cadetevon

I’m so proud I could pop.

My son has been invited onto a travel baseball team. Now usually they are super expensive to join and remain in (100% of the costs are carried by the parents), but I told the manager that I’m seriously a poor single mom and that I really can’t afford it.

He said not to worry. He thinks my son is worth having on his team so much, that he’s willing to pay the lions share for me!

How totally NOT SUCKAGE, eh?!

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DarkFury

Congrats!!!

Kinda reminds me of when I was a kid traveling through Central and South Florida with a traveling baseball team.

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MikeD

Major props to you and your son. Congrats...

Nothing like the joy of seeing your kid succeed, huh?

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cadetevon

Yes, it's fantastic Mike, a true heart pumping feel good feeling.

DF, can you share some of your experiences? Both good and bad?

Honestly we'll "test out" this team, the coaches, manager, and parents and if they're a good fit, I 'll let my son play. But I'm not too sure if this is really something we should go after.

I want to avoid some of the pressure associated with travel ball...and I FOR SURE want to avoid those nutso parents.

nickel

that is awesome cadetevon!

what position does your son play?

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cadetevon

Mostly shortstop, but he can play anywhere. Thirdbase is probably the one that gives him the most trouble...but not because it's the hot box, but because of the angle at which you must throw to get the ball to first.

He loves to catch and pitch and he plays an *amazing* centerfield.

He's got good feet and soft hands so short was a good fit for him.

He's not much of a slugger, but his on base percentage in off the charts as is his stolen bases ratio. He's only been caught stealing once in 8 seasons of baseball (he started at 7 years old and has played two seasons each year).

/bragging LOL

Markel

At about 15 is when my older son started playing on a traveling soccer team. My current 15yo son wants to try out to join "club" volleyball now. The traveling/club players usually end up doing far better when they play on their school teams.

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DarkFury

My experiences pretty much were very good... considering that as kids we got to see a whole bunch of places we wouldn't have ever seen otherwise.

Funny thing is... we used to travel on the back of a pickup truck (back in the day when such things weren't considered "dangerous" and such). Imagine 16 kids ridin' in the back of an old Furd F-100 headin' down to Central Florida, Lower Alabama and Lower Georgia. YEEEE HAWWW!!!

cadetevon

DF, that's great to hear.

His practice went well last night and the other boys really latched onto him right away (he's a super easy going kid).

The first tourney will be this weekend so I'll see how the coaches and other parents behave during a game...this will be the deal maker/breaker for us.

DarkFury

Good luck!

cadetevon

Thanks.

His second practice with this new team (well, new to us anyway) is tonight, I hope it goes as well.

I'd been wanting to check out the google wysiwyg web page/site maker and so I decided to play around and build a team web site (they don't currently have one). www.greensoxbaseball.googlepages.com

I think the URL is pretty cumbersom, but it's free and whatever.

nickel

The site you have requested could not be found. (404)

I used googlepages to build a site for a friend. It's nothing spectacular, but it served the purpose and it's still cool to have your own page on the web.

cadetevon

Doh! I realized late last night that there is no "www." in the url.

Try: http://greensoxbaseball.googlepages.com

nickel

that's better.
i should've realized that myself.

Chula Vista. i've been there!

the site looks great cadetevon. nice and neat.

cadetevon

Thanks Nickel. Tonight the manager of the club will give me a disc with all the logos and such on it. My plan is to make a copy of it and use some of them on the site. To personalize it more.

When you said it's "clea" my thought was boring! LOL

I need to learn flash (I hear it's not all that hard) or at least put up some animated gifs (already know how to do that). Just to spice it up some.

Yossarian

yeah, but if hes just testing the waters with vball, club is good. and most schools aren't offering vball until the varsity level, if at all.

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cadetevon

*update*

He was in his first tourney with this baseball club... played center, short and pitched... all for the "B" team.

Just before the fourth and last game one of the coaches came to me and said that he'll probably be moved up to the "A" team for the next tourney. woot!

Ok, I'll stop bragging and strutting around.

In a little while...I'm going to ride this bit of pride while I can. The school year just started and so I'm due anyday now for a call from his teacher which will pop my pride a bit.

nickel

you sound like a great mom.
nothing wrong with revelling in their accomplishments.

Markel

Our high school has freshman A and B, junior varsity, and varsity boys volleyball teams. My son played on freshman A (the better team) last year and was their top hitter. If he really excels in club, he might make varsity this year (or it will be jv this year and probably varsity for his last 2 years). (Our varsity finished 3rd in state last year.)

cadetevon

Wow, that was nice of you to say Nickel. Thanks.

MikeD

You should be proud of his accomplishments. Kids are reflections of their parents.

cadetevon

Congrats to your son! Sounds like he's working hard.

cadetevon

Wow, Mike thanks for that, it's sweet of you to say.

Yossarian

i say let him go for it the club team, with your varsity team being so good, it can't hurt to get the extra experince and play time. i know by just playing twice a week my game has improved tremendously, and i'm sure his will get better as well. just make sure you keep on him about keeping his shoulder loose and such. i tweaked mine in a tourny a month and a half ago and am STILL paying for it.

and make him learn middle, there aren't that many of us out there

Mommypooh

I will ring in on this as a sibling of a traveling baseball team. my brother has been playing travel ball for about 7 years I think. Been a long time. The weekends get tedious always being dragged out of town, It totally sucked for me as I was either a junior or senior in high school, so that meant no going out with my friends. I don't know if your team has something like this but to help off set costs they have a deal where they provide workers for the schottenstien arena, which is where the do all the OSU basketball, hockey, and stuff like that, and concerts as well. The parents can work these events and all the money they make goes to cover fees and such. The fees for my brothers team right now are $800 plus travel, so my mom works enought to cover those fees and to have money for travel because anything you make over the $800 you can ask to be reinburced for after you return, you just have to turn in recipts.

I enjoy knowing my brother loves playing baseball, I only get to see about 1 game a year when one happens to be close. But last year my brother was MVP of the tournament.

Traveling is very demanding of time and energy, which I got the short stick because my brother has always been traveling with some sport or another, and I got dragged along. I loved seeing his face when they won but I am not a sports person and just don't enjoy it. But I would not have stopped him from playing even if I could.

Good luck, and I hope you both enjoy the ride.

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Markel

Well, my son tried out for the club volleyball yesterday. On Saturday he had a school soccer game and got knocked over and somehow bent his right thumb back - he said that the swelling was huge (but it had gone down quite a bit by the time he got home). At the tryouts, after he had warmed up, I could tell that his thumb was bothering him, so we asked the staff there and they had someone that knew how to tape the thumb, and that really helped. (He said that the setting hits still really hurt.) He ended up being offered a spot on the team (there were 14 trying out and they chose 10). I think that 7 of the ones selected are ones from his team at school, which could really give them a jump on the school season in the spring (and also helps that they've already played together for a season).

cadetevon

Lucky for me, he's an only child and the fees are much, MUCH less than your brothers fees. *whew!*

The "travel" part for us is not so bad. There are oodles and oodles and oodles of teams and fields here in southern California so to find a state level tourney one doesn't have to look very far.

Also, this is a USSSA (www.usssa.com) team as well so there is also a regular season to play.

In yesterdays game he was put onto the "A" team. They won 11-0. My son went 3 for 4 with a single, double and triple (in that order even!) with five RBI. Defensively he played right field and second.

If G|A still had blogs I'd be putting all this there instead of here. I'll leave be now though.

Markel

The fee for my son's club volleyball is $1000 (plus maybe another $100 for one trip they make). My son has earned over half of the cost so far. But there is one dad whose son (a senior) has been at the club for three years (he'll be in again this year), and his twin brothers will be on my son's team.

Mommypooh

Well that is lucky. my family travels almost every weekend. I think one out of every 6 is at home. But they stay in a 5 state radius for weekend tourny, and then they travel pretty far for the world seris.


Yeah my Brother also plays USSSA. I have sewn that patch on 3 jerseys each year for him.


Nice it is so rewarding to see their faces when they win. COngrats to him.

cadetevon

The cost to the new players is only $300 and returning players it is only $200. They get a full uniform, actually two... one home one away.

Then the cost of tourneys are added as they are attended. This first one that he played in costs each player $47.50 (the cost of the entry fee divided by 12 kids). Of course there is then the gas costs and food costs, but that wasn't too bad.

I'm on the I'm-so-poor-I-can't-see-straight program. LOL The coach is both charging me less and taking payments. He knew my $$ situation prior to my son joining his team, but wanted him anyway.