For Those Moms That Have Baseball Playing Kids..

My son is 11 and has played since he was 4. He loves it and plays both spring & fall. His team just got moved up to AAA (step above AA). They play into the first of July and fall season starts in August. So it tends to be almost year round for us. But, that is the only sport he is interested in right now. If he enjoys it and you are fine with both seasons, go for it. It keeps them active and makes for great friendships.

I don't know-at 7 our kids do not do kid pitch. They are either in manager pitch or tball at 7. Kidpitch does not come until the 9-10 year old league. I am actually not sure how your 7 year olds are doing it-our 9/10 year olds are crazy pitchers and someone is always getting hurt. So maybe baseball is more of a thing in CA and is competitive at a super early age. I would have to seriously think about that level of commitment for 7 year olds. Its still so young. And also-the more 'competitive' teams that he plays on the more stressful it gets. These coachs want to win and at all costs. Most are sadly reliving their childhood through thier kids. I would say there is a good chance your son will burn out on it with that much.

My son is now almost 12 and has been playing baseball since he was 4. He plays both fall and spring, but that is his only sport. He never wanted to play soccer or basketball so he has the time to play baseball year-round. He loves it! If your son can handle it and he continues to enjoy it, let him play! You will know when he is over-loaded. "Play Ball!"

No, we only allow one team per year.

We've been playing AA for 2 years...and baseball (T-Ball and A) for 6...when my son is on, he's on, when he's off - he's off.

I think more than one team is too much and takes up too much time from studying and school. As it stands we have practice on Mondays and Fridays with games on Tuesdays and Saturday...yeah - a ton of time!!!

Good luck!

My son is 5.5 and has just completed his 4th season. He plays both fall ball and spring ball because he wants to and has been since he was 3 (almost 4). It has always been T-ball (which really means coach pitch). Kid pitch starts at age 7. The league here is extremely competitive and to keep up, you really have to play both.

I'm all for letting kids do what they want with their extracurricular time. So, if he loves it and wants to play more, why not?

It's hard to say. My nieces (age 11) play softball. And I think they do three different teams/leagues/whatever because they are practicing and playing all year long. And it seems like every 3 or 4 months they're in championships games because the season is ending and then they start all over again. I think it's a bit much, but they seem okay with it.
My son played baseball in the spring and soccer in the fall from kindergarten thru jr high school. He switched to water sports and now plays water polo in the fall and swim in the spring. They practice year round including summers.
My daughter played volleyball. Doing the school team in the fall and club teams in the spring. By the time she graduated she was SO burnt out she wouldn't even CONSIDER playing volleyball in college!
And, yes, it's all SO competitive now. But, he is just 7. Seems like you would wait a couple of years before getting so involved. Also, google it. I have read a lot about kids getting repetitive injuries from doing so much so young, especially the pitchers.
Good luck.

The babe ruth league and the pony league are just seperate leagues so it means they should have slightly different rules and practices. Fall Ball was pretty much started for kids to do something in the off season. While many kids play soccer not all do or at some point they decide to commit to one sport. Pony (I believe is often in the summer??) which may be an alternative to kids to don't make all stars? I would make sure when sign ups roll around each time you just check with your son to make sure he still wants to play. Once he signs up he needs to be committed to the team until the season ends. If he decides he does not want to play mid season he should finish it out because of the committment to the team. In some cases the team may not get to play if they lose players because you can't replace people mid season.

I would ask your son. I know when I was 7 years old. I played on two softball teams. One was spring-early summer and the other was summer-early fall. We overlapped about two weeks, I enjoyed every min. of it. It also helped end the "i'm bored syndrome" that usually happens towards the end of the long summer. If you son is game then I would let him as long as it fits in with your schedule.

Our son just turned 8 in April. He will move to 9u in the fall which will be his first time to play kid pitch. He has been playing spring and fall since he was 4 and one summer season when he was 7. He loves to play and when he decides he no longer wants to, we will stop. Until then, if we don't play every season, we are afraid he will fall behind because the other boys will continue to play. If he decides that he wants to sit out a season we will. He has teammates who play other sports the same season they are playing baseball and some are on 2 baseball teams at the same time. We won't be doing that! He already has team practice 2 days a week, 1-3 regular games a week and a tournament once a month.

If he likes it--I'd say let him play--as long as school comes first.

It must be REALLY different here b/c kid pitch doesn't start til 8-9-10 yo and coaches don't "ask" kids to be on their teams..although the coach pitch is fast and hard balls are used...the players are ranked by ability and there are drafts so that the teams are fair, not "hand-picked" by the coaches so to speak......that seems odd to me. That type of thing happens here with soccer and SO many parents are upset by it.

Our boy has been all about baseball since he was very young....The league took him at 4 yrs old (playing w/5yr olds + simply because he was "a natural"). He LIVES for baseball.
That said, in order to keep his love for the game going - and not making it a CHORE for him - we've had him only do regular season ball and fall ball. He's never been on more than one team at a time (he's now 14), even though he's been selected to be on the All Star teams and traveling tournament teams.
We've always made it clear to the coaches that our son's first loyalty is to whatever team he is playing on at the time....if they want him badly enough, they can put him as an alternate until his commitment to his current team is done.
This has also helped US - his parents - to avoid driving him all over the south end of our state to play 3 games in ONE DAY (yes, some parents DO go to that extreme).
He remains at the playing level of the other kids - no falling behind so to speak. And he still LOVES the game :-)

My son is 18 & just finished his final year of high school varsity baseball. He began playing when he was in 1st grade. While he always played spring ball sometimes he would take the summer & fall off. He is a pitcher & depending on how much he pitched each season, he would take time off to rest his arm. Leave it up to him, he will tell you if he needs a break. Also, make sure that it stays FUN. Several of his teammates would say they needed a break but their parents wouldn't let them take time off. This past varsity season, some of the parents were trying to organize a father/son game after the season ended & a few parents said their sons could not participate because they were already playing with other teams & could not take the time off. Really, what was one Sunday afternoon of playing a game against their Dads going to hurt? But these parents are the type that if the kids were not somehow advancing their baseball "career", it wasn't worth doing. I really wonder how many of these kids will remember their ball playing days as "fun" or as "work".

My son just played his first year of Pony Baseball (he finished up the week before his 4th birthday). Pony is similar to Little League, but with slightly different rules (or at least that's what other moms told me). In Pony, the distance between bases gets bigger as kids get older. Younger kids (t-ball) don't keep score; everyone bats and everyone fields. They offer both fall and spring ball.

I don't plan to put my son in fall ball unless he begs me to AND shows enough skill to make it worthwhile. Otherwise, I'd rather stick to baseball in the spring and have him try out soccer in the fall so he has a chance to experience other things. When he's old enough, I'd also like him to try basketball and see what he likes the best.

My personal opinion... if you want to add one extra team, go for it, since he loves it so much. But if he's playing on three teams a year, I think he'll get burned out - and so will you. I also keep hearing about how many kids (mostly high schoolers, but sometimes even younger) are having a lot more sports-related injuries and surgeries than ever before because of overuse. Kids bones are still developing and they need an offseason so they have a chance to rest.