LL is bound to residency for several specific reasons but all geared towards the goal of fair play.
Throughout any city there are only so many public baseball fields (all run by the city). A set of fields covers so many square miles and a league set by residency gets access only to those fields in their close vicinity. Obviously you will have fields in poor areas as well as upper class areas, and from experience, the condition of those fields can vary widely. Naturally without boundary restrictions everyone would be signing up only to the nicest area leagues, leaving the poor ones to falter and those parks rundown even more.
Having a "try-out" system for kids (6-12) doesn't work for a wide variety of reasons.
Obvious one is safety. Mixing ages is dangerous and a try-out system would encourage it due to size of player pools. Doesn't matter how good a 7 year old, he cannot compare to a 12 year old. The worst 12 year old is still good enough to really injure a 7 year (or 8/9). At 46' (LL pitching distance)it has just about reached my ADULT limit of reaction time on a few occasion tossing to a 12 year old batter.
Other reason would be lack of balance in the teams and the leagues. You'd end up with super teams as some teams become loaded with talent (add in the above factor of no residency and you'd have the loaded super teams end up in the nicest areas) and cut those kids not good enough (ending up in the poor areas to play). The not good enough kids would have huge blow to their esteem as well as the fun of playing baseball as they would routinely not make a few try-outs each season and falter down to the bad teams. Those bad teams would eventually play the super teams and have no chance. Not fun to be part of losing all the time while the better kids always win and get to play in nicest parks.
For those who don't have kids and experienced youth sports, many of the answers to your questions might not be obvious. It isn't "just kids playing ball". You do that with your group of friends. Playing for LL you are getting an organization that works hard at providing an organized, equal and fun baseball experience with your surrounding communities. They have the criteria in place that they do to try and deal with the many chances of having overzealous parents and coaches cheat/manipulate and ruin the experience for kids and parents.
What the OP brought up and what they are doing with the data IS a concern though. One I never thought about when I signed my son up. It is SAD world we are in IMO in which data is worth THAT much that it is becoming the norm for companies to make a lot of extra money in harvesting it. Something has to be done about this. It is everywhere now it seems. From a simple app installed on my phone to Even Little League is now a possible data theft/ Broker threat willing to sell your info or lose it in a hack?
Throughout any city there are only so many public baseball fields (all run by the city). A set of fields covers so many square miles and a league set by residency gets access only to those fields in their close vicinity. Obviously you will have fields in poor areas as well as upper class areas, and from experience, the condition of those fields can vary widely. Naturally without boundary restrictions everyone would be signing up only to the nicest area leagues, leaving the poor ones to falter and those parks rundown even more.
Having a "try-out" system for kids (6-12) doesn't work for a wide variety of reasons.
Obvious one is safety. Mixing ages is dangerous and a try-out system would encourage it due to size of player pools. Doesn't matter how good a 7 year old, he cannot compare to a 12 year old. The worst 12 year old is still good enough to really injure a 7 year (or 8/9). At 46' (LL pitching distance)it has just about reached my ADULT limit of reaction time on a few occasion tossing to a 12 year old batter.
Other reason would be lack of balance in the teams and the leagues. You'd end up with super teams as some teams become loaded with talent (add in the above factor of no residency and you'd have the loaded super teams end up in the nicest areas) and cut those kids not good enough (ending up in the poor areas to play). The not good enough kids would have huge blow to their esteem as well as the fun of playing baseball as they would routinely not make a few try-outs each season and falter down to the bad teams. Those bad teams would eventually play the super teams and have no chance. Not fun to be part of losing all the time while the better kids always win and get to play in nicest parks.
For those who don't have kids and experienced youth sports, many of the answers to your questions might not be obvious. It isn't "just kids playing ball". You do that with your group of friends. Playing for LL you are getting an organization that works hard at providing an organized, equal and fun baseball experience with your surrounding communities. They have the criteria in place that they do to try and deal with the many chances of having overzealous parents and coaches cheat/manipulate and ruin the experience for kids and parents.
What the OP brought up and what they are doing with the data IS a concern though. One I never thought about when I signed my son up. It is SAD world we are in IMO in which data is worth THAT much that it is becoming the norm for companies to make a lot of extra money in harvesting it. Something has to be done about this. It is everywhere now it seems. From a simple app installed on my phone to Even Little League is now a possible data theft/ Broker threat willing to sell your info or lose it in a hack?