I don't see the article as "every kid gets a trophy" either. I see it as an indictment of the "travel sports" arms race. My son's story is similar too...started in T ball at age 3, yes age 3 and it was super fun, just something to do. Fell in love with baseball but also played soccer, flag football, basketball, and ran cross country. But always focused on baseball. Just after 9U everyone left the park/rec baseball world to join travel teams. From that point on my son only played baseball. We moved travel organizations a couple of times. Lots of money and politics were involved but he stayed focused on the game and his development. It all culminated a summer ago. My son played for a travel organization from the adjacent state. They played in three national championship tournaments, 2 for Perfect Game and one for USA baseball. He was plying up on a class of 2021 team and was the only class of 22 kid there. That summer he played 54 games in 48 days, in 3 different states, none of which were the one where we live. That was all smashed in from the weekend prior to Memorial Day until about the 17th of July. In fact we left the last tournament a day early so we could get back home so he could attend band camp. He marches snare drum in the marching band. Four weeks later, at his travel team try out, after he re-made the team we stood in the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A and he told me that he wasn't going to try to play baseball in college, and that he didn't really want to play for the high school team either. I told him that was fine, it was his choice. He didn't play for me and his mom but only for himself. My assessment of the situation was that he reached the point where he was done sacrificing everything else. He had a girlfriend, he wanted to go to the lake, wanted to get a summer job. Now, a year later, I know he misses the game, but doesn't regret the decision. He would play probably if there was some lesser option that wasn't so involved. We'll see where he goes with it from here. But it was difficult to see the transformation from playing 2 games a week down at our local park where everyone knew everyone, to traveling to adjacent states to play tournaments every weekend...watching him do homework in the car. Sleeping all the time when he wasn't playing. Was it too much like a job? Do we need to try to train kids like they're pro athletes? I don't have all the answers. I just think perspective influences how you read an article like that.