Kids from PR and DR are hitting bottle caps with broom sticks. That baseball looks like a beach ball.

If you're from the US, you have to play travel to "keep up" or else you're going to be behind 90% of high school players. 9/10 year old kids now are more polished than the high school kids I played with. Baseball numbers are dropping too, so the select few that are playing are going to have less and less competition domestically.