I hate tee ball

Our town's rec league does do the singles only for tee ball, but all other rules are in place. It has to be fair you, you have to be hit home to score and if you get out you're out. I can't remember, it's been a few years, but I think they only get three swings, too. Surprisingly by the end of the season there is usually an inning or two where teams don't hit through each inning.

 

Ours was you get three swings and then you run to first. Meanwhile a kid would hit the ball into the deep outfield and would have to stop at first. When the last batter comes up, he hits a single and they would actually make everybody stop and then they would let the three kids who were on base round the bases.

I get not keeping score and I get everybody getting to bat. Beyond that, it's just ridiculous overkill. The kids stop trying to stop the ball because the know the player has to stop at first.

 

That's a little much. Once we hit through the whole order the inning is over. No one gets to advance.

Since it's just coaches in charge at tee ball here I've seen agreements to let kids take extra bases if they hit it well but that's not the rule. I get the one base if anything because of lack of feilding ability. We do have a one base per overthrow rule through coach pitch out of play or not. Once my oldest was in total player pitch pretty much all real rules applied.

 

The flip side of the "everybody gets to first" is 5-year-old All-Stars. Those exist now, with travel tournaments and everything. (Pitches come from a machine.) Our local Pony league went this route, which is the #1 reason I'm going to go the Little League route with my youngest son.

Less competition is a good thing until about age 9.

 

Basketball is done really well. They call traveling, but double dribble is enforced very lightly. The 5-6 year olds weren't allowed to steal, but blocks were allowed. They let the 7-8 year olds basically play the normal game.

 

Yeah, I could not agree more with this. My oldest opted out of the big basketball league this year because it was three practices a week and they would travel on weekends and went from November until the end of March. The coach called me and said, "You're making a huge mistake." and I'm thinking, "He's 8-years old."

 

The fact that traveling teams exist in any sport under the age of 12 is just insane.

 

There's a core of my oldest's fourth-grade summer rec team that has been together nearly since tee ball. There are at least two kids on that team that easily could name their traveling team but the families have opted to keep them with friends and not have such a ridiculous time commitment. I think that's fairly noble in this day and age.

 

I don't know if it's incredibly noble or incredibly stupid. I respect the dedication, but when there's that much time involved, my kid needs to be 100 percent into it. When we saw the basketball schedule, which was three times a week and had games, sometimes as far as an hour away on weekends. We showed him that and then let him make the decision. I think we presented it to him in a neutral way, but needless to say we were ecstatic that he didn't want to do it.

Football season is a time suck, but it's all local and it's only really a little more than two months long, basically three weeks of practice before the season, seven games and then you're done.

My kids also do karate, which is twice a week and sometimes more leading up to testing.

 

Our area has some tee ball all-star teams, but they don't see anything resembling live pitching until they get to the coach-pitch level at 7 years old.
We have a big tournament in town every summer and I end up getting stuck covering more than a few games of it. Ages 5-15. By far my favorite games to cover are the coach-pitch. The ball is constantly put in play and they have a six-run per inning limit, which leads to a lot of four-inning blowouts. Those games are over in about 45 minutes. It's awesome.

 

If an all-star team is taking the best players from each team and having them compete against other leagues in the area, the notion of doing that before ages 10-12 is insane.

Traveling team seems like a bad idea for kids younger than 10. All-star teams younger than that is even worse.

 

Happily my youngest niece, now 5, will (probably) never play tee ball. She's been playing catch/hitting off a tee in the back yard with her twin sisters, now 9 , and oldest sis, now 14, since she was 3. She can already hit soft-toss live pitching.

Mom, StarSis, says if she plays tee-ball, she'll probably have her switch-hit just to see if she can do it. If she just plays straight-up tee-ball in the 6-7 year-old league, it'll be a Clark Kent situation -- a home run every at-bat.