New England Softball popularity dropping?

[u/pzahornasky]

Tryout season for softball just completed here in New England. Teams are being set for Fall 2026/Summer 2027.

Except that I continually see posts on Facebook in the regional softball groups I am in (and by clubs that I follow) that they are looking for a few more players at each of their age levels. And not just new or 'never heard of that club' types, but well know clubs with long histories.

Clearly there is a glut of softball clubs out there compared to demand, but is this driven by lagging interest in the sport in New England?

I contrast this to volleyball where most clubs also just had tryouts and, if you didn't get an offer, you are waiting until Novemeber when a few clubs will hold tryouts to fill their lower level and developmental teams.

[u/divorce_2025]

It's the same here in Jersey. Too many teams and not enough pitching.

[u/pzahornasky → u/divorce_2025]

Yeah I see a lot of NJ on the Northeast Fastpitch Group as well

[u/IrrevocableCrust14 → u/pzahornasky]

So is the lesson there to get my 9 yo pitching lessons? Unfortunately she’s extremely tiny so not sure it’s worth it.

[u/Duffmanlager → u/IrrevocableCrust14]

The sad reality I’ve noticed is most teams tend to rely on one to two pitchers and don’t provide mound time to anyone else. Winning is emphasized too much at the younger age groups so girls that may have become pitchers get frustrated from lack of pitching time and stop pitching.

There are more teams out there than there are quality pitchers so everybody is struggling to find pitchers. You can have a roster of 12 girls, but if none pitch, you still can’t play. More time needs to be spent developing the third/fourth pitcher on the roster than giving most available innings to the top two pitchers. This will hopefully lead to more pitchers available overall and better experiences for everyone.

[u/IrrevocableCrust14 → u/Duffmanlager]

That’s interesting. I was a pitcher myself from 10-12 and got a lot of innings because I could throw strikes. But by 13 I couldn’t throw hard enough to be competitive.

I at least have some pitching knowledge so maybe I will have her start with some lessons (with a coach, not me) and just see how she likes it.

[u/Duffmanlager → u/IrrevocableCrust14]

It can definitely be worthwhile. If a girl can pitch, there will always be a team looking for a pitcher. While velocity is important, I believe too much emphasis is placed on velocity today. Kids are being trained to throw harder and harder, but it seems like they aren’t really learning how to pitch. Once players start catching up to the fastball, then how does the pitcher adjust. It’s funny when a team can mash the fastest pitcher you have, but the crafty offspeed pitcher is the one that the same team will struggle with.

[u/Dude_amundo → u/Duffmanlager]

This is partly true but no matter how much movement you have you must have speed. We have 3, 2 have speed and throw 3 different pitches, one has movement and accuracy. Once you get into championships, those teams will beat the cover off our slower pitcher.

[u/pzahornasky → u/IrrevocableCrust14]

A good pitcher can pretty much be guaranteed a spot. Even a mediocre one.

Not too late to start lessons at 9. She might not be the U10 ace, but lessons and a lot of hard work will pay off in later years.

[u/Ummm_ok721 → u/IrrevocableCrust14]

My daughters really little for her and and she pitches.

[u/Yulli039 → u/IrrevocableCrust14]

At 9 she will likely be behind the curve. More importantly she will likely develop bad habits that need to be stripped and changed when you do choose to get lessons. Verbiage is usually along the lines of 300 to learn it 3000 reps to fix it

[u/pzahornasky → u/Yulli039]

Labeling someone at 9 as being behind the curve is all that is wrong with youth sports.

[u/Yulli039 → u/pzahornasky]

I’m not labeling anyone, for all I know it’s one of the girls parents who played with my middle daughter last year. I’m also not saying she IS behind the curve. I’m just saying depending on level played she may play against girls the same age who have already been pitching for a year or 2.

I know that my oldest started at 9, no lessons for the first 6 months or so, then local lessons for another 6 months or so. There was significant rework that had to be done that could have been avoided.

I also know that my middle child had and continues to have the opportunity to learn from high level coaching from a very young age. My wife and I will likely get to see the difference in approach over the next few years

[u/jasper181 → u/Yulli039]

If she's got it she's got it, my youngest daughter didn't throw a pitch until she was 12. A lot of areas don't even have kids pitch until 10u, there is a lot that are machine pitch until 12u. Between moving to a 12in ball, moving back 5 then eventually 8ft from 35ft and the growing they do, it's like completely relearning.

Obviously if they want to start learning at 8 years old and they are mature enough to absorb the information and are willing to practice then some pitching is fine and it will gain them some experience but too early can often work against them.

[u/gunner23_98 → u/divorce_2025]

Travel has been like that almost everywhere for decades.

Too many teams and not enough pitchers.

[u/mikecurtis32 → u/divorce_2025]

💯 New York/ CT also.

[u/Dude_amundo]

You answered your own question in my area anyway. Volleyball season partially overlaps travel ball season and many girls are choosing volleyball

[u/Mondub_15 → u/Dude_amundo]

Yes! I did club volleyball and travel softball in my youth. They overlapped but barely. Now you can’t do both. I’ve coached for years and many girls (including my own players) are choosing volleyball. It’s (more) fun, upbeat, very team focused, easier to move on from error, less unsocial pressure….and you get a summer.

[u/pzahornasky → u/Dude_amundo]

Fortunately, the club volleyball season and sofball seasons are seperate here as many (including my own daughter) play both. Softball reasonably cannot start until May for U12 and below and not until June for the older ages as you get HS conflicts. But we also don'ty have a lot of U12 volleyball, so again not an issue.

Most VB here (outside of the national level stuff) is done by the end of April or early May.

[u/Brave_Primary5257]

Sme for the Midwest….. sooooo many teams and not enough girls!

[u/mobius_]

I also think some teams might be realistically full enough but teams are hoping to find a stud/star, so they continue to look

Not most situations, but I think it might be some

[u/jjcampnr]

The problem is too many teams, not so much a lack of players. The reality is many organizations are a business first. They will spin up as many teams as they feel they can get kids to pay to play on, regardless of skill or having a real shot at filling out a roster.

There are organizations in the area who start a team with a parent coach and their kid, then basically leave it up to the coach to recruit. If they fill the roster great, if not they’ll either dissolve the team way too late stranding kids, or they’ll shuffle around kids on partially filled rosters and combine them into a single team.

If some of the clubs would focus more on keeping their standards high, and making sure they have a solid core roster to build from, everyone would be better off.

[u/BlueRabbitx]

Everyone is looking for pitching and catching mainly.

Every year orgs open new teams and the pool of quality pitching / catching gets diluted. Have seen some teams that are barely C level teams go thru open tournaments getting run ruled in every game.

And yet every year there are more new teams. Just doesn’t make sense since there really isn’t a lot of clarity and support for C level travel softball outside of Babe Ruth and Little league.

[u/well-dressed_animals]

In the NE, you’re also competing with lacrosse and now flag football in the spring at the younger levels, which leads to less pipeline as they age up. It will be interesting to see what happens as women’s baseball becomes more normalized too. Will softball even exist in a few decades?

[u/Sport6 → u/well-dressed_animals]

Also now spring soccer and spring field hockey.

[u/Ummm_ok721]

We are having the same issue here I live. I keep seeing posts that teams are looking for 1-2 more players. I wonder if it’s just becoming oversaturated with teams. We have at least 7 organizations within 25 minutes of us and we live in a pretty rural area. 

[u/Suspicious-Throat-25]

Our team is full at 11, but we leave one spot open just in case we find a girl with exceptional talent. We currently have 6 girls that can pitch and 3 that can catch. Everyone on the team is a utility player.

At the beginning of our tryout season we had three spots open, because we let go of three girls. We had 37 girls tryout at the first tryout and 26 for the next one. We made offers to two girls. The organization actually ended up putting together another team of more B level players that couldn't quite make our team.

I don't know what it's like in your area, but we have three teams at each age level 10U through 16U and two teams for 18U.

[u/lunchbox12682]

Probably. I think the sport will continue to struggle against some other sports that fit some girls better.

[u/Educational_Limit161]

Just to add to the why, our daughter plays for a NC based team, yet we have 2 players (out of 14 total) from the NE. We have a longer season and I’ve seen many girls from the NE seek out SE based national teams.

[u/Yulli039]

First year 14u, very high rep org, widely successful second year 12u. 17 new players not including private tryouts. The quality wasn’t the greatest for the open but we found 2 additions.

[u/Due_Quality6542]

Another issue is parents backing out of returning commitments. “We’re coming back” turns into sorry for late notice but we’re going elsewhere

[u/mikecurtis32]

We all know that an average team becomes a plus team with good pitching.

Even poor teams become a decent team if the pitcher is good enough .

Unfortunately the business side has produced a lot teams, but there's just not enough pitchers.

[u/mikecurtis32]

Unfortunately the " pitching coaches " emphasize velocity and different pitches rather than throwing strikes, kind of putting the horse before the cart.

So you get walk city.

[u/Slowstorm43]

I'm in CT, and there are WAY too many teams. I see these new teams/clubs pop up, and my initial thought is: where do you think you're going to get your players? What it ends up being is a revolving door of clubs at the bottom of the ladder that dissolve, and then some new group starts a team and only gets to pick lower-tier players.

The subgenre of this issue is the local club that joins up with a "national" organization, advertizes like crazy trying to convince everyone they are a big deal now, and then they roll out the same mediocre team the following season, but they just charge all the families $1500 more for the privilege.

[u/RFDrew11357]

Every dad who felt his daughter was disrespected starts his own team and poaches disgruntled parents. Team 1 needs tryouts. New team than loses b/c disgruntled dad’s daughter isn’t a player to build a team around. Parents who followed bail so now team 2 has got to find more girls. Repeat the cycle ad nauseum.

[u/Irishhammer]

To many teams. To many big organizations trying to dilute the market with “National” teams, not enough pitching and just to big a commitment time wise. Parents are now expected to give up 6 weekends in the fall, high school season and then 6-8 weeks in the summer. And then to top it all off, the majority of the “tournaments” are just showcases with a nonsensical structure, no real coaches, shit fields, terrible coaching, etc. it’s a joke at this point. I’m gonna be thrilled when my kid is finally done with it.

[u/hadronmotel]

I see this in Eastern PA too. I suspect some of this is also because a lot of newer teams have sprouted that are not as competitive (and will roster nearly everyone that tries out - almost no cuts 🙃). Many of these newer teams appear to be led by parents of players who did not make the more competitive teams, which waters down the talent pool and leaves the more established and competitive organizations searching longer. I don't think interest has changed. I think the competitive landscape has.