Rec League Baseball: On the Joys of Youth Sports When the Youths Are Our Sons

I was permanently psychologically scarred by the 2025–2026 winter in the Northeast, the coldest on record for eleven years. Nine straight days from late January to February when the mornings started in the single digits, or below zero — and the highs were not even teens. That’s nothing for the Northern Plains people or Canadians, but we’re not that kind of winter people. My sons could not be kept outside if we tried, and the snow didn’t help. Their screen time was getting out of hand. So was mine. I know this because it was around this time I occasionally found myself washing dishes in the kitchen after dinner, picking up the phone to browse real estate listings in the American Southwest and asking various AI chatbots to describe what life was like there for New York transplants. It warned me that sometimes the revenge-against-winter move doesn’t work out. And then, somehow, I started asking it about the level of baseball competition for young players in Sedona or Santa Fe.

My kids are not screaming “majors” material. But both were excited for the local recreational league, which was surprisingly less recreational than I remember from my youth. Two practices a week with optional batting practice for seven-year-olds against a pitching machine (which was used in games). There does seem to be a baseball mania in the town. A kid got drafted out of the local high school a few years ago. There are indoor training facilities for parents who have money and logistical talent to spare in finding opportunities for their children. The truth is that these facilities are where professional players develop. The summer travel teams they go on after the rec season ends are the showcase for those talents.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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I was permanently psychologically scarred by the 2025–2026 winter in the Northeast, the coldest on record for eleven years. Nine straight days from late January to February when the mornings started in the single digits, or below zero — and the highs were not even teens. That’s nothing for the Northern Plains people or Canadians, but we’re not that kind of winter people. My sons could not be kept outside if we tried, and the snow didn’t help. Their screen time was getting out of hand. So was mine. I know this because it was around this time I occasionally found myself washing dishes in the kitchen after dinner, picking up the phone to browse real estate listings in the American Southwest and asking various AI chatbots to describe what life was like there for New York transplants. It warned me that sometimes the revenge-against-winter move doesn’t work out. And then, somehow, I started asking it about the level of baseball competition for young players in Sedona or Santa Fe.

My kids are not screaming “majors” material. But both were excited for the local recreational league, which was surprisingly less recreational than I remember from my youth. Two practices a week with optional batting practice for seven-year-olds against a pitching machine (which was used in games). There does seem to be a baseball mania in the town. A kid got drafted out of the local high school a few years ago. There are indoor training facilities for parents who have money and logistical talent to spare in finding opportunities for their children. The truth is that these facilities are where professional players develop. The summer travel teams they go on after the rec season ends are the showcase for those talents.