11 replies to this topic

[pearlmikejam]

Our league offered an in house travel option this year. The way it was structured was that kids that made the competitive travel team were split onto the 3 rec teams. The rest of each rec team was drafted and each team was pretty evenly skilled. This structure proved challenging for the kids that played on two teams and was not fair to the rec teams kids because the coaches were also coaches for the competitive team. The rec kids would play 3 games a week and never practiced once the season started May 1. The competitive teams would play 4-5 games a week, more if it was a tournament weekend.

The rec league, which consists of 12 teams from 5 communities, has really deteriorated the last few years. The competition was poor at all levels this year. As a result, the competitive teams want to move to full travel while remaining under the town league umbrella.

The board of directors for our community teams has challenged us to find a way for that to work while still being able to offer quality, competitive baseball to all of the other kids in the town that want to play but are not on the competitive team. Does anyone know of examples where communities have done this and how they structured it or how they transitioned?

I have some ideas how, but not a complete solution. I am hoping there are examples of how to handle this situation. If we cannot find an answer or compromise, we will lose many kids to established travel teams.

Thanks in advance.

[Jeremy]

My solution, have a going away party for the travel players.....sorry I'm no help.

[Mike_Hirschman]

I will say it again... 

 

NY has the model for this. Look for Dan Cavello's district. Kids play in a select league on Sunday's. Play on the regular teams during the week. 

[Lou Barbieri]

First, redraft all the teams so the "travel players" get distributed across all the teams in the league.

You can develop a travel program with interested players and play on Sunday (maybe Saturday too) against similar travel teams from surrounding leagues (Inter-League).

NY District 4 has such a program:
http://littleleaguenyd4.leag1.com

Click on "2017 Travel Baseball Program Outline"

[pearlmikejam]

Thanks for all the replies.  Sorry for the confusion, but having the kids on two teams is what we are trying to avoid.  We did that last year.  Travel kids played on Fridays and Sundays, rec or in house played Monday-Thursday and Saturday.  We did effectively draft, but not completely.  We wanted to create balanced teams, so we evenly distributed the travel kids.

 

Now that the season is over, the travel kids want to go full travel and move away from the rec program due to the deteriorating competition and the challenge with being on two teams.  The travel kids being on two teams hurt both the rec and travel kids.

 

What I am looking for is an example of a league that offers full time travel (without in-house/rec) and how they transitioned to that while still maintaining a quality rec program.  That seems to be what the community is driving towards and we want to keep as many kids in the community program as possible.

 

Thanks again!

[Lou Barbieri]

Sounds like this is an independent town/city league?

Instead of dual rostering why not just run two programs?

Rec plays on Mon-Wed-Fri and Travel plays on Tue-Thu-Sat (and Sunday if a weekend tournament).

Have try-outs for the Travel Teams and those that don't make it play Rec.

[Mr. Dill]

With 12 teams in Majors, you would have to split your Charter. But reading this, it sounds like this is not a Little League Program.
Dan Covallo is in NY District 8.

[Lou Barbieri]

FYI: NY District 8 Website Link

http://www.eteamz.com/District8LL

[pearlmikejam]

Sounds like this is an independent town/city league?

Instead of dual rostering why not just run two programs?

Rec plays on Mon-Wed-Fri and Travel plays on Tue-Thu-Sat (and Sunday if a weekend tournament).

Have try-outs for the Travel Teams and those that don't make it play Rec.

I am not sure if we are officially chartered under Little League or not.  Over the past 5+ years, we have slowly evolved from a completely independent town league, to a town league that was a member of a multi-town league as kids defected to travel, to a town that offered in-house travel provided you played on an in-house team.

 

I had the same idea you did.  I think we have have to offer two programs.  Our board is a little reluctant, rightfully so.  The kids and parents that would be on the travel team(s) make up 90% of the coaches.  Not only would the quality of play suffer in rec, but finding coaches for the teams may be a bigger issue.

 

Thanks for all the insight!!!!!

[amutz]

Its becoming increasingly hard to integrate community ball and travel ball team schedules. 3-4 years ago our kids would not play travel during spring LL season. Travel ball was mostly fall season. This year travel is year-round and some kids are skipping weekend LL games to play travel ball. We don't want to lose the kids or the parents, so its a continuing debate.

If you can run two programs with interleague schedules, as Lou suggests, your kids can still play rec ball and travel ball. It really 'kills' a rec baseball program when all the most dedicated coaches and kids leave to play travel, so anything you can do to help integrate the two would be great.

An alternative schedule would be to dedicate every other spring weekend to travel ball, and alternate weekends between travel and rec ball. That way rec ball still plays on many weekends.

[Lou Barbieri]

I know of a league that only schedules Tee-Ball and Machine/Coach pitch games on Saturdays.

That allows their "independent" Travel Teams to play in Tournaments on the weekends.

[rsnyder6]

I know of a league that only schedules Tee-Ball and Machine/Coach pitch games on Saturdays.

That allows their "independent" Travel Teams to play in Tournaments on the weekends.

 

     We haven't scheduled Majors games on Sundays for years to allow for travel ball play. These are teams not affiliated with the league.

    The problem is travel play is now anytime weekdays and weekends.