Welcome to the world of travel baseball. Travel baseball teams are groups of kids that go across the country to play in different tournments - rather than just playing in one area like you do in Little League baseball. One week you might travel to New York to play in a tournament, the next week you might take off to play a double-header in Colorado. It's kind of like being in the majors. Teams play as many as 100 games a year. They hold extra practices during the winter at indoor fields or they work out in the weight room. But you don't get paid to play travel baseball and the games aren't on national television.
To go to all these tournaments, travel baseball teams need a lot of money - they have to pay for airplane tickets, hotels and restaurants. That means players do a lot of fundraising or their parents fork over the cash. For this reason, some people say that travel baseball is for rich kids only. That may be true; but you can't just be rich to play on a traveling ball team - you also have to be good. In Little League, no one gets cut from the team and everyone plays - even if you throw like a girl. In travel baseball, the teams only take the best players - so it's kinda like making the All-Star Team. Travel baseball is a great way to travel to different states and play against some of the best baseball players your age. But if you don't like putting all your time into baseball and you only bat .200, you may want to stick to Little League.
What do you think about travel baseball? Are you on a travel baseball team or do you play in Little League? about your baseball team.
To find out about playing baseball this spring, check out these links below.
www.littleleague.com - the official site of little league baseball.
www.PONY.org - find out where to play PONY baseball near you.
www.baberuthleague.org - info on baseball and softball leagues for kids 5 to 18.
www.calripkenbaseball.org - for kids aged 5 to 12.
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