I am hearing that they are changing the age groups from May 1 to April 30th to calendar year for eligibility. So in 2024 if you turn 12 in December you are a 12u player. You cannot turn 13 in the calendar year and play 12u. That would mean that a lot of kids playing 11u this year will be forced to skip 12u and go right to their 13u season. Apparently USA baseball is going to this model because that is how international play works and they want it to be unified. So if they go to it then Perfect Game, USABL, Cal Ripken etc... will follow suit. Seems really harsh though to make kids skip a year. Some kids have been planning their 12u Cooperstown trip for years, but even just giving up one year on the smaller fields seems harsh. Is anyone else hearing this or how they would implement it?
OT: Youth Baseball Age Change
- Thread starter brad1218
- Start date
Soccer did this 5-6 years ago and the first year after the switch sucked.
They should have rolled it out at the TBall level (age 5-6) and start it from there instead of blowing up established teams.
They should have rolled it out at the TBall level (age 5-6) and start it from there instead of blowing up established teams.
Soccer has been calendar year based for a few years now.
An argument I've heard, but not sure I'd advocate for, is to just follow the school year/academic calendar, which would be along the lines of Sep 1 (or Aug 15 where schools start on the earlier side) and later cuts off to the next/younger level down. The reason for this approach, which potentially aligns better for traditionally fall-centric sports such as football and perhaps even hoops/wrestling that start in late fall, is that it keeps classmates/schoolmates together as potential teammates year to year. I can see this being compelling to some folks while not being a big thing for others.
An argument I've heard, but not sure I'd advocate for, is to just follow the school year/academic calendar, which would be along the lines of Sep 1 (or Aug 15 where schools start on the earlier side) and later cuts off to the next/younger level down. The reason for this approach, which potentially aligns better for traditionally fall-centric sports such as football and perhaps even hoops/wrestling that start in late fall, is that it keeps classmates/schoolmates together as potential teammates year to year. I can see this being compelling to some folks while not being a big thing for others.
The reason sports are going to birth year is because parents have been gaming the system for a long time holding kids back for athletic advantage. Seen lots of kids start Kindergarten late and then the parents held them back to repeat the grade so they are now 2 years older.
Then what happens is in rec sports kids who started on time get dominated in sports and lose interest and you get less kids playing. Last year when my kid was in 5th grade he was going against a 6th grader who was as big as us parents in rec 5/6 baseball. How do you think that went when this 8th grader was pitching or hitting?
And I lived the soccer birth year rule transition with my oldest. For the record, anytime this is done it screws the older kids the but I believe it's best to just make the transition and be done with it. My kid was a U7 when it was announced. Half her team was pushed to U9 the next year.
Now many of those kids were dominating the team because they were 6-10 months older than the rest. When we went to U8 tryouts, I saw kids flashing in tryouts because they were properly flighted against kids their own age. The only parents I saw pissed off about the change to birth year were the ones who started their kids later for athletic advantage. Because now their kids were all on the 2nd teams when competing against kids their own age.
Doesn’t a kid born in Jan.,have an advantage over a kid born in Dec. of the birth year. It seems like anyway you slice it certain kids are going to be 10-12 months older
Last edited:
You can't game the system using birth year like people were doing with what grade the kid was in.
Yeah this is unfortunately almost standard for lacrosse at the club level which is based on grad year as kids/parents are very comfortable repeating a year to get an advantage.
One might think that one year(I have seen multiple instances where it is 2 years having been held back) shouldn't really matter but right around the time kids are hitting puberty there is a huge disparity and it literally can be men against boys out there.
I could care less about the upheaval, I would love to adopt birth year in lacrosse too.
Even seen it in girls soccer, had a team playing up one spring season. May daughter’s had hit puberty and these kids were still a year away. They couldn’t really handle the physical contact well and a few of them went flying down hard on clean contact. Nothing out girls could do they were not going to alter the way they played just because.
Sure you can. For football it doesn’t matter because HS is all that matters. For other sports club level allows trap players. My oldest daughter is an 05 senior. Any 05 junior gets to play U18 again next year.
They did another birth date change a few years ago. As a result, my son was in the 3rd grade playing in the highest level of LL. My son was in third grade and was on the same team as his cousin who was in 7th grade. He’s in the dugout with kids talking about puberty and Girls and He’s still sleeping with a stuffed bunny. Lol
Between that and covid he lost two years of LL. Also kissed his Cooperstown trip because of covid.
That may be the exception because of college recruiting. I know of 8th grade U15s who had to spend the fall season as practice only players because the rest of their team was in HS. They were the ones that started with my daughter on her U7 team when the birth year rule was adopted. They are playing the spring season as U15 now that their HS teammates are available to field a team.
What league? Ecnl is top league in the country, they will allow you to have 3 U15 per team in the fall. Once spring season starts they go back to birth year.
Sure you can. Have a very "active" late March. 😉
We got married mid-March and my My son was born first week of January.
I'm a big fan of age based sports.
Great point. Should do the slow roll. So many kids played with each other for years and then couldn’t. It did suck
EDP but you must have missed the fact that I said the rest of the team was playing in HS. Anyone playing ECNL in the fall likely is not playing for HS soccer.
Just to show how times have change, I played grammar school basketball in an era where children repeated grades, not of their own choice (Catholic School) As a 13 year old 8th grader, I can remember many 14, and 15 year olds playing. In fact one team had a 16 year old.
Last edited:
I didn’t miss anything. There is no fall ecnl league for HS girls. Season Starts in late a November, which is why trap players who are in 8th grade play down. Up to 3 per team.
...not the same exact thing but it sort of reminds me of playing 'intermediate league' rec baseball in the early 90's, which was basically 7th-10th grade (ages 13-16). It was pretty interesting at times batting against 16 and a half year-old pitchers a month removed from your 13th birthday😂.
Joe P.
Rule change makes sense so to follow international rules. I can see how this would be chaotic the first year of implementation.
