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

From THE 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 is THE 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. ★★★★★ “Very insightful information. Nailed down the recruiting process.” I became acquainted with Walter on Twitter where I found many of his tweets, coach interviews, and commentaries to be kinder, more insightful, and better informed than most whose business it is to develop youth baseball players and assist high school players in finding a college program. Walter was looking at the whole landscape of baseball in the USA, from youth to the MLB, and was not afraid to respectfully criticize some of the directions in which baseball was heading. I dug around online and saw that he has college coaching experience, has two sons who played at the college level, and one who is in the MLB. Those are pretty good credentials! Walter reached out to me and asked about my experiences with college baseball, and a very good discussion ensued. He told me about the book he was writing and sent me a few draft chapters. I quickly devoured the chapters and appreciated his insights into the big business of youth travel baseball. When I got to the chapters on college baseball, I felt someone else saw what I was seeing. It was a relief to have an expert put into words what I as a novice parent was piecing together. Part of the reason I turned to Twitter was to gain insights into all the paradigm shifts in college baseball. I wanted to understand and heal from the crushing disappointment I felt with regards to how and why my son was cut from his college baseball program. This book IS A MUST READ!” —A Baseball Mom — ASIN: B0BPGSVG5R | ISBN13: 9798987462515 | ISBN-13: 979-8987462515