re: If the travel baller in your life has a birthday coming up

7u with walk up music

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7u with walk up music

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That was probably the biggest early red flag. Add to that the fact that most of them were rap songs even though these were the most lily white 6 and 7 year olds you've ever seen and I was basically done from day 1. My wife joked that I only hated travel ball because of the OT, and then about a month in she agreed that the OT was right. We had the full gambit of OT nonsense though, from crazy travel moms with cheap plastic surgery, to roided/tatted up baw dads.

It sounds like a lot of yall have good situations and I'm happy that you get something out of it. My son doesn't love baseball, he loves whatever sport he is playing at the moment. He wanted to just have fun, so it really wasn't for us for a lot a of reasons.

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Add to that the fact that most of them were rap songs even though these were the most lily white 6 and 7 year olds you've ever seen and I was basically done from day 1. My wife joked that I only hated travel ball because of the OT, and then about a month in she agreed that the OT was right. We had the full gambit of OT nonsense though, from crazy travel moms with cheap plastic surgery, to roided/tatted up baw dads.

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Literally none of this is true of travel in Alabama. Our team has walk out songs but I think 1 kids is rap. There are no plastic surgery moms pounding white claws, no tatted up roided dads. Maybe travel ball in Louisiana is trashy because Louisiana is just trashy

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Yeah I'm aware you're in LA and we're in OK. The top level of HS baseball I would think are pretty similar between the two states. As I mentioned, my kid is at one of the top programs in the largest classification in OK and is a starter at a premium position. Never played on a team above AA. Key is he was with good developmental coaches and he played against good competition.

Just making the point that a really good number of the boys you're seeing at 12u "grinding" and "doing the work" won't be 3 years later. And there are some outside of that group that will. Puberty is a huge thing and so is mental maturity and kids develop at different ages.

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na apparently not. you are not making a team like catholic, west monroe, barbe, jesuit etc etc by playing aa ball. aa ball here is not good after age 10. gets really bad after 12, like really bad. the majors kids will be throwing 58-65 at 10, 60-70 at 11u, 68-75 at 12, 75+ at 13 where the AA kids may still be throwing 55 or below at 12u.

now i will say we got our asses tore up a couple weeks ago by a kid throwing no harder than 46-47 at 11u. we were not used to it and could not adjust. kid is really good though on everything else.

but in general, yea by 12, you better be playing aaa ball atleast or you just wont see the competition that it takes to develop skill wise

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I’ve said it many times most these kids will be done by 9th grade . Parents will be full of excuses so will the kid . You’ll have a handful that start at varsity within the 4 years . A couple will play juco . Even less play D-1 . Pro baseball get real . I’m sure you might have seen one but it’s not your kid

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100%. tons of kids get weeded out especially in high school. all the sudden everyone is good, everyone is taking private lessons, lifting, doing bat speed, velo training etc etc and if you do not actually like practicing baseball and everything that comes with it, then it will eat you up and spit you out and your parents will be blaming a coach for sucking the love of the game out of it.

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lsu777

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Have yall done the The Ripken Experience in Pigeon Forge?

I hear the Branson trip is fun too.....

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Have yall done the The Ripken Experience in Pigeon Forge?

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yes this past year

it was pretty awesome.

1) if you go, dont do cabin in the mountains, rent a house on the river in town

2) the food sucks there. every local restaurant sucked lol. the even places like paula dean sucked, literally best food i had was mello mushroom and im not a snob or anything, just like pretty good food. when you cant even get good basic things..the food sucks lol.

3) the baseball is awesome but fields are huge. all the fields were nice. all your games will not be at ripken park, you will have some a the wear park or something like that, its really nice too. umpires can be hit or miss and depending on when you go, half the field might be from LA. we went late july and only pelicans was there, but in june half the tournaments were LA teams that were already in select series. But i do suggest going earlier than we did. july is too late to still be playing ball imo.

4) skip the home run derby and all that crap and go do something as a team

5) do the mountain coaster

6) go white water rafting as a team. we had the kids with the coaches and parents across a couple rafts, was a blast

7) go to the sinks and go jump off the cliffs

8) send the moms off to do wine night one of the nights there and go take kids on the coasters or go karts or even the island. your wife will be happy, you will ahve fun etc.



overall great vacation and we had a blast as family and as a team. had a huge group of like 85 that went when you factor in whole families, grand parents etc. overall i would rate it an A. if evrey thing was at Ripken and they would not have had weather come thru that shortened bracket play...would have been A++

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I hear the Branson trip is fun too.....

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DO NOT do Branson. It is a ghost town of a development of shite that never developed and crap fields. There is one great field, two ok, and the rest are like someone built a field out of their pocket change and put out in a cotton field.

My son went up there. Played 5 pool then got rushed thru a rain delayed bracket play. Lost in the finals at about 2:30 AM with fog so thick. The only redeeming thing is the area is ok for when not playing. Lots of stuff kids like. And some of the dads that were staying on site stayed and watched us play the final while doing shots. They were chanting our kids names and cheering for them against this big name team out of Virginia who had flown in two pitchers for the semis and final, they had beat the hell out of everyone. We were beating their arse until we just ran out of pitching. Lost like 10-8.

At the end they realized they had no awards so they ran to the gift shop and gave our kids a few mis matched hats that said Ballpark of America. May be the first time I heard my kid cuss. 8-1 on the week and delirious from the time of morning and after 15 minutes of waiting here is a hat.

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Cant speak for everywhere, but walk up music hasn’t been allowed at any tournament I have ever been to to watch my nephew play

Once again, people don’t actually know what they are talking about here for most cases I would think

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My boy is turning 15, and if it is outlawed now it is proof that God is real. I eventually took it as my personal mission to go plead with other teams DJ mom to please, please, please play it prior to the at bat starting. "Maam, we love to hear little big DJ jazzy fats, but can we not get our serving of it when the count is 1-2, and pitcher is in the windup?"

Of course it made no difference as the team about 50 feet behind you has it blaring between innings. Put me in Coach is a favorite. Only trumped by the AA team that is 5-18 playing ALL I DO IS WIN.

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1) if you go, dont do cabin in the mountains, rent a house on the river in town

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our travel ball days are over...we did Cooperstown and The DR, Cuba, Puerto Rico and all places in between

I wish we would have done Pigeon Forge