The Shift: The Business of Baseball at the Youth-High School and Professional Level

FromThe Shift:In my early years as a college coach, while out recruiting several local American Legion and Senior Babe Ruth tournaments, I began to hear about these “AAU” travel baseball tournaments. This was truly the very beginning of hearing that term, travel baseball. I was told these teams were made up of the best players from all over New England. As I began to scout and evaluate athletes at these various tournaments, it was clear they were. Attending travel baseball tournaments suddenly became part of my recruiting. As both a college head coach and a father, I could see my sons were going to be exposed to a different path than I had been. What I did not know is that events were already taking place that would make their baseball journeys, and the journeys of so many millions of boys, radically different than the one I experienced.The business of baseball has grown to become a four-billion-dollar industry. Young athletes and their families have become commodities for venture capitalists and larger, nationally known franchise travel programs. The hamster wheel of baseball is perennial and shows no signs of slowing down. On top of that, the MLB and college baseball worlds have changed dramatically, and those changes have affected youth baseball at all age groups. This isThe Shift,where “for the love of the game” has given way to an exclusive world of wealth and greed. Learn about it from someone who has lived it as a coach, mentor, and most importantly, as a father.Read more