How many of you TX dogs have this "illegal" bat for lil Jimmy?
- Thread starter CochiseCowbell
- Start date
Yeah, I spent the money and got my son a drop 10 version of that bat. It’s a good bat, but stupid to spend that much on it. I’m only the smartest most of the time.
Back in my day, the Easton Zcore was the hottest bat ever.
Back in my day, the Easton Zcore was the hottest bat ever.
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USSSA is a joke in regards to bat certification. That hype fire is hotter than our stuff in the 90's. Most real leagues require USA Baseball or BBCOR... It's kinda silly to use the extra hot bats these days because they are going to have a rude awakening come high school when they have to go BBCOR.
That said, if any of you old farts want to buy one and come up here for a home run derby at +/- 5500', I'll buy the beer.
That said, if any of you old farts want to buy one and come up here for a home run derby at +/- 5500', I'll buy the beer.
Man, I wish the internet in '95 had as much info as it does now.
We all sorta just stumbled into the best bats by way of expensive trail and error- buying and trying each other's bats to see what was legit and what was a waste of money.
The 1990 Easton Black Magic was definitely used for mutiple seasons. That bat was an indestructible tank too.
And the 1995 TPX that was white and black was a 17ing slingshot of power.
We all sorta just stumbled into the best bats by way of expensive trail and error- buying and trying each other's bats to see what was legit and what was a waste of money.
The 1990 Easton Black Magic was definitely used for mutiple seasons. That bat was an indestructible tank too.
And the 1995 TPX that was white and black was a 17ing slingshot of power.
It is sad I get enjoyment out of seeing travel ball kids with there 25 fake plastic tournament rings get to high school ball and fail?
I had this baby in pony league. Graduated to the c-core and z-core after that. A tremendous trio to wind down my prolific career of bunting.
I had a Worth Copperhead back in the day. Made a ‘ping’ that just sounded like a base hit.
I hit quite a few homers with the old silver and green, black and yellow, and c core. Longest homer, and also my only opposite field homer, was with this bat. That is the hottest bat ever.
Well Hello, my fellow broke teen. Or you also had a dad that told you, correctly, that the bat doesn't make the hitter and I'm not spending an arm and a leg.
Graduating HS in 2000, I feel like I played in the age of everyone needing their own bat was just becoming an unstoppable trend. Everyone used the team bats in T-ball, about a 1/3 had their own bats in pitching machine and kid pitch, but by HS the peer pressure and marketing had ramped up to where almost no one used the team bats.
There was a scandal of a couple Jrs and Srs, my Soph year, stole team bats to sell to 2nd hand sports stores and got caught.
Pro tip, if you buy a bat, save the receipt. My sons bat broke, didn’t know that was possible, after a few months. I didn’t have the original receipt so Easton said “it sucks to suck”. Apparently the serial number on the bat doesn’t tell them the age of the bat.
We played with wooden bats.
And we LIKED it!!
And we LIKED it!!
Meh, all you guys who swung black magic’s and such back in the day aren’t any different than today’s Hype Fire kids. This was my go to courtesy of the Easter Bunny. Easton has always been the rich kid’s bat.
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Do they fail? From what I've seen, the ones who are ID'ed early on as good, generally get on the best travel teams and become AAA/Major, and that's who makes the middle school team most of the time. And of course they are funneled up through high school. Sometimes there is some super athletic kid who may fall down into A or AA, who is maybe poor or something, who impresses at tryouts.
The real sad part is watching so many kids toil away in A or AA, parents spend money on lessons, overpitch their kids, etc. and they aren't going anywhere. At least in AAA/Major, there is a general knowledge of what's going on, although they get wrapped up in winning too.
That's the kids who have gotten left behind in baseball, with travel sports. Those fringe kids who develop into pretty good athletes later. Of course, if you're a college coach, I don't know how you identify them, because most of them quit baseball.
I graduated in 99 and I remember we had 4 bats we'd use in games between the whole team. We had a 33" and 32" version of the latest easton / ccore / zcore or whatever it was. Then one guy had a 34" TPX that only he could swing, and one guy had a black & blue easton (black magic??) that only he used.
I never owned my own bat after 7th or 8th grade. It was pointless to buy one if you couldn't afford the best. There was no way my parents were going to spend $180-$200 on a bat, and I wasn't going to spend two weeks of my $5.25/hr, 20-hour/wk wages on one either.
Your rants against youth baseball can be linked to the Lunar cycle. Its more consistent than my wall clock.
You seem to view youth baseball as an overall scam or as a big lie that 'steals' money away from families when reality is likely much less extreme. There are absolutely families that are paying a lot for a roster spot, travel, and lessons even though their kid wont play in HS/College and the money is then 'wasted'.
You seem to view it all as an investment where there needs to either be a literal financial return by way of scholarship, or a return that results in their kid being good at a higher level. Why does that need to be how value and success are measured?
If a family is able to financially support their kid's passion and some private lessons help the kid improve to their ceiling, and their ceiling is just low due to athleticism or whatever, why are those lessons or the costs viewed as wasted? Why is it a scam for that kid to play on a low level travel team if they love the sport and want to experience playing the sport? Why is it sad to see parents spend money on lessons for their kid to hopefully improve as the thing they love?
Of course there are other scenarios- kid doesnt like the game and parents push em to play and spend a bunch of money. Or kid has some potential and dad pours in money to live vicariously thru kid even after the kid doesnt keep improving or loses some interest. etc etc etc.
I just dont understand why you seem to think most all adults going into this ignorant with their eyes shut.
My favorite are the stories about travel ball teams going across the country to be in same bracket as a team 10 miles away.
Has travel ball benefitted anyone other than the coaches, tournament organizers or Residence Inns?
This right here.........Still have both of mine and an Adirondack Big Stick...........
You're correct about that, because you're coming after me, as if I have some weird view about it. So I'll humor you, and hopefully you'll understand better.
I love baseball. I want to see it succeed. I wanted, for so long to see it become the #1 sport in America and remain that way. I loved the baseball card era. What we did up to 1994 worked, the system was good, from youth ball to high school to college to pro. But since then, baseball seems to be a crusade to destroy itself. The strike, steroids and then the analytics era. Then all that's happened with youth sports. College is still largely the same I'd think, maybe slightly better. I'm glad to see a little NIL infusion there to help with costs for the players. But anyway, THAT is why, because I care about it, but that care is eroding.
You know, I went by the local high school last night, and they had more people watching a lacrosse game than the baseball game? They were on adjacent fields, so it was easy to see. That's crazy to me, and a signal that something is grossly wrong.
And I'm not as concerned about the lessons and such - parents can pay their money for whatever they want. And at the end of the day, that's what you're paying for with travel ball - more games, and all the ancillary stuff that comes with that. And honestly, I've backed off of the specialization part, because there's a ton of ways to work around that (strength training, etc.).
But.........
Ever noticed how the tournaments are weekend only? Because that's the only time they can convince folks to travel and cram as many games in a weekend, to get the most money. Turf the fields so you can play in the rain. Also, that's really the reason why you have fall ball - because it's too hot to play during the summer all day long on Saturday/Sunday.
I don't know why we can't come up with a summer ball system, where they play games during the weeknights, all summer long (you know, like the actual colleges and pros do). Why do we have to do weekend tournaments in youth and high school? Well, besides money for tournaments and showcases, another big part of it is that folks are recruiting metrics now and not stats (analytical era).
All that to say, nobody seems to be changing it, so baseball will continue to degrade, kids will quit and there will be less fans, slowly but surely. It'll never bottom out though, so I certainly plan to make a little money in it for a while, and that's why I umpire games.
Meanwhile, my kid gets 14+ games of 13/14 rec ball from March through the second week of May where we don't travel more than ~20 miles in any direction, for a total league fee of $185.
Now if I could just convince him to enjoy the experience and not get all teenage-angsty on me...
Now if I could just convince him to enjoy the experience and not get all teenage-angsty on me...
I used a wooden Louisville Slugger for a couple of years when I was around 10 y/o. Loved that bat but eventually cracked. Swear that was my favorite bat ever, felt so much better than the metal bats when you hit it just right.
