Baseball needs dads.
Posted on 02/26/2011 2:07:04 PM PST by mbeaven
Last fall I had the great pleasure of helping coach my son’s baseball team. It was something new to me. I didn’t grow-up with baseball and there is no professional or significant college team in my town. That said, I grew in appreciation of
Baseball needs dads.
the baseball: The sound of the crack of the bat when a player got a good hit, the strategy, the feel of a ball when you catch it in your glove. There is a real beauty in the sport.
Practice was in a local park that had a couple of baseball fields but also had a soccer field that we drove past to get to the baseball diamond. After about two months of passing the same people on our way to practice, I made an observation: Soccer practice had a lot of moms. There were at least four lady coaches and sometimes no men at all. This was in stark contract to our baseball practices. Yeah, moms were there, but they were behind the fence, cheering on their sons or gossiping, sometimes looking after younger kids. On the baseball field were half a dozen men along with their sons, teaching the fundamentals of the game.
Soccer attracts the single mom types and kids with dads that are missing in action.
The early 1990′s popularized the term “soccer mom”. At the same time, baseball popularity declined. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some sort of relation between the two and single-parent households.
With baseball, it is almost always the dads who go out in the yard to play catch, strengthening the bond between father and son. Men coach, rarely women do. Plus the strategy and rules are significantly more complicated in baseball than soccer. It seems that baseball needs dads. The sport was built for them.
Does soccer attract moms and kids where dad is out of the picture? No dad to toss around the ball with? You can kick the soccer ball around the yard by yourself. Barely paying rent on
Baseball's sanctuary is seperated by the iconostasis of the sports world, behind which dads train boys how to be men using baseball as their means.
mom’s income? Soccer equipment is significantly cheaper. Not too competent at sports? It doesn’t take much experience to tell a kid to kick a ball. How to throw a curve ball, now that is a different story.
Compare the fields. Soccer is an open field with parents on lawn chairs right along the sideline. It is almost leisurely, relaxed. Baseball, the neophytes are separated by a fence, the iconostasis of the sports world. Through it is where dads teach their sons to be men.
I’m sure soccer is a perfectly fine sport. Most of the world plays it, but in America, it just seems that soccer has a strong affinity with moms entering the sphere of dad, often because dad is not there.
Baseball is America.
Broad brushes can easily sweep in both directions.
Point is, soccer is just more fun.
Coach of 45 years. College, all other levels, ODP, international. Not bragging, just fact.
You never once supported this assertion. Back it up with statistical data, not anecdotal data points based on your experience.
Real men get involved in their sons and daughters' activities whether it's baseball, soccer, hunting, fishing, or non-sports related events.
You really are emotional arent you? The rise of interest in Soccer Coincides with the Rise Of Political Correctness,and The Feminization Of America. Baseball Is American Soccer is NOT Period. The era of we are Not going to Keep score the poor little darlings Might Get Upset and Everyone Must Play the same amount of time and all that Gobblede gook.Anyone at the young age can run around in a Mob and Kick the Ball,all the same,in Baseball even at a Young age you have to be able to Hit a Thrown ball,field it and throw it,now that leads to a Whole lot of frustration for the Harried soccer mom when little Darling Makes an error,Strikes out or Drops the Ball let alone the unmitigated terror of losing the Game. Baseball is American Get Over it
could be
around here (cent Indiana) it seems to be rugby
from non-existent to widespread in 10 yrs
although we don’t have spring football like the south, so rugby kind of takes the place of that
But it does have 9 innings of 1 to 0 games.....
My son just started playing rugby. He was a defensive end and punter in HS selected to the region AAAA football team. He was also a soccer player up until age 14 and today earns money as a Center Ref. I’m a huge fan of the beautiful game and it kind of rubbed off, I think. I’d frequently take him to see Clint Dempsey play college soccer.
He loves Rugby. L O V E S it. It seems to combine the teammate aspect of football (there are no Ravanelli’s playing anything really competitive in the US), the continual flow of soccer along with his best skills, running fast, agility and hitting people.
I doubt it will ever catch on at all. This area is a bit odd as there is a lot of youth soccer and a lot of hard core football. It’ usually one or the other. Few places in the US are like that.
I don’t know the original poster but his post is completely off. I don’t remember any women coaching boys soccer teams. Baseball is a good social game in the south because you can play it in the heat and not break much of a sweat.
My son was also on state champion youth soccer teams. When he started playing football, in a week he left the lineman’s conditioning practice and join the receivers’ and defensive backs’ practice because he wasn’t getting enough with the fatties.
My son broke two kids legs playing soccer and none playing football.
“If you are not playing or have a kid on the field, soccer becomes real boring real fast.”
As a youth soccer coach - I’ll second that!
Yes, on a few occasions, baseball will have 1-0 games. But much more rarely than the zero games in soccer — baseball is usually much more high-scoring. Soccer does have shoot-outs for tie games, but only after long, interminable waits.
Even in the low-scoring baseball games, you will almost always have some hits, and you can track the personal accomplishments or ignominious failures of each player as he goes from inning to inning. As he smiles, slaps hands with his comrades, and gets cheers after doing something for his team — even when merely getting a single or walk.
In soccer, no individual stands out unless he scores a goal (hardly ever). The game is like a slow wave of water monotonously sloshing back and forth in a bath tub. Rarely is the tedium broken.
It tells us all too much. :-)
Doing that with my son is one of the truly great memories of my life.
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