Tournaments, All-Stars & League Agendas

We have the opposite problem. Our 11-12 league spends almost as much money on its tournament teams (2 of 12 kids each) as it does on the entire 8-team, 100-player rec league. The rec league gets t-shirts, cheap gray pants, and cheap caps. The tourney teams get real uniforms-first class all the way. Parents have begun complaining to the rec department and county commissioners that county money is being spent on a privileged few (most of whom happen to be the sons of coaches and league commissioners).

In our league, everyone knows from Day 1 who will be on the tournament teams. The other kids are regarded as filler, necessary baggage to fill out the teams and qualify for the tournaments. The tournament coaches are selected early in the season, and they quietly begin coaching their "all stars" long before the regular season is over. So many of these stars bide their time, set themselves apart from the riff-raff, and ignore their regular-season coaches. One of the kids on my team missed half of our practices and four games, and generally showed his contempt for the rest of the team-all in the assurance that the REAL season would begin when the tournament team went to work. His play was inconsistent, and statistically several kids on my team performed better. They just didn't look as good doing it. And they hadn't been annointed "all stars forever" when they were 7 years old. If anyone had bothered to ask, I wouldn't have recommended this star for the tournament team at all. And I could have provided the fielding and batting stats to back up my choice. But the kid is on the tournament team, and the rest of our players are confirmed in their belief that adults reward only talent, not effort or even performance.