Travel baseball must-haves for parents: the tournament-weekend kit

The must-haves list

Travel ball is different from a weeknight rec game. A tournament can mean several games across a weekend, sometimes at different fields in the same complex, with hours to fill between them. You'll sit on aluminum bleachers for some games and in your own chair along the fence for others, and you'll need somewhere to feed a team in between. Here's the kit.

• A stadium seat with a back. A bare bleacher plank is the hardest seat in sports. A seat with a backrest, and ideally armrests and a hook that fastens to the bench, makes a doubleheader bearable.
• A folding chair for behind the fence. Many parents watch from their own chairs along the outfield fence or the foul line. This is the chair that gets the most hours, so it's the one to buy for durability.
• Shade. A clamp-on umbrella for the bleachers or your chair, a canopy chair, and a pop-up canopy for base camp if your team sets one up.
• A table for base camp. Somewhere to set out lunch, the cooler and the scorebook between games.
• A folding wagon. Seats, chairs, cooler and bat bag in one trip from the far lot.
• A cooler and a lot of water. The CDC's advice for athletes is to drink more water than usual and not wait until thirsty; the same goes for the parents watching.
• Broad-spectrum sunscreen, SPF 15 or higher, reapplied after two hours or after sweating (CDC), plus a hat with a brim all the way around and UV-blocking sunglasses.
• Rain gear and a layer. Early games can be cold and a passing storm can mean a delay.
• A towel. For wiping down wet or hot bleachers before you sit.
• A first-aid kit and instant ice packs, a phone battery pack, and bug spray for evening games.

Three of those are furniture you'll use every weekend for years: the seat, the chair and the table. That's where this page spends its time.

The bleacher seat

Bleacher seats split into two designs. Flat seats sit on the plank: roll-up floor chairs like the Crazy Creek HEX, and padded cushions like Coleman's stadium seat. Hooked seats have a frame that grips the bench. GCI's Big Comfort Stadium Chair has a rotating L-hook that GCI says fastens to open-front bleachers, molded armrests, and a raised seat on a powder-coated steel frame; GCI rates it to 330 lb, the highest rating among the stadium seats we score.

The catch is in the fine print. GCI specifies open-front bleachers, so look at the bleachers at your home complex before you buy a hooked seat. On closed-front stands, a flat seat is the better fit, and the Crazy Creek has the best warranty among the seats we score: a limited lifetime term from Crazy Creek, with a mail-in repair program. We lay out that trade in Coleman stadium seat vs Crazy Creek, and rank every seat in our best stadium seats for bleachers.

The chair for behind the fence

This is the piece of furniture that works hardest on a tournament weekend: open all day, dragged a few feet every inning to chase the shade, loaded and unloaded between fields. Once it's set up you may not move it for hours, so durability matters more than carry weight, and a wagon covers the walk.

That's the case for a heavy-duty quad chair. ALPS rates the King Kong to 800 lb on a powder-coated steel frame with quilted 600D polyester, a 24-inch-wide seat 19 inches off the ground, and a limited lifetime warranty. The costs are 13 lb and a 40-inch packed length, and ALPS lists only a replacement carry bag as a part. Note too that ALPS's warranty excludes UV damage, so a chair that lives in the sun all weekend should live indoors all week. For more heavy-duty chairs built for all-day use at the field, see our best tailgate chairs.

Shade and base camp

Shade at a baseball complex is usually wherever the dugout roof or a tree happens to be, and it moves all day. You have three ways to bring your own. A clamp-on umbrella is the most flexible: the Sport-Brella Versa-Brella's dealer lists bleachers, chairs and wagons among the surfaces its clamp fits, with an opening of up to 1.5 inches. A canopy chair builds the shade in, though the ones we could document carry short or unpublished warranties; our best canopy chairs ranks them. A pop-up canopy over base camp covers the whole family between games.

Base camp is where a table earns its place: lunch for a dozen kids, the cooler off the ground, a dry surface for the scorebook and the sunscreen. A folding camp table with a published load rating is the durable choice; our best camping tables ranks them on load rating, top material and warranty.

What to look for

1. For a bleacher seat: a published rated capacity above your weight, a backrest, and, if your stands are open-front, a hook. Armrests help if you push up to stand. A seat width of 17 inches or more is roomy; the flat roll-up seats we score are 15 to 15.5 inches.
2. For the fence chair: rated capacity with headroom, a fabric weight the maker publishes (600D polyester is the mark our score rewards), a warranty in years, and a seat of 17 inches or higher if you're up and down every half-inning.
3. For shade: a UPF rating, and for a clamp-on umbrella, a clamp opening that fits the tubing you'll attach it to. Measure before you buy.
4. For all three: read the warranty's exclusions. GCI says sun damage and extended exposure to the elements void its warranty; ALPS excludes UV damage. Keep the receipt, and for GCI, the product tag with the PO number, which GCI accepts as proof of purchase.

Our picks

By our score the King Kong is the most durable piece here at 7.6, the GCI seat scores 5.9 and the Versa-Brella 4.6 (an umbrella has no load rating to score). If your bleachers are closed-front, swap the GCI for the Crazy Creek HEX, which scores 7.0 and weighs 20 oz.

Heat: what to watch for

Summer tournaments put kids in full uniform on hot fields for hours, and the parents in the stands aren't far behind. The National Weather Service lists the signs of heat exhaustion as heavy sweating; weakness or tiredness; cool, pale, clammy skin; a fast, weak pulse; muscle cramps; dizziness, nausea or vomiting; headache; and fainting. Its first aid: move to a cooler place, loosen clothing, apply cool, wet cloths and sip water. Heat stroke is an emergency: the NWS lists confusion, slurred speech, a body temperature above 103°F, hot, red, dry or damp skin, and loss of consciousness, and says to call 911 immediately.

The full plan, from shade to cooling towels to when to leave, is in how to stay cool at a baseball game.

The rest of the bag

Nothing else on the list needs a specific product. Buy what's convenient: a cooler you already own, a wagon that fits your trunk, a poncho from the drawer. The CDC's sun guidance covers the rest: shade when you can get it, tightly woven clothing, a hat that shades your face, ears and neck, and broad-spectrum SPF 15+ sunscreen reapplied through the day. If a soccer season is on the calendar too, most of this carries over; our soccer mom must-haves covers the open-field version. The rest of the category is in the sideline and tailgate chair hub.