Is High School Baseball Endangered?
First, some statistics about me:
- I was a high school head baseball coach for 12 years.
- I was a high school assistant baseball coach for a year.
- I was the head coach of a team of home schooled high schoolers for a year.
All told, that’s 14 years of high school baseball coaching experience. Many, many things have changed about high school baseball during that time, but I can’t think of anything that’s changed more than the role of travel baseball.
I played baseball for the recreation department in my hometown from the time I was 6 until I was 16. There was no “select” or “travel” baseball available until I turned 17 and that summer, I played for my high school coach.
My son is 21. He played baseball for the recreation department in his hometown from the time he was 4 until he was 7. He moved to “select” or “travel” baseball when he was 8. There was an enormous difference in the overall talent level when comparing select and rec baseball back then. I have no doubt that it’s even greater now as so many kids play select now that it’s really watered down “select” baseball. I can’t imagine what’s left in the rec leagues. In the last several years, we’ve seen a tremendous decline in the rec leagues around here. I imagine it’s that same way all over the south, and maybe the entire country.
Select baseball was started to be sort of traveling, year round all-star teams. I never played fall baseball when I was growing up because there was no such thing. Now, you HAVE to play fall baseball.
I didn’t let my son play for his middle school team when he was in the 6th grade because I didn’t feel that he was ready. Middle school baseball plays on 60/90 fields and swing -3 bats. My son wasn’t ready for that when he was 12. In fact, the vast majority of 12 year olds aren’t ready for that, but they play middle school ball anyway…and develop some bad habits along the way.
When my son was in the 8th grade, he had to choose between playing for his middle school team and the East Cobb Astros. It was an easy decision made easier by the fact that he wasn’t going to a different school the next year anyway. Why was it easy? Well, for one, back then, the Astros were arguably the best 14 year old team in the nation. If they weren’t THE best, then they were in everyone’s top five. Why play a dozen or so games against some fairly weak competition…which, despite the trophy hunting folks out there believing otherwise…doesn’t make you better, when you can play against the best competition around? He would have loved to have played both, but it wasn’t possible. Both teams wanted and, rightfully so, expected to be his top priority. He had been the MVP of the league as a 7th grader, and now he wasn’t even going to play in that league as an 8th grader.
That leads me to the question I posed as the title of this blog. It may sound like a ridiculous notion, but did you see the select baseball boom coming? I didn’t. Did you ever think local rec baseball leagues would all but disappear? I didn’t.
Consider the following: There’s never been a more over-coached and under-taught game that youth baseball. I’d submit that there have never been more players getting specialty lessons (hitting, pitching, fielding) than ever before. I’ve given private lessons for 18 years and have never had more clients than I have now…and that’s not slowing down. There are “select” teams everywhere…and these include players who are anything but prospects. The whole thing seems out of control. The rise of organizations like Perfect Game and Baseball Factory have changed how the game is played and how college coaches scout and recruit.
While no select organization anywhere would ever say that they will ever compete with the high school baseball season, consider this: they are already competing with the high school football season in the fall. One of the premier events in all of select baseball is Perfect Game’s WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Florida. Ask anyone who has been there and they will tell you that they’ve never seen more golf carts (these are what the college coaches and professional scouts use to get around the complex) in their whole life. It’s a bonanza of the best players in the country competing against each other. However, if you play high school football, you most likely can’t go to this event. Want to know why?
It’s held in October.
Should organizations want to hold an elite event in April, high school baseball players would have to make a choice between their team/season and this event.
As I said earlier, college recruiting has changed. The high school coach is less important now than he’s ever been in that regard. College coaches see kids at their camps or at these mega-events at the Perfect Game facility in Georgia. They will see high school games too, but, in my experience, it’s not like it used to be. I mean, the college season is the same time as the high school season. Those coaches are busy coaching their teams. If they know they can see a bunch of kids at a mega-event in June, instead of just one or two at a high school game in April, why go in April?
Further, the quality of coaching the kids receive is also a factor. I was a high school baseball coach for a long time and I coached against some guys who were absolutely terrible baseball coaches. Don’t get me wrong, there are a TON of fantastic high school baseball coaches, but, overall, I don’t think the pool is very strong. A lot of the elite travel organizations are being headed up and coached by former professional and college players. They have been coached by some of the best in the world. Their connections are better than most any high school coach. More and more, the select coach, and not the high school coach, is the one talking to the college coach.
I’m not saying that it will ever happen. I’m not saying that it won’t. But all it’s going to take is one or two of the elite organizations to offer spring baseball during the high school season…like they do during high school football season…and the entire landscape of high school baseball could change.
Just like it did for the rec leagues…
