Ummmm, this is some teenager making $40 a game, right?

I didn't ask his age, nor his wage. But my ten-year-old, who was getting paid nothing to play in the game, knew immediately that the run should have counted, and why.

Well, he's getting paid $50 for the game, and I'd imagine the benefits are quite low. :-) I try to keep this in mind when questioning calls on my softball team. I'm usually first to the umpire since I'm the pitcher. (I'm also one of the managers.)

I basically retired from ######## about umpires/officials about 15 years ago. I was playing in a charity basketball tournament and doing my usual bit of mild bellyaching to the referees about calls missed. Later that evening, I was covering a high school basketball game in which the favored visiting team was losing to the home team, and of course, the officials were to blame. Late in the contest, after one borderline call, a particularly incensed fan charged out on to the floor and tackled the offending referee.

And that wasn't the worst part. I happened to be sitting near the visitor's section, and the guy to my left, after a little bit of time elapsed (while the fan was yanked off the floor by players from both teams and escorted off the floor by the local constabulary), said, "He was asking for it" and the guy to my right, an employee of one of the radio stations broadcasting the game, "Well, he (the ref) did kind of start it."

I was genuinely frightened that these folks had the time to weigh the actions of the hot-headed gent and still considered it the appropriate course of action.

Later, thinking back upon my foolish behavior in ######## about bad calls during a frigging charity basketball game and the lunacy I witnessed later that night, I made a vow to avoid complaining about officiating at that level of competition. And I've pretty much held to it.

If you have a child who has more talent than the average kid, there's nothing wrong with elevating them to a level where they compete against better players.

Unfortunately, travel ball has become quite insane. First of all, it has become a status symbol -- "my kid plays travel ball." No, your kid plays on a glorified all star team that requires an incredible amount of time and fundraising for a minimal gain. Your kid is not good enough to play on an Elite or Gold team, which have become nothing more than farms for scouts.

Secondly, travel ball has become a cash cow for equipment manufacturors and clowns with marginal baseball instructional knowledge who get paid to be personal coaches. "My kid goes to a batting coach" is another one of those goofy status symbols. Thirdly, travel ball is the fast track to Burnout Central. The time committment is nuts. Fourthly, travel ball parents have evolved into something worse than the stereotypical Little League nightmare parent.

There are certainly positives --- in general, the instruction is much, much better than Little League, and is the play of the games, the umpiring, and time management of the games. However, the negatives are steep

No, your kid plays on a glorified all star team that requires an incredible amount of time and fundraising for a minimal gain.

And a message to those doing the fundraising: stay the #### out of the middle of the street. I don't mind getting harangued at the intersection by the Cancer Society or the Heart Association for a little scratch, but I'll be damned if I'm going to turn over my semihard-earned dough so outfitting Trevor for some godforsaken tourament in Capital City costs his overbearing parents a little less money.

Have a bakesale. Run a raffle. But for the love of all that is decent, don't panhandle.

Oh, and if you don't mind, please remove Taylor's name and team affiliation from the back window of your Subaru. I don't really like that either.

Thanks.

Oh, if you don't mind, please remove Taylor's name and team affiliation from the back window of your Subaru, too. I don't really like that either.

And stop naming your sons Taylor. And Chase too.

Jolly Old St Neck - what years were you in the Clark Griffith League? Sounds like the 60's, a little before my time. I did stats for the league a couple years in the mid 80's. The one year all the games were played at St Paul's HS in Fairfax, the next all were at South lakes HS in Reston. At that time the league had unlimited recruiting in the local area of Md, Va & DC, plus three players per team from anywhere else in the world. Out of town guys would usually get jobs with the team sponsor during the day.

In addition, I was the statman for the national AAABA from 1978-90 in my hometown of Johnstown. The recent trend has been towards collegiate leagues where players must be on a college team to compete in the summer league. The AAABA and similar age based leagues gave the best HS players a chance to compete against college players during the summer. The CGL was not on a talent level with the Valley or Cape Cod League, but it did give scouts a chance to see HS players compete on that higher level. Unfortunately, the CGL did not play in 2010 as over the past 5 years several of it's teams left for the collegiate Cal Ripken Sr league, also a DC metro league. Even the Baltimore Johnnies, the most powerful team in the AAABA tourney, plays a minimal schedule in a weak Baltimore league to qualify for the AAABA, but plays the bulk of it's games in the Ripken league.

Back then I had to bring my own pair of spikes and a glove. The team provided bats, balls and uniforms. In the AAABA league (20 and under) the players never payed to play. Team sponsors in the 80's paid $3-5k a year for uniforms, bats, balls and league dues to pay for fields, umps & scorekeepers. The sponsors got to put their names on the uniforms and get their names mentioned in the paper and on tv each day. Scorekeepers got $7 a game, I believe umpires got $21

I never played in the 12 and under Little League, so I don't know if they had pitch counts back in the 70's. I don't remember no stinkin' pitch counts when I played in the Senior Divisio of LL (13-15). I think it was innings per week. One game, in 5 1/3 innings, I walked 9, hit 3 and struck out 13. I would really like to know my pitch count for that one. And my arm felt fine after the game. Never put any ice on my arm in my life.

After my freshman year in college, I played in the Clark Griffith League, which still exists today.

Actually, it doesn't.

That same league today has its own fancy park with a $7.00 admission, top college players from all over the country who'd never previously set foot in the DC area, big time fundraising events, corporate sponsors, scouts up the wazoo, and an atmosphere of complete professionalism.

As explained in the article, the fancy park used to be in the CGL, but is now in the Cal Ripken Sr. League.

Thanks, I hadn't seen that article. As I said in the previous post, one of the things the CGL and other AAABA leagues (in Philly, NYC, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincy, Chicago, St Louis, New Orleans and other smaller cities) is the opportunities for the better HS players. Locked out of the growing trend of collegiate leagues, it would seem to me that most would be limited to competing against other (lesser) HS players in American Legion or the upper age bracket of Pony League.

please remove Taylor's name and team affiliation from the back window of your Subaru. I don't really like that either.

That goes back to the glorified all star team when the parents decorate the cars for the caravan. When they do that in travel ball, they are inadvertantly announcing that their kid plays for a sh1t travel ball team.

After my freshman year in college, I played in the Clark Griffith League, which still exists today.

Actually, it doesn't.

I read that same article last year, but when I saw that the Big Train website was still up and running, I figured that they'd worked things out. I sure hope so.

----------------------

Jolly Old St Neck - what years were you in the Clark Griffith League? Sounds like the 60's, a little before my time.

1963 only, and I left the team (Rotary Club) towards the end of July to work full time in the Cambridge (MD) civil rights movement. I'd make that same choice again, but I did miss going to the Johnstown tournament later in the Summer, where I saw that they actually had a left field wall to aim at---what an exotic sight that must have been for my DC area teammates!

Last personal story, I promise: One week in early July, my psycho coach told me that the Yankees were watching me, which I knew was complete BS, but after I'd finally quit the team after commuting back and forth to Cambridge between games for a couple of weeks, he started telling my GF and everyone else that I was a Communist! So from the Bronx to Moscow in a matter of little more than three weeks, and with scarcely a pause for breath. That was one perplexed coach, but I have to say that in spite of it all, I still think of him with great fondness.

I did stats for the league a couple years in the mid 80's. The one year all the games were played at St Paul's HS in Fairfax, the next all were at South lakes HS in Reston. At that time the league had unlimited recruiting in the local area of Md, Va & DC, plus three players per team from anywhere else in the world. Out of town guys would usually get jobs with the team sponsor during the day.

Sounds like that even by the 80's, the CGL had long since outgrown its roots. In '63 all of the players were strictly homegrown, with many of the same players I'd competed against in high school. There wasn't any college ball requirement, although I'm sure that all of the college players had played on their freshman teams the year before. (The age limit then was 19, though I think it was raised at some point down the road.) The most "big name" player we faced was Ron Swoboda, who played for Leone's (sp?) in Baltimore, and was already pretty well known. We played them on the 4th of July in some wooded park in Baltimore (Patterson?), and all I remember is that I went 4 for 5 and lined into a DP to end the game. I think that if you hit the trees in LF it counted as a ground rule double, which gives you an idea of the playing conditions at that time.

Back then I had to bring my own pair of spikes and a glove. The team provided bats, balls and uniforms. In the AAABA league (20 and under) the players never payed to play.

Since 1963 was still the wooden bat era, we provided our own bats ($3.00 each), gloves (I still have my MacGregor TGF Fieldmaster) and spikes, but the uniforms were provided, and the idea of paying to play would have been considered un-American.

I never played in the 12 and under Little League, so I don't know if they had pitch counts back in the 70's. I don't remember no stinkin' pitch counts when I played in the Senior Divisio of LL (13-15). I think it was innings per week. One game, in 5 1/3 innings, I walked 9, hit 3 and struck out 13. I would really like to know my pitch count for that one. And my arm felt fine after the game. Never put any ice on my arm in my life.

Of course pitch counts were a foreign concept to us, but I wish they hadn't been, since I threw out my arm in my last year of the WJL while trying to copy Don Larsen's perfect game no-windup motion. Same thing happened to our star high school pitcher, who threw an 8-inning shutout in our championship game and was never the same after that---we had an American Legion "rematch" involving basically the same two teams a week later, and our championship game hero gave up 8 runs to the first 9 batters and went on to become a millionaire accountant.

Of course pitch counts were a foreign concept to us, but I wish they hadn't been, since I threw out my arm in my last year of the WJL while trying to copy Don Larsen's perfect game no-windup motion.

We didn't have pitch counts in Little League (early sixties) but pitchers were limited to six innings per week. Of course given how wild the average 12 year old pitcher is you can imagine how many pitches kids ended up throwing to get through a six inning game. I pitched some at that level and I'm sure the only thing that prevented me from having arm trouble was short, stubby fingers that kept me from being able to throw any type of breaking ball. Even in high school the only pitch I could throw was a "fast" ball, anytime I tried a curve it came to the plate in a gentle parabola and got driven far, far away. There were some kids in my Little League who could throw curve balls but not many. If they had sore arms I didn't know about it; I do know that the breaking balls generated a lot of passed balls/wild pitches because their catchers weren't skilled enough to deal with balls bouncing at their feet.

We didn't have pitch counts in Little League (early sixties) but pitchers were limited to six innings per week. Of course given how wild the average 12 year old pitcher is you can imagine how many pitches kids ended up throwing to get through a six inning game. I pitched some at that level and I'm sure the only thing that prevented me from having arm trouble was short, stubby fingers that kept me from being able to throw any type of breaking ball.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that the other part of my would-be Larsen imitation was his fondness for the slider, which I threw about 70% of the time. Not very smart.

We didn't have pitch counts in Little League (early sixties) but pitchers were limited to six innings per week. Of course given how wild the average 12 year old pitcher is you can imagine how many pitches kids ended up throwing to get through a six inning game.

With our pitch count limits, that's about what it works out to. 85 pitches max. 51 - 65 pitches requires 3 days rest. 36-50 requires 2. On Saturday, my top pitcher couldn't get out of the 3rd with under 65*. I pulled him because we have a game on Wed. Theoretically he could throw a CG (6 IP), but in reality, if I take him to 85 it will be more like 4+, maybe 5.

*Course, he could have saved about 15 pitches if he caught a damned pop-up. Strikes out the first 2, then induces a popup which he drops. Then 2 walks and a single. Fortunately we threw out the runner trying to score from 2nd or who knows where that inning would have gone.

Umping is harder than it looks. I umped a 10 year old game (volunteered, the paid ump didn't show up) and only blew the first two calls of the game. Was good after that. It's not that easy (though it is certainly more than likely that I stunk at it) and I think most kids do a decent job. It does astonish me to see a 45 year old try to rip into a 13 year old ump - even if the adult knows the kids is wrong.

Unfortunately, travel ball has become quite insane. First of all, it has become a status symbol -- "my kid plays travel ball." No, your kid plays on a glorified all star team that requires an incredible amount of time and fundraising for a minimal gain. Your kid is not good enough to play on an Elite or Gold team, which have become nothing more than farms for scouts.

Secondly, travel ball has become a cash cow for equipment manufacturors and clowns with marginal baseball instructional knowledge who get paid to be personal coaches. "My kid goes to a batting coach" is another one of those goofy status symbols. Thirdly, travel ball is the fast track to Burnout Central. The time committment is nuts. Fourthly, travel ball parents have evolved into something worse than the stereotypical Little League nightmare parent.

Most of what you say is painfully accurate in my experience, though we don't do any fundraising. The status thing is pathetic.

As for the burnout, there are some cases where the kid is playing because the parents want them to, but there are plenty of kids who really have a passion to play the game...........and some of them are a lot better than you give them credit for.

and some of them are a lot better than you give them credit for.

I was focusing on the kids well below Elite of Gold level in terms of talent level -- the glorified all star teams. Burnout is a problem across all levels of travel ball. Even some of the most baseball passionate kids experience it.

but it's much easier to allow unconscious bias to tell you that 0-WAR Willie Bloomquist is a better fit for your bench than scrubby African-American X

Wait, Wut? Willie Bloomquist is white? I thought all Willies were black.

i'll leave it to others to determine if they are being racist. i suppose to a certain degree they are, since they tend to favor a white guy at quarterback, a big strong black kid at running back, etc. ... don't know how true that is anymore, though.

I might run a little sociological experiment this year on that. My son turns 7 this summer and wants to play football (he also plays baseball, soccer, etc.). He's old enough for Pop Warner "Mighty Mights" this year starting in September.

He's tall, skinny, and white (like me), but unlike me is quite coordinated and a good athlete (gets it's from his Mom, a dancer).

Here's the catch. We live in Bayview/Hunters Point a few blocks from Candlestick park in SF. This is not "all black" as it was some years ago, but it's pretty much all non-white for sure (samoans, hispanics, some asians). The local Pop Warner team is "The Brown Bombers". I am *real* curious to see what position my blond skinny kid ends up playing..., or even if the coaches will even take him seriously!

This would all be more interesting if African-American players were being replaced by a flood of overprivileged white kids. But given that it seems to be mostly the rise of Latino players, I don't think this is a big deal unless you think there's some strange influx of spoiled, wealthy Dominican and Venezuelan kids coming over with their Indian manservants and fancy ascots.

From MLB's perspective, it is indeed a big deal where marketing is concerned. Do you actually want 12% of your population to view baseball -- a sport many of that 12%'s grandfathers played and were intensely interested in -- as being essentially as foreign to them as hockey? I know that if I were an MLB official, I certainly wouldn't. It's sad to see that youth baseball in D.C. is nearly invisible east of Rock Creek Park.

Wait, Wut? Willie Bloomquist is white? I thought all Willies were black.

I guess it depends on what you mean by the word "black."

[117] Youth football that involves helmets and pads would scare the crap out of me. I think we're in that unfortunate period where the stigma hasn't caught up to the popularity. At the same time, it'd be hard to discourage my child from playing a dangerous sport that they were curious or passionate about.

It's a problem everywhere.

I think that just about everything that has been mentioned here has contributed in some way to the decline in US-born minorities in MLB. I also don't believe that there's a whole lot that MLB can do about it, absent societal changes for which there is almost no momentum.

-- MWE

Afro-Americans are what? 12% of the US population? This really hasn't changed all that much in the last 25 years. Since roughly 1970, the talent pool of MLB has added a large swath of Latin America and parts of east Asia. Increasing the MLB talent pool from approx 100 American males to 300 million (US pop growth and addition of part of Latin America and Asia) with very little of the new talent pool growth of Afro-American descent, what do people expect?

Serious question, how are people not racist by expecting Afro-Americans to comprise more than their fair share of MLB ball players? If you are like me and don't assume Afro-Americans are better than other races at baseball or athletics, then you don't lose sleep at night wondering what happened to the Afro-American ball player. Math dictates he is a minority in baseball and math dictates his decline in share of MLB ballplayers.

Wrong place, bougre, to make that sort of justification. This is a hotbed of pantywaist PC doinks who'll redorkulate to form at the hint of any such chutzpah. Snarky is about as extreme as it gets here when it comes to any actual independent thinking.

Serious question, how are people not racist by expecting Afro-Americans to comprise more than their fair share of MLB ball players? If you are like me and don't assume Afro-Americans are better than other races at baseball or athletics, then you don't lose sleep at night wondering what happened to the Afro-American ball player. Math dictates he is a minority in baseball and math dictates his decline in share of MLB ballplayers.

As I said, I don't particularly care what percentage of African-Americans are in MLB. I do care if African-American kids, or any group of kids, do not have a realistic opportunity to play baseball. If they choose not to play, that's fine. If it's because no leagues exist for them to discover the sport, that troubles me.

Wrong place, bougre, to make that sort of justification. This is a hotbed of pantywaist PC doinks who'll redorkulate to form at the hint of any such chutzpah. Snarky is about as extreme as it gets here when it comes to any actual independent thinking.

Have you been reading what people have written here? Where exactly are the "PC" explanations for the decline in AA representation in this thread? One person called Rich a "racist," but nobody else seemed to agree with him. Where's the beef?

Wow, it's interesting hearing all the hostility towards travel ball.

I coached LL five years and my son played travel ball from ages 8 through 13.

It is an expensive and time consuming commitment, and I think that's one of the biggest barriers for black kids.

If you're playing travel ball you can do as many games in one weekend (6) as a third of a regular season. With a higher level of competition. I think we played as many as 9 tournaments in one summer. So the kids that play travel ball have their skills honed to a much higher degree. (cf., Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule of thumb.) We certainly saw plenty of black kids who played ball who had the athleticism but simply had not played as many games or tournaments. Good pitchers don't just get by on arm strength; they have to refine their mechanics and master an off-speed pitch. And winning teams learn how to play defense through many many practices.

And just from my observation, black kids at my son's school (which was a lot of racial diversity) who were better athletes tended to go into football programs. There seemed to be a cultural preference. And I live across the street from a football stadium, where the teams are either prep teams for Catholic schools, or PAL teams (which are almost entirely black).

Pitch counts for LL came in while I was coaching and it is very tricky mastering them and juggling your lineup to make sure all your kids play and get time in the infield and all that. Seriously, putting a lineup together takes about two hours and an Excel spreadsheet. But I didn't mind - I wanted all my kids to get in at least four innings in the field and two innings in the infield. The regular season was all about giving everybody a chance and making the game fun.

But our league had very active travel teams. So out of sixty kids that might play in a five team league, you've got an A and B travel team for each age group (say, 11 and 12 year olds for Majors in LL). That's 48 kids out of 60 that typically played in at least some tournaments over the summer. We did have a ton of parental involvement but it really was an extension of the community. Still, it was very different from my youth baseball experience where I rode my bike to practices and did not expect (or necessarily want) my parents to attend.

I did see instances of kids burning out. And worse, I saw the travel team one age group ahead of us have a rash of serious arm injuries that required surgery among their pitchers. (Three out of six of their regular pitchers.) Mostly because they were throwing too many breaking balls at an early age.

But I know my son would've lost interest in baseball if he hadn't been playing at the higher level of a travel team. And that team had a lot of success and that's a part of his story, and he has a lot of confidence from that. He loved it. So I'm not sorry I bought him a $200 bat or spent the majority of weekends during the summer (for six years) at a seemingly endless series of sweltering tournaments.

Wrong place, bougre, to make that sort of justification. This is a hotbed of pantywaist PC doinks who'll redorkulate to form at the hint of any such chutzpah. Snarky is about as extreme as it gets here when it comes to any actual independent thinking.

WE JUST DON'T GET IT