So you saw it better than the Umpire

[CajunVic]

I will say this, it gets better as they get older. There's rarely any arguments or even discussions with umpires in our 13U games because the coaches are focused on preparing their players for high school. For our games, we mostly have LHSAA and/or SunBelt umpires. Even the parents (most of them) are much calmer as the players get older.

Then apparently things have changed a lot in that regard in the last 10 or so years.

[cjr3888]

Then apparently things have changed a lot in that regard in the last 10 or so years.

Things have changed because of new organizations. The more sensible teams are leaving to play the new orgs that aren't a giant cluster.

[JMV JustMyView]

And the majority of the Sunbelt umpires are brutal.

In general, across the board umpires and refs are bad everywhere.

[CajunVic]

There may in fact be way more fan bias than there is bad umpiring.

Remember that at any giving sporting event there may be 3 to 6 officials/umpires and hundreds if not thousands or hundreds of thousands of biased fans.

Fans typically only protest the call of the umpire and they rarely vocally side with the umpire on a call which they like.

This often times unfairly leads to the perception that officials/umpires are bad when truly all they are is human.

[CharlieK]

I played sports growing up and was a little disappointed when my kids didn’t take to it. Until I saw how the parents act now and the ridiculous “living vicariously through children” going on.

[ZoomZoom]

I played sports growing up and was a little disappointed when my kids didn’t take to it. Until I saw how the parents act now and the ridiculous “living vicariously through children” going on.

When the kind of money spent playing serious travel sports (for almost a decade) today approaches the cost of going to college, parents are all expecting that ROI…never looking next to them are parents expecting the same outcome.

But it’s what they have to do. Junior or sis, especially in populated areas, usually won’t come close to making their high school teams without that background.

We let our kids pick their extracurricular activities and made them pick when either/or came up. Best thing we never had XBox/PlayStation in the house.

[CajunRage]

I've talked to a few buddies who played at least high school ball (some with college experience) and we are hoping that the travel ball will die down a bit. I've heard LLL is getting better (like it was before travel blew up) and the thought of concentrated work on improving our sons' game instead of tournaments every weekend is very appealing.

[cjr3888]

I've talked to a few buddies who played at least high school ball (some with college experience) and we are hoping that the travel ball will die down a bit. I've heard LLL is getting better (like it was before travel blew up) and the thought of concentrated work on improving our sons' game instead of tournaments every weekend is very appealing.

LLL, Youngsville PONY, & Broussard PONY are getting better because many travel players are playing both travel & rec. Travel will be getting worse before it gets any better. IMG was just sold to private equity firm Endeavor for $1.25Billion. Most people think of IMG as the school but they also run camps nationwide and a recruiting service. They're about to make a ton of money off parents that will pay to get their kids seen through recruiting services. Most of them don't realize you can simply attend a prospect camp on campus for around $200 and get more out of it than those online services.

[CajunRage]

LLL, Youngsville PONY, & Broussard PONY are getting better because many travel players are playing both travel & rec. Travel will be getting worse before it gets any better. IMG was just sold to private equity firm Endeavor for $1.25Billion. Most people think of IMG as the school but they also run camps nationwide and a recruiting service. They're about to make a ton of money off parents that will pay to get their kids seen through recruiting services. Most of them don't realize you can simply attend a prospect camp on campus for around $200 and get more out of it than those online services.

Well, my son just hit the 13 month mark. So, hopefully things continue in this direction and by the time he's playing age, rec gets back to where it used to be.

[CajunJeaux]

I've talked to a few buddies who played at least high school ball (some with college experience) and we are hoping that the travel ball will die down a bit. I've heard LLL is getting better (like it was before travel blew up) and the thought of concentrated work on improving our sons' game instead of tournaments every weekend is very appealing.

It seems like majority of parents b*$tch about young kids & travel ball pressures (and social media for that matter), but over the years, parents continue to sign up for it.

Hopefully this new wave of parents you speak of can gain some common sense, play rec ball across all sports, and let these pay to play organizations fizzle (at least the young kids who have no business driving more than across town to play, say 6-10 year olds).

Recently heard someone paid $2800 for an 9 year old to play on a baseball team. Something is seriously wrong with those parents decision making....