What Is Travel Baseball?
What is travel baseball is a question that every parent asks when their kid turns around 8 years old.
If you’re not sure what the age cutoff dates are, refer to our travel baseball age calculator
What is Travel Baseball?
Travel baseball is a more competitive and serious form of organized baseball for kids as compared to recreational leagues such as Little League or Pony League.
It can start as early as 5 years old (way too early) all the way to 18 years old.
How Travel Baseball Works
Here’s a quick outline of how Travel Baseball works.
Tryout
There is a tryout, and not every kid makes the team.
Practices
There are generally two practices a week, and they can be anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 hours long.
Tournaments
Instead of playing the same teams in the league, you travel to weekend tournaments to play against teams from other areas.
These tournaments can be anywhere near your city or even in other states.
Benefits of Travel Baseball
The main benefit of travel baseball is your son participates in better baseball training and plays in more competitive games against players who are better.
Disadvantages of Travel Baseball
Travel baseball can be very expensive, but the main disadvantage of travel baseball is that sometimes it is so intense and the schedule is so busy that you burn your kid out.
If your child does not have a real passion for baseball, they can easily get turned off and want to quit baseball forever.
Is Travel Baseball Worth It?
By now you should have a better idea of what is travel baseball.
Whether this is worth it or not depends on what your long-term goals are and whether your child really loves baseball.
If your child is just trying out baseball, then it’s probably not worth it, but if your son really loves baseball, then it could be something you should consider, especially if they want to play at a higher level.
For any child that wants to play in high school or higher travel baseball is a must.
Otherwise, your child will get left behind.
They cannot keep up, unlike other sports like basketball and football, which you can pick up later.
Baseball is a very technical sport, and you really need to be exposed to consistent training every single year.
Even skipping one year of baseball, your child can be left behind.
About Simon Chan
Simon Chan played Division 1 basketball and is a part time baseball coach.
He also has 10 years of experience in youth baseball and has 3 boys that play on various travel baseball teams in Southern California.
Outside of baseball, he is a business coach, speaker and Amazon best selling author.
