Travel baseball, while it may be the best option for some, is not necessarily the best option for most youth players. Evidence would suggest specialization yields poorer results than playing multiple sports throughout the year for youth players. My experience in running a youth baseball league for the last 7 years, with over 1,000 players annually, combined with coaching 21 youth teams over 13 years, has found travel baseball to yield results counter to the widely held belief travel or club baseball gives a young athlete the best chance at future success in the sport. The two largest factors which stand out are playing multiple sports over multiple seasons and working on relevant skills outside of team practices.

In the past decade, travel or club baseball has grown significantly. Travel clubs, which have been around for a while, have grown to double or more the number of teams. Giant brands are expanding with their travel clubs nationwide. Local competitive leagues, whether affiliated with large national organizations like Babe Rule League, PONY League, and the best known of all, Little League, have shrunk over this time. Some of these leagues have welcomed a travel ball aspect to their local leagues to try to mitigate the declines in enrollment. The only other option to organized competitive baseball is playing in a municipal recreation league. The level and amount of play there isn’t to either of the levels of travel or a competitive league. To have the best chance to play the sport at a higher competitive level, beyond youth baseball, travel ball is commonly held as the only path to achieve this.

I have coached many players in our local league, including my own kids. Of those I’ve coached for at least two seasons and am familiar with where they are and what they are doing now, the results don’t match up with the all-to-common perception of travel ball being the only path to succeeding past the youth level. Here is what these 13 players, I still know where they are at, are doing now, plus, what is happening with my own kids. All 15 of these players showed the strong desire to continue playing, at least through high school, at the time I coached them.

Of these 15 players, 8 went the travel ball route at some point prior to high school, the other 7 played exclusively in local league up until and even into high school. All 15 players vary somewhat in skill level, but not too significantly. None of them are probably going to be future MLB draft picks and all of them probably would have enough talent to make a college team somewhere, assuming they continued to work on their baseball skills. All 15 are currently in high school, ranging from freshman to seniors.

The 8 players who went the travel route prior to high school didn’t all make their high school team, with one quitting baseball entirely; travel ball burned him out. Only 3 of these players made their high school team, with 4 of them trying out and being cut. The 7 players who didn’t go the travel route, 5 of 6 who went out for their high school baseball team made those rosters, with the 7^th one focusing on a different sport and not even trying out for baseball, but likely would have made his high school’s baseball team. There wasn’t a significant disparity in playing ability between the groups, yet there were significantly different outcomes.

The first noteworthy factor is the time spent practicing or playing baseball. Travel clubs generally begin in January and go through the end of June, roughly 26 weeks, not including fall. Those who do a fall season add another 13 weeks to their play, totaling about 39 weeks. Most of these teams practice twice a week. They end up between 50 and 75 practices throughout the year. League players, if playing two seasons, will be out there for 25 to 30 weeks, practicing anywhere from 40 to 60 times over these seasons.

Playing travel ball, primarily for the spring season, generally involves beginning with indoor practices in January. Most of these teams play through the end of June and into July. League play in a spring or summer season, runs half as long. The number of practices for most travel clubs is between about 30 and 50 practices over the course of half a year. In our league, the number of practices are typically between 25 and 30 for a quarter of the year. The number of games for most travel teams in March through June is between 30 and 40 games, with some teams more than doubling this total, if weather cooperates and they play every weekend during these months. The number of games in a spring or summer season, including local league tournaments, is between 12 and 16 games.

The average cost for travel baseball in this area is about $4,000-$5,000, not including a fall season. There are vast differences in costs for clubs, varying from just under $2,000 to well into 5 figures, depending on number of tournaments played and how much travel is involved. Local league costs run from $200-$500 per season in the area, sometimes a bit more. Taking the median number of days playing or practicing for each, travel teams get a little over 80% more days on the field than league teams. The monetary cost for travel teams is 5x to 10x more than local league teams. Based on these figures, a young athlete playing travel or club ball from the age of 8 or 9, until they are 14, would cost $20,000 to $30,000, or more, over this time, than playing in a local league. And probably the worst outcome I have seen, when a young player moved to travel or club ball, suffered burnout, and no longer wants to be part of the sport. This certainly doesn’t happen to a majority of those who go the travel or club route, but it is far more common than anyone would like it to be.

What may be the most significant factor in the difference in outcome is those who don’t play travel or club, can and often do, play multiple sports. There are bodies of research and empirical data showing the vast benefits of playing multiple sports. The risk of injury drops significantly for multi-sport athletes. Not only are they not overusing the same muscle groups, but they also develop athletic skills which carry over to the other sports they play. Nearly all the high school coaches I have spoken to about what they want to see in potential players, say players who have played multiple seasons of multiple sports is a very important factor to them. If looking to play beyond high school, most college coaches prefer to recruit athletes who played multiple sports in high school. They cite less risk of injury, more coachable, and being well-rounded athletes, as the reasons they seek them out.

The players I know best are my sons. The older one didn’t take his time playing seriously until he was almost 15. He is the better natural athlete of my two boys, but largely went through the motions for years. He went out for one of the premier high school baseball teams in the state and was cut as a freshman. The following year he spent working on his skills, doing what he could to make the team as a sophomore, cut again. Even more determined, he kept working, started lifting to gain strength, and made even more marked improvements going into tryouts as a junior.

My younger son is currently a freshman. He has played local league baseball since he was 5 and played hockey for a local rec league since 11. As a freshman, he was invited to one of the varsity travel hockey teams within Cherry Creek School District but had to decline because it would have not allowed him to play baseball.  He did however play on their team during the CHSAA season, as a first-line defenseman, as a freshman. The travel team he was invited to went undefeated in their CPHL season, going 15-0 against the other Colorado high school varsity travel hockey teams. This spring, he went out for the defending state runner up in Colorado 5A baseball. He has never played travel baseball or travel hockey, despite being invited to both. He made the team as a freshman.

Now some may think this kid is just a super athlete and would’ve succeeded regardless. I’ll tell you, while he is 6’2”, 200 lbs., he wasn’t gifted with anything special in athletic talent. The first 4 years he played baseball, he was a lower-end player on his teams. His first year or two playing hockey, he was an absolute ?? out on the ice. He was slow and was the worst skater out there most nights. What set him on the path he is on now wasn’t God-given athleticism, it was the drive and desire to work hard and improve. He showed up to every practice, ready to learn. Probably more importantly than this was he didn’t just go to practices and games. He worked, often on his own, on improving his athletic skills. Any chance he got to throw and hit a baseball; he took. On his own, he’d do tee work, throw into a screen, or field ground balls by throwing a ball against a wall and fielding it. He would always want to go to any open skate he could. He spends hours working on stick handling, passing, and shooting in the basement, much to the annoyance of the rest of his family having to listen to pucks slam off the metal goal posts and barriers he has set up. He is also a student of the games. Watching other games, from youth to professional, and learning from what he is watching.

Despite the arguments made strongly favoring local league over travel, I do believe there is a need and a benefit to travel sports. In my case, I strongly believe my son benefited far more from playing multiple sports than he would have had he specialized and played just travel baseball or hockey. But for some kids, playing a travel sport may be the better option for them. Playing a travel sport doesn’t necessarily mean that athlete needs to specialize either. I know of several kids who play a travel sport for only part of the year and still play other organized sports. The main argument here is to dispel the far-to-common lore that specializing and playing a travel sport is the only path to success in that sport in high school and beyond. And in some cases, specializing and playing a travel sport can be a detriment to development of athletic talent. What bothers me most about travel sports for youth is the manipulation a lot of these clubs use to make parents believe if they want their child to become a competitive, high-level player, they must fork over tens of thousands of dollars to them, otherwise their child has no chance to be a great player. For most kids, families spending well into the 5-figure range on travel sports, in hopes they get some sort of athletic scholarship, would have spent more wisely to put those dollars towards a college fund; it essentially becomes a guaranteed scholarship, in addition to anything else they may receive. And who knows, maybe your child will get as much or more of an athletic scholarship not playing travel ball as they would have had they played it for most of their youth.

Every player is unique. Every family has their own circumstances. Not only should the financial costs be considered when considering travel or club sports, the complete economic cost is often disregarded. The time commitment, especially for travel outside of the local area, not just for the player, but the parents who must drive them to and from everything. More importantly are the opportunity costs. What opportunities does specialization, especially year-round, not allow the young athlete to pursue? What possibilities does this type of commitment cost siblings and the rest of the family? Each family should weigh all these costs and determine if the cost is truly worth the potential benefit. 

Watching the different paths, not only with my own kids, but seeing the paths of others I have coached, as well as many other youth players I have had the privilege to see come through our program, has given a very clear picture of what it takes to play at a high level. Playing multiple sports certainly seems to have far more upside than specialization for most youth athletes. Spending more money does not buy success. In fact, there is a strong case it has an inverse correlation, especially for those players who specialize and play year-round in just one sport. No matter the natural athletic talents a player is born with, hard work and enjoyment of the game can produce greatness in athletic ability, rivaling those gifted with natural abilities, and can even surpass them.