In my town, more 12-year olds this year are playing lacrosse than baseball: 41 for LAX to 35 for baseball. I come from a generation that adored baseball, and I have a hard time wrapping my head around this fact. It’s as if broccoli had overtaken potato chips in snack food popularity.
Yesterday, I was on the phone with a friend of mine who happens to run the 12-year old year for our town’s Little League, and I brought up that more kids were playing lacrosse.
“That’s not true,” he said.
“It is true,” I told him.
We had an awkward Larry David-ish few moments where he kept refuting the obvious facts and I wouldn’t back down: is true, not true, is true.
This guy then rolled out a litany of excuses for why baseball’s numbers are dwindling in our town:
- Athletic kids don’t like baseball.
- The popularity of professional baseball is down.
- Kids are playing basketball and soccer all year round.
- Dad coaches are too busy with work to hold regular practices.
- The demographics in our town have changed (more Asian families) and Asian kids aren’t raised to like baseball.
And then he topped it all off by noting that while the baseball participation numbers were bad in our town, the baseball numbers in an adjoining town were far worse.
If I was a CEO and this guy was running one of my divisions, I would have fired him on the spot.
The thing that really struck me was that this guy—who donated his time to the Little League and was in a position of power—had a pretty low opinion of the sport. He appeared to believe the rub that baseball was boring. I suspect that he only stayed on in his position for the league because he liked being in charge of things.
I’m not an idiot and I realize that it’s harder to get kids to play baseball than it was when I was a kid when baseball enjoyed a monopoly status in the culture, but I also believe that baseball is an amazing product and shouldn’t be left for dead. There are opportunities to grow the game in our town that go unexplored. For example, the best and most popular baseball player in the world right now is Asian. I’m sure that there’s a way to use Shiohei’s rise to attract Asian kids to the sport, not to mention that the baseball is already popular in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
Baseball in our town is really expensive. It’s like $400 to sign your kid up for the spring. It costs way too much. The League could sell one of their fields for a gazillion dollars and make baseball free. Obviously, this is not ideal. But if the league is on the verge of dying, you have to take drastic measures. Think outside of the box!
The league could also attempt to root out the baseball politics. Our town is rife with awful politics and the league just ignores it. If a board member is acting awfully they support the board member out of loyalty to the institution. This is just wrong and it hurts the sport. Maybe this isn’t a big factor in baseball’s decline, but I do think if the league did things the right way and didn’t enable assholes, you’d see more kids playing.
They could abandon the top down Soviet-like power structure of the Little League board.
Lastly, we need people involved in baseball to actually love and believe in baseball. We need evangelists and not apologists! We need people who have seen all eleven episodes of the Ken Burns’ baseball documentary and can quote George Will. Stop with the excuses for why LAX is overtaking baseball and do something about it.
For information about the emotional side of baseball, see:
- I Spent 30K on Youth Baseball Last Year; Here’s How
- Youth Baseball: Why Do I Care So Much?
- Anger Management and Youth Baseball: How to Calm Down
- How to Manage Your Kid’s Baseball Tantrums and Meltdowns
- 4 Ways to Respond to a Coach Playing Favorites
- How to Stop Being a Crazy Baseball Dad
- How to Be a Good Baseball Dad in the Backyard
- Is It Now Fashionable to Hate On Baseball Dads?
- Are Local Little Leagues Bad for Baseball?
For information on hitting, see:
- How to Get Out of a Hitting Slump
- 4 Best Baseball Batting Aids (No. 3 is Free)
- 4 Hitting Drills You Need to Do Before Every Game
- 4 Old School Baseball Drills You Need to Be Using
- 6 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Baseball Bat
For information on pitching, see:
- What You Need to Know About Little League Elbow
- 4 Ways To Increase Your Kid’s Pitching Velocity
- Is the Circle Change Dangerous for Youth Pitchers?
- Why I Don’t Let My Son Pitch in Little League
- How to Make Sure Your Kid Isn’t Overpitched in Basebal
For ways to get faster, see: