When we moved into our house on Ashcroft in 1961, Hillcroft was the street behind the vacant lot behind our house. The other side of Hillcroft was the bayou and on the other side of that the was the Fondren Ranch. No neighborhood west of Hillcroft. That changed very quickly. I think Fondren Jr High opened in 1966 by then everything between Brays Bayou and South Main and between Hillcroft and Gessner was housing.
Kids and HS baseball have not changed all that much. The adults who are baseball parents have changed tremendously. I think all the extra help available is great for the aspiring player if the parents can afford it and if it does wreck or dominate the familyâs other activities. I think a 75-game season for a kid, especially a young one, is harmful, not only to his body but also to his family. Sacrificing everything a family does for a kidâs baseball season because some select coach says a travel team is the only way to make a HS team, the only way to get a scholarship, and the only way to sign a pro contract is ridiculous and nuts. How many of these select travel team players do not make their HS teams? Most of them. Talented players make HS teams, and coaches know they are in neighborhood leagues also.
This is my opinion, even if you think it is woefully dated. I am all for private lessons, extra hitting, the technology aids which improve performance, and any extra work the kid wants to do. I am even ok with select travel teams IF they only take the truly elite HS-age player. That is not what they do; they take any kid whose parents will pay the substantial fee, and now all those kids are âselect.â Unfortunately, many of those kids will get to play very little in travel team games, and one does not get much better sitting on the bench in any league.
I am dead set against a kid quitting all other sports to concentrate on one to the exclusion of everything else; a kid should play every sport he wants to play all the way through HS if he can make the teams. I also abhor the select team mentality many parents have bought hook, line, and sinker. It is a lucrative and, in many ways, fraudulent pitch, but it has successfully created a generation of select team snobbery and elitism. I think that is a harmful trend.
As they say in the journalism business
-30-
If you are not a journalist, it means I will now STFU about this.
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We used to run around the neighborhood with plastic guns playing âwarâ. My weapon of choice was the AK.
This was the early 80âs, I wonder when exactly doing that became a really bad idea.
Wait â you had a culdesac, but you played where a house was in CF? I thought all culdesac fields everywhere were aligned with CF being the street leading away from the circle. Hit the ball deep to CF, and it would roll alllllllllllllll the way down the street â easy home run.
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We played whiffle ball in two front yards. The lady (Judy Fountain) whose front yard was the OF was not pleased about that at all.
Our football games were in the street. Watch out for parked cars on long passes!
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Parked cars were the reference point for many routes in our neighborhood games
I can only speak of our experience as a family. My son loved baseball at an early age. He was the only kid in our neighborhood within 3 years of his age who cared anything about sports. There was no field within walking distance for him. Me and my wife played whiffle ball, catch and until it got dangerous threw BP in our yard.
He got invited to play travel ball at a young age. It was a team of all local kids coached by some of the dads. We set boundaries on how many weekends a month we would play tournaments, how far we would travel and how to keep cost down. At the very first meeting, the organizing dad (a DII athlete) said - We likely donât have anybody here who will play D1 baseball in college but my goal is to change the culture and success of the high school baseball team. That little team from a small town had a lot of success. We kept to the boundaries. Some kids lost interest or found other interest. Other kids replaced them - one summer a local college baseball coachâs daughter played with them and was just as good as they were (she did play D1 Softball). Starting at age 12, some of our bigger kids got recruited to join the best travel team in the area. They did but even then the core of that first group stayed together.
All of those kids also played LL until they reached 13. Since there were two leagues, these kids never played all stars together and actually loved competing against one another.
As the boys got older, the dadâs stepped back and we hired some kids from the local college baseball team to coach them.
My sonâs sophomore year in High School, that high school made the high school state championship tourney for the first time. My son was the starting pitcher that day. He had been playing with his catcher, 2B, SS, 3B, DH since he was 7. There were 3 freshmen on the bench who had been playing with them as well. We moved after that year.
At my sonâs new school, most of the kids had played mostly town ball and then select after all stars. The baseball IQ and basic skills were so much lower than what my son had played with in TN.
Back in TN next year, his former team was eliminated in the sub state round by a pitcher who was committed to Clemson named Spencer Strider - maybe you have heard of him.
The next year, that team won it all. They next generation won it again this year. The core of that team had been playing on a same kind of team.
We had a great travel ball experience. We are not wealthy - I mean my wife was a school teacher and I was in middle management at a non profit. Our kids shared bats and catching gear. We made it work and had a great time. Many of those families are still close and we still cheer for each otherâs kids. Just about all of those kids played more than one sport in High School and some played other sports in college.
Are there people who are in travel ball for money? Absolutely. Are there people coaching little league who do more harm than good? Absolutely.
Do you have to play travel ball to make the high school team - No! But I firmly believe the reps in practice and the times pitching or hitting in a pressure situation prepared my kid to be the want the ball big game pitcher he was and prepared him for other situations in life. He saw consistently better top to bottom competition in travel ball than in any other level of competition - until playoff HS baseball.
I agree with most of this, but not for kids of LL age. Of course, more reps mean development toward whatever potential there is. Mark Raup is a great example of that principle, and so am I throwing pitch after pitch to my dadâs catcherâs mitt. To reiterate, I do not disfavor travel teams for older kids with elite talent, and if the team is taking kids with lesser or marginal talent, there must be playing time requirements so kids do not get buried on the bench. Lots of reps are helpful only if a kid is able to do them.
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A younger kid named Jim Conrad ran a Go pattern on the left curb sideline, and my long pass led him perfectly for an over the inside shoulder catch. As he looked up and back and reached for the catch, he ran full speed into the front bumper and hood of a parked car. He was shook up, not hurt, and his face plant on the carâs hood had us talking for weeks.
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We were neighbors. I lived on Valkeith. You may remember the Gulf service station on Hillcroft and S. Braeswood. I spent a great deal of my youth hanging around / working at that station.
We were a bit further south. About 4 blocks south of W Belfort. Went to Anderson but had âchurch friendsâ from Parker, Kolter, and Elrod. I knew your area well. Spent a lot of time riding my bike around Brays Bayou. I donât remember the Gulf station but I remember the Minimax Grocery store. Do you remember the area called the âHillsâ on the north side of Brays opposite Fondren Jr High. It was really just a few hills of excavated dirt piled up 25 or 30 feet with a lot of bike trails in and around them? It was also the location of a few after school fights. In 1970 I got zoned over from Fondren to Johnston. Summer of 1971 we moved to San Antonio.
My son just finished his sophomore year in HS.
We as a family decided against going the select baseball route. Just stuck with league ball. Starting around 7yrs old I started noticing several kids playing both league and select. By the time they were 9-10 many of the kids were just playing select. By the end of little league most of the select players didnât play in little league
My son was asked to play on a some select teams (One paid the coach $150/kid/month!) but we still didnât go that route. I was told by several friends and a few select coaches that to play HS baseball you really needed to play select.
My sonâs freshman year he was one of only 2 kids that tried out and made the team that didnât play select. At the start of the season it looked like those that told me you had to play select to play HS ball were right. My son made the team but got very little playing time. He was getting discouragedâŚAlthough this time wasnât wasted. My wife and I talked to him about working hard, and keeping a good attitude. By the end of the season he was getting regular playing time.
This season (his sophomore) he was a regular starter. At the beginning of the season the coach always DHâd for himâŚBy the end of the season he worked his way into the batting line-up and up in the order.
I coached several little league teams and one of the main lessons I tried to teach that could be a life lesson is that baseball is a tough sport. There is very little within your own control. What is in your control is your attitude and hustle. My son got to live that out
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Somewhat appropriate for this discussion: I saw on Twitter this week a screenshot of a select ball coach talking about his teamâs performance last weekend.
They played five games in a Saturday/Sunday travel tournament.
It was a 9U team.
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I remember âThe Hillsâ and I went to Elrod and Fondren, although we were close to the line with Johnston.
Every single word of this makes me say âfuck that shitâ.
Even the prepositions.
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Yep, fuck all that.
Let kids be kids.
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Mrs Hawk lived on Lymbar. She went to Elrod then St. Thomas More. My college roommate grew up on Valkeith.
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HUZZAH!
Thatâs a strange amalgamation of schools.
I remember the first time I used a brand new glove/mitt. It was my senior year in high school. I wasnât quite sure how to break it in because Iâd never played with anything other than an old hand-me-down one that was well worn. You still couldnât throw one by me. I never did hit with a new bat, until I got into adult league, anyway.
She was in public school until junior high, at which point she went to private STM. Then on to St. Agnes.