EXERT & EXHALE
sports be more of a training ground for life,
“teaching you all the different facet sports can
teach – patience, discipline, commitment, hard
work, everyday habits.
“My objection to travel ball is its priorities,”
said the successful coach of IUS’s championship
program. “Travel baseball is built around playing
the game, not around learning the game. Kids
don’t want to practice, or prepare, or get coached. But they don’t practice. “Practice is more than
just taking three rounds in the cage before the
game, or a half-hour of infield,” said Reel. “Practice
is understanding baseball and how it works.
Baseball is a thinking man’s sport – strategies,
nuances, situational approaches. On every pitch,
there are so many things happening, so many
different ways to handle whatever happens next.
And so many rules kids have to be aware of.”
“They just want to go hit in the cage and start
the game. It’s ‘The more games we play, the better
we’re gonna get – right?’ But the game itself should
only be the culmination of all that preparation.” In travel ball, he said, “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.”
What disappoints Reel is that travel can be
positive in providing all the opportunities to
play and develop. “With travel ball, kids just get
the chance to play more – maybe as much as 150
games a year.” It’s a theme that resonates throughout the
coaching fraternity, at all levels. Ricky Romans,
coach at Charlestown High School, agreed that
“travel baseball had to be more about learning,
instruction and teaching.
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“Kids get so wrapped up about going out to
play in tournaments, and win tournaments,” he
said, “that they’re missing the ultimate objective:
how to play the game.”
Romans said he can see one benefit of travel
ball: playing against better competition. “But
when the parents see it as a better opportunity
to put their sons on this specific team, with its
specific reputation, to improve the chance of a
college scholarship, that’s where I get frustrated.”
He reasserts the complaint that the kids don’t
get proper preparation. “They can go to all these
batting instructors and pitching gurus, but when
they get on the field, do they know how to play
the game? Do they know what to do when the
ball’s put in play?
“It’s frustrating when a kid gets to us and he
doesn’t even know how to hold a ball!”
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