Ask Doug: Is Travel Ball the Only Way?

Baseball Factory

September 26, 2008

By Doug Glanville

Doug Glanville is working with the Baseball Factory and Team One Baseball as a Special Consultant. He will be writing articles and looking for your questions and feedback. If you have a question for Doug, please email him at askdoug@baseballfactory.com

Q: Hello, I'm a proud father of two sons and a daughter. I'm really proud that they’re healthy and all love to play sports! My oldest son has really got his mind made up about playing in "The Bigs" as he would say. He has played in travel baseball for the last 2 years…. The money that this Big League Dream is costing me everything, I just can't do it anymore…. I had to do what's best for my family, [my son] is playing community ball next year for our home town, while deep down I know travel baseball is where he needs to be.
Is travel baseball the only way to be seen or showcase your child?
Thanks for your time,
Sam in Ohio

A: To be seen this day and age as a young athlete is quite different than when I came up the ranks as a high school player. For starters, in my day, it was much more difficult to get noticed. That had a lot to do with the age before the internet.

Today, players need to have a marketing sense to get the best and the most exposure possible. It is very competitive out there and the more you are noticed and seen, the safer a scout will feel about knowing what kind of player you are…

Another key value of working with an organization like Baseball Factory is that your son will get a sense of where he stands in relation to his peers. This was also something very difficult for me as a high school player in the 1980s. My baseball world was centered around New Jersey. It was rare that I saw what other players were doing across the country. I hardly remember a time where I played with or against anyone from out of state.

So for all I knew, I was good for New Jersey and terrible by California standards and I already knew that players from warm climates would play more baseball in my day and get more opportunities to get noticed.

These days, much of this has changed. The internet gives players a new forum and a marketing tool that reaches the entire planet. This knowledge allows developmental programming to measure where players stand on a national scale, not just a local scale and for the next level of play (college or pro) evaluators can have a better sense of a player’s long-term potential.

As a parent of one of these players, it makes it more important to expose your son to as many of their geographically diverse platforms as possible and do it in a way where the organization that heads up these programs have a national sense of how to evaluate talent. As I have worked with Baseball Factory, I feel we have the most comprehensive options by combining scouting insider intelligence (scout for Baseball America) with on-field expertise. These two things coupled with command of the internet’s tools make for a powerful support system for your son.

It is certainly possible to get noticed by being a local phenomenon, but to really give your son his best opportunity, do your best to find a program that gives him some on-field time with the rest of the world. As a baseball player, this will give him visibility and comfort to know that he can compete nationwide and as a young man who is growing in confidence, it will be good for his sense of possibility.

Doug

Republished form The Baseball Factory