We’d come to the end of the road. A line drive split the center and left fielders then bounded to the wall driving in three runs. Before the ball even made it back to the infield the umpire held up his hands and the game ended after five innings 10-0.
Nobody on the team or parents thought the 18u tournament season would end with the invocation of the ‘Mercy Rule.’ We’d played well enough so that, after the first night of the tournament, we watched the standings. On the second day of the tournament, the bracket fell our way. Daydreams of playing in the Sunday championship round fired in the minds of both the young men and their parents.
Two losses later, and it was over. In the last two innings, the weather added a final insult. The wind kicked up sending the reliable foldup chairs we’d used for years tumbling down the baselines. Hats blew off, and people scattered leaving only the heavy coolers behind.
Some of us started the long drive home while others went back to the hotel to stay the night and bask in the moment a little longer.
Our trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania was the final away tournament, the last time parents would travel with kids to hotel room across the country. No longer would I map out a route, buy Gatorade by the truckload, or look for things to do around the hotel, or even book a hotel in in Virginia, Delaware, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New York, Pennsylvania, or a half dozen forgotten places.
From here on out these young men would play for colleges and would travel by bus with their college teammates, coaches, and assistants.
We as parents finished our last official duty by driving from a Fairfield Inn in Lancaster to a high school field in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.
It didn’t really hit me until we stopped on the way home. I wanted to take a picture of my sons in front of Lamade Stadium in Williamsport, where the Little League World Series is played. We’d passed it twice in his six-year travel baseball career. Once on the way home from Rehoboth, Delaware and the other on the way back from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Coincidently, they were the first and last tournaments
There is a grief process for all participants in this endeavor and it had just started. After snapping the picture of him and his younger brother, a spark of inspiration crossed my mind.
I asked my son; now that this is over what would he tell his 13-year-old self about travel baseball?
Predictably, he talked about what it takes to win, loving the game. He talked about his best memories, wins and losses and how hard you had to work to stay on a team. He brought up how important the lessons learned here helped him reach his goal of playing in college.
Then I began to wonder what I as a 51-year-old would tell myself at 45. What would I want to know that I didn’t going in.
Here are the most important ones.
The Ride
The first I would tell myself is this: there is no other time more holy for fathers and sons than the ride there and the always longer ride home. The ride has some do’s and don’ts.
Our trips would normally start out on long ribbons of highways. Those highways led to countless backroads surrounded by rows of green, shoulder high July corn. We passed hundreds of silos and barns driving through rolling green landscape in the Midwest trips. Mountains and hills dominated the eastern states. Pennsylvania take forever to get through.
Often, I’d wake my son in in the dead of night. Then we’d drive in the darkness and roll into a baseball field two states away. The best days were when we’d get there just as the sun rose and shimmering blankets of dew stretched across the grass.
In contrast, as you leave the sun is almost certainly heading downslope and kids are thinking of the shenanigans pulled in the hotel room the night before or the quality of the pool in the next hotel.
A ride home is where ‘the talk’ usually happens. the most valuable father and son time and the moment to listen to their anticipation of the game or to allow them to talk about what happened in the hours before.
There is a lot of time for conversations during these drives. The best ones have nothing to do with baseball.
It is not time to go over mistakes or to review what they should have done.
It is not the time to ask what they were thinking in a play or at bat.
It is not the time to get them to understand some detail they may have missed.
It is not time for coaching.
This time is sacred and limited. Treat it that way. These are the times to listen to your kids vent over their performances. A time for them to work their way through the tough moments and vow to get on the right side of a loss. For them to mope and steam as well as wonder aloud why the coach did not pitch them or has them in a different spot in the order.
Here we should listen more than speak. Time to ask questions that guide to an answer rather than to give an answer. Let them talk it out and come up with a plan on their own when things are going off the rails. Or when it is going great, and there will be moments of greatness, to let them live in that glory and build the confidence that will be tested over and over.
And for most days, to not even talk about the game at all unless they bring it up. The time for coaching is in practice with their coaches. Or, if you are like many parents, when you are working with them on their own.
Most of all enjoy the rides.
Equipment
Here is some bad news. I found out that there really is a difference between the 499.00 dollar bat and the 79.00 dollar bat. No, I do not have a sponsorship deal with DeMarini or Easton. One bat is going to hit balls that come down with ice on them and the other will be a serviceable, reliable, plain stick. However, your kid will look at it sideways each time they reach for it, envying the latest Louisville with the stunning paint job leaning against the fence.
Over the past several years the cost of a bat has skyrocketed. In 2019, the most expensive bat I saw on the market was 349.99. Now the top end composite bats are well over 500.00 and climbing.
However, most importantly as many greats have said before me, “A one-hundred-dollar bat can’t fix a ten-cent swing.”
Each bat model is made for a specific type of player and size. At 13U, most states have switched to the BBCOR standard of bats. Learn what kind of hitter your son is. Match the bat to their hitting style. Briefly explained; balanced bats are for slighter, contact hitters who are the swinging for singles and the occasional double. End-loaded bats are for the big power hitting kids. The last thing you want to do is get stuck with a bat your child does not match up with and have a 500.00 paperweight in the garage.
Ultimately, as your child locks into the sport and steadily improves, you can start dropping dough on big name, hot-ticket gloves, bats, and uniforms. But do it when it makes a difference.
Interestingly, you can get the previous year’s high-ticket items at a fraction of the cost online in November and December. And even better deals in February. Closeout Bats and Just Bats are great places to go to get good deals. Facebook Marketplace also works wonders on slightly used equipment that is reasonably priced.
Until then, beware.
Coaching and Teams.
The chunk of summer in late July and early August is the tryout season. It is a high stress environment for parents and players. Kids who have played together for years and gathered for nonstop shenanigans in hotel pools and hallways are now suddenly competing for a limited number of spots.
It can be ruthless, cutthroat and often lacks any logical sense. One or two kids leaving can send a chain reaction downline and blow up a team. Teams can fold in minutes and parents are left scrambling to find a slot for their kids.
This is why it is so important to find the right team and the right coach to match your player. The single most important decision you will make as a parent is the team and the coach. Year after year a bad choice leads to a miserable season and often the disillusionment and quitting of the sport.
The path to travel may start when your son/daughter is seen playing for house teams and approached by coaches. They may talk to them ask them to try out for the league travel team. Or, friends might be on a travel team and the coach reaches out to you. Sometimes, there is an ad online.
Either way, that coach contact leads to either a private or group tryout. Parents might believe that their child is being selected and they don’t really have a choice in the matter. Or they should strike when the iron is hot.
But you do have a choice. You are the consumer, and you have the cash. And if your child has talent there will always be people asking him/her to play. If you are being asked to play to fill a slot then you might be in for a long year.
Post Game Talks
Your journey begins with a tryout at a field somewhere near you. There should be a sign up and forms to read. Your son will head over to the dugout with the rest of the players and then start with stretches and light throwing before drills.
As a parent in the stands during tryouts, stay back and watch how players from the previous year treat each other.
Are they supportive or tearing each other down?
How do the parents speak about each other and more importantly the team?
How do the coaches respond to a kid on the team throwing helmets, bats, and swear words around?
My advice is to try out for several teams and see which one is the best fit. When you do get the phone call to join the team ask questions.
What role do you see my son/daughter playing on your team?
What are the costs? What do I get for the money?
How many out-of-town tournaments are you playing and where are they?
What level of travel ball are you looking to schedule?
These are just the first ones to ask. One coach I spoke to was building a team and after the tryout told me he had to “give the sales pitch of a lifetime,” to get the players he wanted from that tryout group. That statement just shows it is stressful for coaches as well. If it is a good match, that sales pitch is not needed. So be aware of a hard sell pitch, be sure the answers they give match up to what you want.
A Pre-Game Picture
Even after you have made the team and are in winter practice you can still watch the coaches very closely.
Are they taking the time to teach your player specifics?
Do they have a variety of way to teach the same skill?
How do they speak to a player when he or she has made a bonehead error?
Are they constantly yelling things like “We have practiced this over and over and we still can’t get it right!” If so, have players moved around the field or have they drilled the play in different ways or just the same.
And later when the season begins is the real test. Does the coaching staff live up to their promises?
This is an enormous challenge for the coaching staff. It is also one you should watch closely as it is the one that impacts your son or daughter most directly.
First At-Bat
Is your player, who was promised the starting short stop role, in left field, or on the bench?
At away tournaments, are there extra players who are not on your team brought along to play while your player is on the bench in 95-degree weather.
Is the team a vehicle for the progress of the coaching staff’s sons/daughters.
If the answers to any of these questions is negative – stay away next year.
A good coach puts out fires and pays attention to the needs of all the kids on the team. They explain why they drill certain ways and how your kid can get better. Every player on the teach should improve over the course of the season. Each coach should have identified each player can contribute to a team.
His Final Varsity Game
It All Ends
No matter what, it will all come to an end. We must deal with that fact. Most of the time players last in travel ball until 14U or 15U and some, like my oldest son, play up to 18U.
After 18U the parents take a back seat and college coaches take over if they are lucky enough to make a college team.
Remember, one day that passenger seat is going to be empty on a Saturday afternoon. On that Saturday, your SUV, now stuffed with equipment, bags, fast food wrappers, and PlayStation’s, won’t smell like it was washed by a clutch of homeless skunks.
But you will wish it did.
When you look back and they have moved on there is only really one question that matters. When it is all over what do you want them to remember?
If you did it right, they will tell you they enjoyed the ride.
Michael,
I greatly enjoyed your incite to parenting a child in sports. It was a enjoyable read full of spot on advice
Thank you
Daniel Nazzarett