Travel ball

Travel ball is a form of youth baseball in which the best players from a certain area are recruited to play together on one team and travel around the region or the country to participate in tournaments against similar teams. The purpose of travel teams is to provide a higher caliber of competition than the traditional high school baseball or American Legion Baseball would provide.

Travel ball started developing in the 1980s and began to really gain traction in the 2000s, to the point where it has often eclipsed high school ball as a recruiting source for collegiate baseball and for many professional scouts. Originally, travel ball was largely dominated by players from white suburbs, but with the development of national organizations fielding travel teams all over the country, there has been greater effort put to recruiting kids from various socio-economic backgrounds, and this movement has resulted in an increasing number of African-American youth being selected in the top rounds of the Amateur Draft in recent years.

There has been criticism of this development because it pushes kids to play baseball year-round and solely, at the detriment of developing skills in other sports - skills that may in turn make them better athletes and better baseball players in the long run. Concern has also been expressed that this over-specialization has led to a multiplication of injuries, particularly to pitchers. For example, pitchers undergoing Tommy John surgery in high school or college are now a common phenomenon.

Major organizations active in travel ball include Perfect Game USA and the IMG Academy.

Further Reading

• David C. Ogden: "Examining Dusty Baker's Hope: Is Help on the Way?", Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Vol. 52, Nr. 2 (Fall 2023), pp. 86-96.