Where I mostly played as a kid.
Posted on 05/21/2015 5:49:56 AM PDT by BlueStateRightist
...MLB faces headwinds that have been years in the making and forces that are outside its direct control. In 2002, nine million people between the ages of 7 and 17 played baseball in the U.S., according to the National Sporting Goods Association, an industry trade group. By 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, that figure had dropped by more than 41%, to 5.3 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
This is the most insightful observation on this thread.
Find me a fat soccer player. I find the sport slow and boring, but it’s players are ATHLETES.
There is a soccer tournament going on in my town in NH this weekend. There will be over 300 teams participating. These are all soccer club teams from NH, MA, RI, CT, ME. Kids range in age from 6-16. All the local hotels in the Nashua area will be FULL this weekend because of this tournament. Plus the restaurants will be full. It is a huge economic benefit to the area on a weekend when many locals go away to their summer lake house/camp, etc.
Not here around Austin we have seen a saturation of summer and travel teams. We have over 100 just for 14u alone within 50-60 miles. We play on an older travel team and are booked all summer in tournaments with 25+ teams playing.
Yeah maybe at the kid level but at the college level and up baseball players are better all around athletes. It is a finesse game not a game for brain dull 300 pounders.
Agree with both comments, but think there are other factors as well. When I was growing up there were a lot of famous baseball players - and they were every bit as big or bigger in the public eye than any player from other sports. My impression is that this isn't true anymore. There are ‘infamous’ baseball players now, like A-rod, but that's not the same. Kids need heroes, and baseball hasn't had that for awhile (IMHO). What's the baseball equivalent of ‘be like Mike’?
We didn't need a backstop, real bases, fences, sun-glasses or water bottles. No parents were helicoptering around us. Nobody hassled us, nobody sued anybody for a sprained ankle from a hole on some empty lot.
We were home at 5:30 for dinner without a panicked mom and dad having to put out an Amber Alert for us.
Leni
MURICA!!!!
Especially this:
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The drive to specialize at an early age. There are kids 10 and under playing on traveling teams year round now. That means if you choose soccer, basketball, etc. as your sport (or if your parent chooses it for you) there’s no “off season” to play baseball in.
= = =
Once a kid is over 10 years old, he/she is a “baseball kid” or a “football kid”, etc. And football (and somewhat less so, basketball) coaches actively recruit the best athletes.
I personally think there are too many pro teams the same way there are too many tracks on the NASCAR circuit.
I will add, I played both baseball and football in high school and was good enough in both to move on to the next level. I chose baseball because of the culture of the players. Less thugs and trouble makers. I will take a today’s travel team of 15-17 year olds every day over any football team you can put together to be associated with and spend time around.
As people got more serious about kids sports, less kids play, and now people travel to these crazy weekend tournaments hundreds of miles away. It is insane, so more people drop out, adding to the need to travel to compete. I finally told my kid if he wanted to he could find a sport he wanted to do, or I would borrow an air pistol and get him into competitive shooting. He chose shooting. That was fine with me, because I grew up shooting and the people in shooting are awesome.
WW2...”The concept for the BEANO hand grenade was that a spherical grenade the size and weight of a common baseball would be effective in the hands of American troops. The designers believed that by emulating a baseball, any American young man should be able to properly throw the grenade with both accuracy and distance.”
I wonder if they are developing a new grenade that is kicked instead of thrown?
Here in Connecticut lacrosse is the coming spring sport. It has overtaken baseball starting with the 8-10 year old kids, both boys and girls.
There’s nothing kids enjoy that can’t be screwed by adults and money.
Kids today don’t have enough friends to get a cohesive team together.
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