Number of American kids playing baseball fell 24% over the past decade

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Probably why I've only been to one baseball game and that was in college. The true beauty is on the radio.

Yep...

I have better memories of LISTENING to baseball games than attending or watching combined. Some of that is undoubtedly the unique combination of John Miller announcing the O's games in my youth and the lack of Oriole success (not much post-season or WS games to watch). But a good baseball announcer can certainly turn a radio broadcast into an art form.

[greenspandan]

baseball is boring. every other sport, including golf, is more exciting to watch and to play. it also requires a bunch of equipment. football and soccer only require a ball. glad it's fading away. only regret it will take so long, since people love to stubbornly cling to dumb traditions.

Yep...

I have better memories of LISTENING to baseball games than attending or watching combined. Some of that is undoubtedly the unique combination of John Miller announcing the O's games in my youth and the lack of Oriole success (not much post-season or WS games to watch). But a good baseball announcer can certainly turn a radio broadcast into an art form.

wow, how boring must a sport be if it's actually more exciting when you can't see it!

[TD_washingtonredskins]

baseball is boring. every other sport, including golf, is more exciting to watch and to play. it also requires a bunch of equipment. football and soccer only require a ball. glad it's fading away. only regret it will take so long, since people love to stubbornly cling to dumb traditions.

wow, how boring must a sport be if it's actually more exciting when you can't see it!

To each his own.

[endzone_dave]

Yawn. People have been saying this every year since the late '80s. It's not going away and it's still going to be more popular in this country than soccer no matter how hard the soccer jihadists wish that weren't so.

I think baseball is heading toward the direction of hockey. People will go to the games live but will have a niche group of people watching on tv. Unless the Yankees or Red Sox are in the world series, the WS games now barely have double digit ratings. People in small markets like Pittsburgh or KC have lost interest.

[PCS]

Well at least it wasn't one of Bubble's now typical drive-bys. He/she really stirred things up this time,(which was probably then intent in the first place). I do get a minor kick how a few of you get reeled in by something that has now become,well,redundant,(to say the least),and obvious.

I remember,(we old guys like to tell stories),when I was a sophomore at Woodson in Fairfax,there was an exchange student from Brazil going to the school. Gym class that week took place outside on one of several fields used for soccer,which we were playing. Now I was one of the fastest guys in the school and knew it. This kid from Brazil got the ball and started working downfield. Pfffft. This guy was slow and please. This was soccer. I could do this. So I sprinted past him and got in front of him. All I had to do now as kick the ball away from. Again. Pfffffft. Next thing I knew the ball was going over my head and this kid was on his way to scoring one of,well,several goals. To this day I can see what he did and still marvel as the technical skill it took to do that,( I used watch Pele' sometimes as a young kid). I may not like it or watch it,but I'll give credit where credit is due. It can be a tough sport and it takes skill to do some of the things they do on the field. Duh.

Okay. Off to the point of the thread. It's probably what a few have already said here. It's a combination of things. From the point of view of my own little section of the world,baseball is getting to be a just a tad pricey to play. Registration alone is typically close to 50% more expensive than the soccer leagues and camps we have going. If the kid stays in the sport more than a year or two,then comes the repeating of the process of buying gloves,bats,bags,ect,(this just in,kids grow fast). As an example. My mom couldn't afford to buy me a new glove all the time so I ended up using my dads when I was 16. Little tough at first but I got used to it. Fields can be pretty expensive to upkeep in that there are two different surfaces to maintain,(we're also spoiled here because one we have a smaller indoor field and aside from long winters,it can be a bit drier here). So the economy could be playing a bit of a part too. (That is not saying that Soccer is dirt cheap alternative). Could be a cyclic thing as well. Could be that in a few years that switches itself around. Who knows? Could be MLB responds with some promotional stuff and things turnaround. Really tough to say with any certainty,(unless of course,one is or isn't a fan,at which point time "you know". ).

For my part,if I wanted to keep my kids active,(if I had them),I'd probably put them in soccer as well as a few others and see what they like to do. Especially with the tight financial budget I'm on. At least they're out playing. That and being with their friends.

[Elessar78]

Does it have to be expensive, is the question? I'm sure the kids in the Dominican Republican don't get a new glove, cleats, and bat every year. Just like in soccer, the poverty may just be a training accelerant. In my sport, if a kid is playing daily on a rocky, uneven surface with no shoes and a low quality ball against kids years older with no adult supervision (read: things can get rough). Chances are he will be better than the coddled child with $200 cleats and $.25 worth of skills dressed in matching training suits and playing with a $50 ball and being coached by a guy making about $3,000/per year per kid.

It's the yuppie effect. . . kids need to look like mini professionals.

[Tweedr01]

As I've said before on here, I've seen more ****ed up injuries/accidents playing baseball than I did in any other sport growing up. And I played catcher from age 8 or so until I was 18. You really think that's comparable to soccer? I used to come home after every game covered in bruises.

And I had a conversation with sportsjunkie07 last week about him getting elbowed in the mouth playing basketball. I was telling him about how when my brother was 16, he was out in San Diego playing an AAU game and caught a groundball straight in the mouth playing 3rd base. Hit a rock and jumped up on him. IIRC he fractured his pallet, he had his jaw wired shut, and to date I think 7 or 8 of his teeth have literally died as a result and had to be pulled. I told SJ07 I still had a picture somewhere of it. Found it:

http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/5702/ryansgrillname.png

Keep in mind he'd already done the whole braces thing when that happened.

Yeah I don't think soccer fans realize that while there isn't as much running in baseball compared to soccer...at least in the infield (them outfielders are running EVERYWHERE), a baseball is very, very, very hard and is hit/thrown very hard. If you have pitchers throwing at 75 mph (average hs speed), how fast do they think the ball is coming at them from a line drive or grounder? It's not going 75 mph that thing comes off the bat WELL OVER 100 mph. Why do they think grown men, pitchers specifically, are out for awhile after getting hit by one?

One of the bigger guys on our team wasn't paying attention to where the ball was and was watching the runner when one of our outfielders chucked in a SOFTBALL and hit him square in the chest, he left on a stretcher.

Soccer is a wuss sport, nuff said.

[mcsluggo]

Learn how to read. I never said if you didn't play baseball you were a wuss. I said you were a wuss if you played soccer over baseball. Get it right. And I love how you think soccer is a physical sport lol. All you're doing for 90 minutes is running up and down a field. That isn't physical, by any stretch. And I never said baseball was physical. But you have to be more skilled to play it than a sport like soccer. That's not even debatable. Check that, you have to be more skilled to "excell" at it than you do soccer. Any dork can make a soccer team.

it is almost astonishing how thorougly you have failed at cognitive reasoning and basic debating over the last few pages. It has been like watching a 60s sitcom of "the drunk uncle" at a wedding reception (yes, THAT uncle)... i can only imgine that the next three pages are much of the same?

[bushwack]

Yeah I don't think soccer fans realize that while there isn't as much running in baseball compared to soccer...at least in the infield (them outfielders are running EVERYWHERE), a baseball is very, very, very hard and is hit/thrown very hard. If you have pitchers throwing at 75 mph (average hs speed), how fast do they think the ball is coming at them from a line drive or grounder? It's not going 75 mph that thing comes off the bat WELL OVER 100 mph. Why do they think grown men, pitchers specifically, are out for awhile after getting hit by one?

One of the bigger guys on our team wasn't paying attention to where the ball was and was watching the runner when one of our outfielders chucked in a SOFTBALL and hit him square in the chest, he left on a stretcher.

Soccer is a wuss sport, nuff said.

There's no denying that baseball/softball is a dangerous sport because of the equipment that is used (aluminum/wood bats and ball); however to say it's more physical than soccer is asinine and false. There's 100 times more contact in soccer, whether it be from slide tackles, shoulder to shoulder collisions, to even head to head collisions, which are just nasty.

There simply isn't much physicality to baseball except for the slide into 2nd base trying to break up a double play and the occasional collision at the plate between the runner and catcher. Besides that there's no physical contact between the players.

Also to say "there isn't as much running in baseball compared to soccer" is an understatement. Baseball is a stop and go sport, there's no long term running needed to play baseball, the game is too choppy, with too many breaks. Also, there are too many obese professional baseball players, how many obese professional soccer players do you see?

[pjfootballer]

I couldn't disagree more. I actually feel sorry for sports fans who don't follow the NBA for whatever reason. They are really missing out. And aren't ratings up anyway?

I would say the younger crowd (teens) are more into the NBA. I still think the NBA has alot to clean up in terms of scandals and getting more franchises the chance to win a title. 8 out of 30 the last 30+ years isn't going to cut it.

[Corcaigh]

Soccer just doesn't have elite athletes like baseball.

[mcsluggo]

a dude down the street from me in college had his eye slashed by the flight (the back part) of a dart, and they had to take it out and give him a glass eye. And my boneheaded neghborhood friend dropped a 16 lb bowling ball on his foot and obliterated it.... talk about contact sports!!!

[Tweedr01]

Also to say "there isn't as much running in baseball compared to soccer" is an understatement. Baseball is a stop and go sport, there's no long term running needed to play baseball, the game is too choppy, with too many breaks. Also, there are too many obese professional baseball players, how many obese professional soccer players do you see?

Meh, stereotypically I'd agree there is much more running in soccer and baseball is stop and go....but you realize that there are only a certain few players who are actually running the entire time? the defensive players get to sit back and relax while the ball is on the other side of the field. and let's be honest, when the US plays the other teams defensive players could take a nap lol

oh in relation to physicality and contact i'd just say from your recent posts in this thread you probably watch more soccer than baseball, hence your knowledge of soccer injuries to my knowledge of baseball/softball injuries. i think one of the most gruesome injuries i have seen is when they show the picture of the dudes shin splitting in half while playing soccer, but then i see some dude get hit in the juevos with a 95 mph fastball shattering his cup....yowch!

and please no one post pictures, we've seen them a million times

i think there is more physical contact in soccer...just not AS physical as when there is contact in baseball

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Does it have to be expensive, is the question? I'm sure the kids in the Dominican Republican don't get a new glove, cleats, and bat every year. Just like in soccer, the poverty may just be a training accelerant. In my sport, if a kid is playing daily on a rocky, uneven surface with no shoes and a low quality ball against kids years older with no adult supervision (read: things can get rough). Chances are he will be better than the coddled child with $200 cleats and $.25 worth of skills dressed in matching training suits and playing with a $50 ball and being coached by a guy making about $3,000/per year per kid.

It's the yuppie effect. . . kids need to look like mini professionals.

Of course, those two examples are the two extremes of the bell curve and there's a happy medium where you can play both WITH shoes and WITHOUT the matching uniform.

---------- Post added April-1st-2011 at 01:26 PM ----------

Soccer just doesn't have elite athletes like baseball.

And Lord knows that America is filled with finely tuned athletes...that must be why soccer appeals to those toned, tanned pre-teens these days.

[TMK9973]

I don't know. More kids have played soccer then baseball for YEARS, and yet baseball attendence and TV ratings are up.

Perhaps less kids play today for 2 big reasons

1) Baseball WAS the BIGGEST US sport. EVERY kid played it. It had no where to go but down.

2) More options - Before kids who wanted to play sport played soccer, football, or baseball. That was it. And if you sucked at all 3, tough. Now there are SOOO many options. In Leesburg we have more kids playing little league then ever before. I coach in the league and have noticed that numbers at young age are huge and thin out. Reason? By the time they are 8 a kid either can play or he cant. He can hit, catch, get grounders, etc.... or he cant. And if he cant, its simply no fun for them - and with all the sports options - they can go do something else.

[Elessar78]

Every example of physicality in baseball seems to revolve around THE BALL and not actual human to human contact. When people say baseball is more physical, they literary mean the baseball because the players rarely have cause to even be near each other much less contact each other in a meaningful way. Half the time it's teammates unintentionally inflicting harm on each other.

[TimmySmith]

Funny that some people on here say baseball is alot of standing around, when soccer (which I also coach) is about 90% standing around. Sure it can be physical, for 2 guys at a time. Think about the NFL which is about 15-20 minutes of total action in 3+ hours, yet no one complains. The only sports that have non-stop action involving every player on the field that I can think of are hockey and rugby. 1 of which is the low man on the Totem pole in the US and the other is nonexistent.

[Elessar78]

Then you're coaching soccer the absolute wrong way. Hockey is constant action but how long does the individual go for? A minute? Four minutes? Then they have two twenty minute breaks?

[bushwack]

Meh, stereotypically I'd agree there is much more running in soccer and baseball is stop and go....but you realize that there are only a certain few players who are actually running the entire time? the defensive players get to sit back and relax while the ball is on the other side of the field. and let's be honest, when the US plays the other teams defensive players could take a nap lol

oh in relation to physicality and contact i'd just say from your recent posts in this thread you probably watch more soccer than baseball, hence your knowledge of soccer injuries to my knowledge of baseball/softball injuries. i think one of the most gruesome injuries i have seen is when they show the picture of the dudes shin splitting in half while playing soccer, but then i see some dude get hit in the juevos with a 95 mph fastball shattering his cup....yowch!

and please no one post pictures, we've seen them a million times

i think there is more physical contact in soccer...just not AS physical as when there is contact in baseball

I see you watch no soccer, because there are very few soccer players who get a good rest and those are usually the center defensive backs, because most of the outside backs do the most running in soccer because they attack and have to get back in position to play defense when the other team counters. I'm not even going to bother with your ignorant US team statement.

I've watched more baseball than soccer, because there's usually at least 2 games, if not 4 games on any given night during the summer, and I know plenty about baseball and the injuries, and most of the injuries come from the ball being thrown at the batter by the pitcher or the ball coming back to the pitcher off the hitter's bat. Most of the physical contact injuries happen when two teammates collide in the outfield, or when an outfielder and an infielder collide on a pop up, besides that there aren't many injuries that occur in baseball by the way of two players colliding.

[Tweedr01]

Then you're coaching soccer the absolute wrong way. Hockey is constant action but how long does the individual go for? A minute? Four minutes? Then they have two twenty minute breaks?

how do you know their going the wrong way?

[TimmySmith]

Then you're coaching soccer the absolute wrong way. Hockey is constant action but how long does the individual go for? A minute? Four minutes? Then they have two twenty minute breaks?

The action is non stop in hockey, period.

I am coaching wrong, thanks. You just proved you know nothing. Turn on the Premier League right now and you will see a lot of standing around.

[Tweedr01]

I see you watch no soccer, because there are very few soccer players who get a good rest and those are usually the center defensive backs, because most of the outside backs do the most running in soccer because they attack and have to get back in position to play defense when the other team counters. I'm not even going to bother with your ignorant US team statement.

I've watched more baseball than soccer, because there's usually at least 2 games, if not 4 games on any given night during the summer, and I know plenty about baseball and the injuries, and most of the injuries come from the ball being thrown at the batter by the pitcher or the ball coming back to the pitcher off the hitter's bat. Most of the physical contact injuries happen when two teammates collide in the outfield, or when an outfielder and an infielder collide on a pop up, besides that there aren't many injuries that occur in baseball by the way of two players colliding.

my apologies you know everything and more about anything than I ever could, thank you so much for telling how it is, I don't think I ever could've gotten through this day without

/sarcasm

lighten up francis, geez try and find some middle ground with someone and crack a few jokes and they go off an a whiney, arrogant tangent. i'd pick apart your statement and act like a tool.....like someone....but i'll just go ahead and not respond to you

---------- Post added April-1st-2011 at 01:58 PM ----------

The action is non stop in hockey, period.

I am coaching wrong, thanks. You just proved you know nothing. Turn on the Premier League right now and you will see a lot of standing around.

but but but, they have to get back in position to be ready for when the ball comes back to the other side, lol, see bushy's post above

[Duckus]

When concussion research advances in 10-15 years, baseball popularity will sky rocket for youth sports IMO. I think you could see a future where youth football is extremely limited and small.

[renaissance]

I said this in another thread, but some soccer players run 7+ miles during a game. They're not just standing around twiddling their thumbs. Hockey and basketball players skate/run a ton, but most if not all of them are constantly getting subbed in and out of the game, so they get breaks too. I'd challenge any of you who say soccer players just stand around a lot to play a full 90 minute competitive soccer game.

[War Paint]

I have lost my interest in baseball in recent years. I'm not sure what it is. I played baseball as a kid. I grew up a Braves fan. I watched hundreds of Braves games. I enjoyed watching a full nine innings. Now, I have trouble watching an entire game. I get so bored. By the time it gets to the 4th inning, I turn the channel. TBS aired Braves games almost every night for many years until recently. Maybe the lack of Braves games on TBS is what slowly led me away from baseball. Out of sight, out of mind I guess. But even when they get a televised game, I find it too boring to watch.