FanPost

Why Kids Don't Play Baseball

A recent thread here in the 'Pit chewed over the new commissioner's goal of increasing the popularity of baseball among the young. Here are two reasons why that will be hard to do.

The first is smaller families and fewer children. Basketball can be played one-on-one. Football and soccer can be played two-a-side. Baseball, however, is hard to play without 10 kids or more. Back in the day, we had a hard time finding enough kids for a pick-up game. We usually wound up playing pickle or over-the-line. A young boy or girl would have a much harder time on my street today finding enough peers to play a game.

Second, baseball is gear intensive. If someone showed up at my door today and wanted to shoot hoops or toss a football, no problem. I haven't owned a glove or bat in 30 years. A kid interested in baseball would have to invest in a glove, bat and ball, and hope that the neighbor kids do as well.

What this means is that there are few daily opportunities for a child interested in baseball to practice a unique set of skills. Less skill means more frustration means trying something else. It's ironic since I read somewhere that the reason that baseball caught on in the U.S. instead of cricket is that worker/players back then had less time to practice the more difficult skills of cricket and instead chose the easier-to-play baseball.