Travel Baseball Information
Travel baseball is played in the spring and offers the opportunity to play against teams from other local communities. Travel baseball represents a more challenging and advanced level of play in comparison to the in-house program. MTBSA’s intention is to have up to 2 travel teams at each age-level (9-12) each season. Our ability to offer a 2nd team for each age group is contingent upon sufficient player interest, a volunteer coach and sufficient field availability to meet the Suburban Travel League Requirements. It is important to understand that tryouts will be held and not all players will be selected to a team.
For MTBSA’s travel program, tryouts are generally held in the fall for the following year spring teams. Players must tryout each year. In order to tryout you must have been part of our in-house/rec program. Players are allowed to tryout for travel teams at a higher age level. A player who successfully makes a travel team at a higher age level will need to continue to try out for and make the higher age level travel team in order to “play up” for subsequent years. A player who is “playing up” may return to their true age group at the beginning of any season, as a result of personal choice or because they did not make the travel team at the higher age level. A travel player will only be allowed to “play up” to a higher age level’s “A” team and will not be eligible to make the higher age level’s “B” team. A travel player will only be allowed to "play up" to a higher age level if he is in the top 5 scores in evaluations. Exceptions can be made to this rule if there is no Tournament or Travel team offered at the player's age.
For players who are selected to a team, there is a travel fee in addition to the typical Rec fee to cover umpires and other program costs. In addition, each player is expected to participate in their team’s weekly winter workouts – which are typically held at an indoor facility. The cost of the winter workouts will be in addition to the Rec and travel team registration fee.
What is Travel Baseball?
Travel Baseball is played during the Spring, as is Rec baseball, except the games are on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, usually starting the first week of April and ending by the first week of June. When playing travel baseball your son must also play Rec baseball. Thus, your son, if selected, would play on 2 teams in the Spring – his Rec team, and the travel team. The purpose of the Travel team is to offer a more challenging level of baseball than can be seen in the Rec league. The intention of the Travel League is to have many players with similar talent levels competing with each other on a weekly basis. Our travel teams compete in the Suburban Travel Baseball League. They will play against their counterparts from, Warrington, Horsham, Deep Run, Lenape Valley, Doylestown, and other surrounding area teams. Playing travel baseball is an excellent opportunity to further develop the talents of all the boys on the team.
Player and Parent Commitment
Playing travel and tournament baseball will require a commitment by not only the players, but also the parents. As mentioned above, the season runs concurrently with the Rec season. With that said, by mid April, the Travel team players will play Friday and Sunday, plus a Rec game on Saturday and one weekday. Additionally, expect to practice once a week, which will result in five days of baseball per week for your player. This is stated so as to inform you prior to tryouts, and not have you be surprised later.
Travel players are required to attend 75% of their Rec practices and games to remain eligible for the travel season and travel tournaments. Failure to do so can result in removal from the travel roster.
Differences between Travel Baseball and Intramural Baseball
- Travel permits unlimited base stealing, Rec limits the number of steals per inning.
- Travel pitchers generally throw harder & faster than those in most Rec programs.
- Players that are designated as a "travel pitcher" by the travel coaches are limited to pitching a maximum of 2 innings per week in Rec games. A week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday.
- Travel players are not guaranteed to play every inning. The Rec program focus' on instruction and equal playing time for all.
Travel players should understand that belonging to a Travel team is a unique opportunity and places that individual among the BEST Baseball players in the Montgomery / Bucks County region. There is no other venue where so many talented youngsters play competitive baseball at these age levels.
For additional information please send an email to mtbsaquestions@gmail.com