Ok so I have gone through a ton of issues with town ball and travel!!!!!!!!!! I'm up here in section 9 (NYS PS), God help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In any event we have been pursued to have our kids leave the town team multiple times to go and play with other towns. Forget about the travel team merry go round we played. All in a short span of 4yrs for both my son and daughter, 4th and 6th graders. We now play for New Jersey travel teams and highly ranked ones at the older levels. The boy has already made up his mind he's going to the #1 Prep school in the state of NJ when the time comes. I was approached by the 5/6 coach before the season to see if the boy was going to play up. So with all of that said I kept him on the 3/4 team for the simple reason he could play with his friends. He's never been able to do that since he's played on the 3/4 team since 1st grade. I guess my points are he had fun, he elevated the play of his team mates, he was a leader, he was a player/coach on the field, and there are 5 boys from his team now playing travel ball!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't really know if there is a down side to playing on a team that isn't as good as you would like. There are always lessons to be learned, IMHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!