournaments, or to throw too hard, and they blew out their arms.
“ In too many cases, these coaches just want to win, so they’ ll pitch their best kid over and over,” Owens said,“ unless the tournament has limits on how many innings a kid can pitch. And the kid wants to open it up and throw hard because he thinks that’ s what the scouts in the stands want to see. It’ s too much for young arms.”
Nor is the problem just about preserving arms. It’ s also growing up and maturing off the diamond.
Ben Reel, the baseball coach at Indiana University Southeast, would like to see youth
APRIL / MAY 2018: EXTOL 47