Youth baseball leading to High School

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pricedoutJay

New member
I would appreciate if any parents who had or are having kids in any high school baseball team in Irvine.

My son is now playing in a travel team.  Previously he played in Irvine Pony for a few years.  He likes baseball and good at it.  He is one of top 3 in his team in my opinion and has a natural talent of hitting the ball well with a good mechanism and form.

My question is this.  How much (money, time, and effort) did you invest for your son to make it to a high school team and staying in there? 

I mean, participating in travel ball team is very tough.  However, even after the age of 14 and making it to freshmen team, there seem to be many programs, training, lessons, club team, and other services that would require $$$$ and a lot of hours.

I understand that nothing comes easy, no pain no gain.  But we all know that making a living playing baseball is like winning a lotto.  I've been thinking about having my son just playing decent rec ball and send him to camps or group lessons just enough to make it to Freshmen team.  Then after that, it's really up to him to either go further or not.

I don't like the politics among coaches, admins, and strong will parents.  There are a lot of daddy balls going on, and some parents just have too much power and control that they break teams apart or just cancel it without much of notice.  I just want my son to enjoy and have fun before high school and if he's good enough to make the team, he will whether he plays in a travel team or not as long as he learns right stuff and practices right.
 
Baseball, irvine, you must be white :)

One of my wife's best friends brother is currently at Stanford on a baseball scholarship. He didn't play travel team ball. He chose to bypass the draft, the Red Sox were very interested in drafting him and there were discussions of about a million dollar signing bonus. His mom wanted him to go to stanford. Now I doubt he would get drafted. And if does it won't be with a million dollar signing bonus. I told my wife he made a huge mistake. He gambled on himself and lost. His mom believes the stanford education is worth more than a million bucks. She thinks the stanford degree will set him up for life. What she doesn't realize is that he wouldn't have gotten into Stanford if not for baseball. He is not Stanford smart. Should have struck while the iron was hot.
 
My son is very good for his age group inbaseball.  He rarely strikes out and gets multiple hits, but I don't think he is a phenom.  Even if he were, have second thought about keeping him in a travel team. I want him to really have fun and enjoy playing baseball for a couple of years before high school by sending him back to rec ball.

I believe most of kids playing in travel teams and we'll known club teams are there mainly because of parents' obsession and unfulfilled desire of their own.  I've seen many many parents at the game getting to emotional, going crazy, yelling,  coaching and demanding coaches to do their ways.

I checked out alumni of most of these youth programs and travel teams and found out that, especially in irvine, it's such a rare occasion to have a player even me it to minor A OR AA let alone major league.  So that tells me that statistically it's near impossible for my son who is not the strongest, fastest, or tallest one out their.  I don't mean to ruin his future by denying his chances.  I just want him to be a kid and play for fun at least until high school and if he's serious about the game, I'm sure he'll find a way.  All I need to do is  eine supportive and provide what he needs then.

National pass time has become a greedy capitalistic business vehicle taking advantage of hard working family. 
 
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