We are proud to announce our SM River Rats 2023 Travel Baseball Program!  This will be our 10th season and we expect to grow again!  Our organization has built a program built on fundamentals, team work, academics and hard work!   

Fundamentals:  We offer indoor winter training practices January thru March for all teams.  These practices are all aligned on our key philosophies and drills/techniques.   We will focus on team skill work, pitching & catching and hitting.  All teams will have a minimum of 3 hours of training for 10 weeks.

Team Work:  We firmly believe that we need to put each player in a position where they can be successful and contribute to the team success!   We are a TEAM first organization and each player needs to understand how they contribute to it's success.  

Hard Work:  We EXPECT players to work hard to improve their skills.  This includes baseball specific training, getting faster and getting stronger.  We want to emphasize that hard work is what helps you achieve your goals and you need to work extremely hard to reach them.  

Academics:  Our organization understands that at some point, sports come to an end.  Academics should be the players first priority and something they work extremely hard to do the best that they can.  We recognize outstanding academic success and talk about the importance of this during our season.  

*All teams are full with the exception of a 12U team and a 14U team.  We will have another 12U workout and 14U workout!  

*Please note you only need to attend 1 tryout unless we ask you to attend more!

We strongly feel that we offer the most skill development, games, tournaments and instruction for our baseball players.  Here is a summary of what you get per age division;

9U-12U Age Teams

• Winter Training Program:  Indoor Practices start in January 2023.  These practices are planned to work on hitting, fielding, pitching, catching and all fundamentals needed to improve as a player during the winter months. These practices run from January until the end of March 2023.  
• New Balance Select Baseball Regular Season:  We start our regular season the first weekend in April, 2022 (Pending Weather).    The regular season ends at the end of May.
• New Balance Select Baseball Playoffs:  If a team qualifies, we start the playoffs the first weekend in June 2023.  If our team wins the bracket on playoff weekend, they make the New Balance Select Championship on the following Saturday!
• Tournaments:  All teams are entered into 1 Competitive Tournament.  We carefully choose tournaments which will challenge our teams!  This only makes them better and we want to see how they do against the best talent around!  

13U-14U Age Teams

• Winter Training Program:  Indoor Practices start in January 2023.  These practices are planned to work on hitting, fielding, pitching, catching and all fundamentals needed to improve as a player during the winter months. These practices run from January until the end of March 2023.
• New Balance Select Baseball Regular Season:  We start our regular season the first weekend in April, 2022 (Pending Weather).    The regular season ends at the beginning of June.
• New Balance Select Baseball Playoffs:  If a team qualifies, we start the playoffs the 2nd weekend in June.   If our team wins the bracket on playoff weekend, they make the New Balance Select Championship on the following Saturday!
• Tournaments:  All teams are entered into a minimum of 1 Competitive Tournament.  We carefully choose tournaments which will challenge our teams!  This only makes them better and we want to see how they do against the best talent around!  Examples of some tournaments we have entered in the past are Baseball Heaven, Perfect Game, New England Baseball Complex Tournaments, etc.  

15U-19U Age Teams

• Winter Training Program:   Indoor Practices start in January 2023.  These practices are planned to work on hitting, fielding, pitching, catching and all fundamentals needed to improve as a player during the winter months. These practices run from January until the end of March 2023.
• Showcase Level Teams:  These teams will have specialized training starting in the fall!  These practices will focus on high level training sessions designed for specific positions. We will also utilize HitTrax to get some objective hitting measurements that we can track and build plans on how to improve them.  To see the players we have helped go to college to pursue the baseball playing dreams, visit the link below;

Link:  https://www.riverratsbaseball.com/page/show/4692275-college-commitment-page

• New Balance Select Baseball Regular Season:  Only our 15U & 17U secondary teams will be entered into the New Balance Select League.  If we have a high performing 15U & 17U team, it will be a tournament team only.  Our 15U-19U Showcase teams will be participating in Showcase Tournaments and events only.
• New Balance Select Baseball Playoffs:  If the 15U & 17U secondary teams qualify, we start the playoffs in late July.   If our team wins the bracket on playoff weekend, they make the New Balance Select Championship on the following Saturday!
• Tournaments and College Events:  Our top 15U-19U teams will participate in Showcase Type Tournaments.  We will enter each team into 5-6 tournaments throughout the summer.   Examples of tournaments we have entered are the Boston Open, Perfect Game WWBA, Blue Chip Prospects at Diamond Nation, etc.  College Team camps have taken place at Boston College, UCONN, and other top colleges in the Northeast.  We will also host our annual private SM River Rats Scout Day for our showcase level teams, which numerous colleges/universities attend. Our main goal is to get the players exposed to college recruiters and provide them with the information that will help them get to the next level.  

Age Requirements

7U-12U Developmental:  Player needs to be 7 or younger on or before May 1st, 2023.

9U:  Player needs to be 9 or younger on May 1st, 2023. 

10U:   Player needs to be 10 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

11U:  Player needs to be 11 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

12U:  Player needs to be 12 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

13U:  Player needs to be 13 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

14U:  Player needs to be 14 or younger on May 1st, 2023. 

15U:  Player needs to be 15 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

16U:  Player needs to be 16 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

17U:  Player needs to be 17 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

18U/19U:  Player needs to be 19 or younger on May 1st, 2023.

9U-10U:  $1,750

11U-12U:  $1,950

13U-14U:  $2,050

15U-19U Showcase:  $2,500

15U-17U Scout Teams:   $1,950

* Please note that in 2023, uniforms will be a separate cost for players.  We will have an online store with uniforms that each family will order.  

We will offer several payment plans to choose from for the 2023 season.  We also offer a 1-2 "Fundraising for Fees" event which is outlined after these payment plans.  The payment plans can be viewed once you are offered and accept a roster spot for the 2023 season.

As we have done in the past, we are open to and have organized National Tournaments for both our SM River Rats Baseball Players and Players outside of our organization via Hitters Count Select.  We will continue to offer these throughout the winter and spring months!  More to come!

If any questions on our 2022 Travel Baseball Program, please contact Jason Lariviere at;

Email:  jason.lariviere@riverratsbaseball.com 

Cell:  207-274-1417

All SM River Rats Baseball and Softball Players will have free cage time (30 minutes) at Hitters Count Training Facility in Saco from the moment they accept a roster spot until the season ends!  

Here are just some of the common questions we get asked about our program;

• Are the winter training practices mandatory and is there a penalty for missing them?   Winter training practices are NOT mandatory and there is NO penalty for missing them.  While it is a large part of our program, we understand that families have other commitments including other sports or hobbies.
• Are the games mandatory and is there a penalty for missing them?   Yes, games are mandatory UNLESS the player is missing the game for town league or school baseball.  If a player misses full doubleheader for any other reason, they must sit for the first 2 innings of the next games they attend.
• Is there a minimum playing time rule?  Yes, the minimum playing time rule is 50% for all players throughout the season.  A player may come up short during a weekend and the idea is the coach will make that up over the next couple of weeks.  
• Does the minimum playing time rule change for Tournaments and/or Playoffs?  Yes, if a team is playing in a Tournament Finals or the EBL playoffs, the only guarantee is an appearance.  
• How many games do you play throughout the season?  For our 9U-12U teams, our goal is 20 or more games.  For our 13U-14U teams, our goal is 30 or more games.  For the 15U-19U teams, we aim to attend 3-6 tournaments along with playing some doubleheaders.  
• Do games conflict with Town League or School Ball?  For the most part, we schedule around their schedules.   For the 9U-12U teams, we play double headers on both Saturdays and Sundays only up until Town Leagues start games (typically the last weekend of April).  Once Town Leagues start their games, we mostly play on just Sundays.  Occasionally, a rained out double header will be played on a Saturday but we try to play in the evening to avoid town games.  If your team makes the playoffs, these are hosted the first weekend in June and will take place on Saturday and Sunday.  As for school ball, typically middle school does not play on weekends so we don't have any conflicts with that season.  New this year, all freshman will be on a 15U or higher age team which starts the first week of June to avoid conflicts during their high school seasons.

For the 2023 Travel Season, we will have 2 fundraising events.  One will be "optional" and the other will be "mandatory".

Optional Fundraiser 

We have completed a "Fundraising for Fees" event each season which has helped parents off-set some of the tuition costs for the season.  Some parents have raised $500-$700 towards their fees!  This is how it works;

• We organize and run a fundraiser.  Each year, this has typically been with coupon booklets from Maine Athletic Fundraising.
• You decide whether you want to participate and ask for a certain amount of booklets to sell.  No worries if you take too much or not enough, you can return them and we can provide you with more if you are selling them well!
• Each booklet is sold for $10 and the booklets has over $10 in savings from local businesses  Examples of booklets from last year was Amatos, Cinemagic and Dunkin Donuts.
• For each booklet that you sell, $5.00 is credited to your tuition!  It is that easy!  

Mandatory Fundraiser

This past year, we created a fundraiser to help off-set some of our costs.   We also picked a local charity to benefit from this event and to teach our organization responsibility and how to give back to the community.  This past year, we raised over $30,000 for this event and donated $5,000 to The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maine and $2,500 each to 2 other non-profit organizations!  This was such a rewarding experience for everyone who took part and we plan to do something similar in 2023.   This event will be announced in the Fall of 2022.