What Does it Mean to Keep Your Word?

Speaking only as a parent, I sympathize. If as you say, each parent made an expressed commitment to you without condition (did they say "we have another tryout that we are considering and will let you know our final decision"), then they were in the wrong.

We chose the other way. It was an odd situation where we were invited by a friend to try out for a team last January, made the team and found out that they were going to the USSSA World Series. Altho no one asked, the assumption was that everyone could be counted on to go and pay their way to the WS. Then shortly thereafter, the friend quit..leaving us with a bunch of strangers as teammates...The team also was up and down and ultimately did poorly at the WS. My son is a decent enough player who bats 4th or 5th, pitches and so on but he's a pretty quiet and shy guy. During the next few months, in league and at camps, we were approached by some other select teams about joining them. Indeed, our friend asked us to join them on their new team, but we opted to stay (a decision that was not without some periodic second guessing).

Altho our reasons had to do with having made that commitment but also avoiding the label of being deemed travel team prostitutes. Nevertheless, the lesson of loyalty, I think, is too subtle for a child to learn who just wants to play ball. Perhaps if we had gone the other way and jumped, and then kept on doing it everytime we got a good offer, then he probably would have learned the wrong lesson. But the good lessons are not so easily grasped. You only hope that he can make some sense out of it as he looks back.