Note: Mark Moore is a guest columnist to PRB. Fred Engh’s regular monthly column will appear again beginning in April.
Many recreational leagues sanction sport teams with a private sports organization so that their league has the opportunity to participate in postseason all-star play after the regular season is complete. These teams are typically drafted at the conclusion of the regular season.
No All Stars necessary
But do all-star teams fit the recreational athletics model? Recreational sports are supposed to be all-inclusive and provide kids with an opportunity to experience the thrill of competition, the enjoyment of being part of a team and the ability to learn the fundamentals of a sport. Isn’t ending the season early for all children so that a few can proceed to all-star play defeating the purpose?
Cut Short
Because state and world series tournament dates are set a year or more in advance, recreational leagues have to set regular-season game schedules to allow time to get the minimum number of games in to qualify for postseason all-star play (another challenge), draft all-star teams, order uniforms and practice before the first round of tournaments begin (commonly referred to as “districts” or “regionals”).
This causes the regular season to be cut several weeks short for all teams so that a handful of children can play in the postseason.
It is hard to validate this premise when recreation administrators are in the business of providing recreational opportunities to everyone in the community–not a select few. In contrast, if the regular season was not cut short to draft all-star teams, every child in the league could play more games (sometimes as many as two to six more, depending on when the season ends).
Making Changes
The private sports organizations that target recreational leagues have “select” or “travel” organizations as their direct competition. Consequently, to compete with travel teams, private organizations must adjust things like base distances, pitching distances and the use of pitching mounds.
The problem is that recreational leagues should not be in direct competition with any of these select or travel organizations. The adjustments that may help build a private recreational sports organization actually hurt purely recreational athletics.
Prior to these adjustments, the majority of recreational players have trouble making the throw from shortstop to first base or from the pitching rubber to the catcher at the original distances. Once the base and pitching rubber distances increase–resulting in even greater throwing distances–this makes a once daunting task nearly impossible for some players.
Another burden for recreation leagues is the numerous field setup changes from one age group to the next. Many times recreational leagues schedule at least two different age groups at one location. The more the base distances and field requirements change between age groups (i.e., portable mounds and varying base distances, etc.), the more of a burden it is on an organization to schedule someone to reset bases or pitching mounds between games.
Once again, these changes are made because private sports organizations that target recreational leagues don’t want to lose kids in their program to the more selective organizations.
Ironically, all of the changes that are forced into recreational play actually decrease the need for travel teams and all-star programs—if everyone is playing at the same caliber, where’s the need for an all-star team?
All-Inclusive Recreation
When private sports organizations started decades ago, the opportunity it provided children to experience the thrill of tournament play was great because there was no other way to experience it. But that is not the case anymore–the number of travel teams seems to grow exponentially every year. Thus, the opportunity for tournament play abounds. There are numerous travel teams for which those parents and children seeking that can play.
At its core, recreational athletics is all-inclusive; all-star competition is not. Recreation administrators need to take a step back and reassess all-star participation. Is it truly in the best interests of an athletics program, or is it a program better left to the travel organizations?
Mark W. Moore, is the assistant director for the Botetourt County Parks, Recreation & Tourism department in Virginia. He can be reached via e-mail at mmoore@BOTETOURTVA.US.
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One of your points seems to be that since travel ball offers the elite players a venue to perform, Little Leagues should no longer offer All-Star opportunities because they are not all-inclusive, and in return, all players can play more games. In my experience as a coach, most of the players are satisfied with the length of the schedule and want to move on to other things, but the players with a higher degree of passion welcome more games against tougher competition. If Little Leagues omit All-Stars, those players who have the skill and passion to become All-Stars would, most likely, move on to other organizations, and in their wake many Little Leagues would suffer, not only from the lack of players, but from the influence of the passion and presence.
It’s not like they gather all of the players together and select the All-Stars gym-style while the non-selected players slump away embarrassed. At some point we need to prepare our youth for life in the real world. I’m sure that most of us were not awarded our jobs just becasue we filled out an application, but because we were placed into a competitive situation. Let’s teach our kids to handle rejection. Who knows, maybe some of these players will work harder and be an All-Star someday, isn’t that what we’d like to teach our youth?
I sang while reading your article. It is an issue we deal with here in our community every year. I actually had one of the league reps tell me from another community that they weren’t sure they wanted to continue to “allow” us in the league because some of our teams aren’t competitive enough! They told me I needed to “lose the recreation mentality”! I was pretty sure when I answered the phone that day I did say “Parks & Recreation Dept.” so since that’s what I’m paid to do and it’s what I believe in, I won’t be changing my ways anytime soon! The other issue is we start the seasons so early that we have to deal with so many rainouts and by the time the season ends (one age group is done Mid-June) the diamonds are just starting to look good and the weather is great but the season is over and the parks are empty and 90 percent of the players are now bored with nothing to do. How very sad! Thank you for a great article!
All Stars can be ok or can be a real negative. If they interfere with the overall youth season it is not a positive. Our local baseball league ends the first week of June so the rest of the summer can be for allstar play. Games and practices are so early in March that there are times teams are practicing in 30 degree weather. Then when the summer comes there is no baseball for most of the kids. On the other hand, we have gifted programs for academically advanced children. If allstars are done properly it can be a good thing. It should never negatively impact the league as a whole. A bigger problem may be in house with youth leagues. The keeping of standings has more negative impact on the overall league. Coaches wanting to win the “championship” play the best kids more and the lesser skilled kids play way less. You can legislate playtime rules til the cows come home, but there are always a few coaches who are going to abuse those rules. Not keeping standings, while not completely elinminating that, doeas help.