May

25

I read a terrible story about why children are abandoning baseball from Forbes based on a WSJ story of same title.

Stefan Jovanovich comments: 

Baseball was never the "default" sport for young children. The ball is damn hard and a good one has always been expensive enough to be worth stealing. It was the sport for "grown-ups" that you could hope to play when you got big enough to keep up. Until then, you would play catch with your family adult (thanks, Mom) and use a tennis or rubber ball to pitch and hit with your neighbor/brother/sister, using the barn/garage for a backstop. It took years of those repetitions before you could even hope to play well enough to keep up with the men and have it actually be baseball. The game flourished in all the places where men played the sport and let children join them. That is why it still flourishes in all the places where men and their children play it together for fun– the American Southeast, the Dominican, Cuba (although that is dying), South Korea, Japan. Little League was baby-sitting and adults pretending to teach the game instead of simply showing how it is done out on the field against each other. 

Paul Marino writes: 

This story lends no credence to the fact that southern states play baseball year round vs more northern regional leagues and the population disparity between the two. Baseball is a regional sport on all levels, pro on down vs football and basketball which are national sports.

Also, this article makes no reference to global, specifically lat-am baseball which is a religion in places such as Cuba, DR, PR, etc. last I checked Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. Unless they default on their munis. Plus immigration will lead to a generalized balance in players against the author's "the Great Recession no-baby meme" which has had us all feel poor as humans since they state red the meme. I can tell you my family and friends in their 20-30s are having babies, just a little later in life.

The article would have been more relevant to US if distinguishing the lack of African Americans choosing basketball and football over baseball. White kids will always play baseball at one point or another out of love of the sport or parental pressure to do something where you can't get too hurt. 

Stefan Jovanovich replies:

If Paul means that baseball is "regional" in the same sense that hunting/shooting is "regional", I agree. But the notion that "white kids" will play baseball at one point or another because of "love" or "parental pressure to do something where you can't get hurt" seems to me very far off the mark. No one in their right mind "loves" baseball; it is so relentlessly demanding that it has minute-by-minute failures. There is no room for the fantasy of "we are the champions" that football (American and world) and basketball allow. The best teams in baseball have won-loss records that would disqualify them from the Champions League or the basketball or football playoffs; and the home-away advantage is trivial (52-48%) while, in the other sports, it is nearly overwhelming. It is like chess; you either have the addiction or you don't see the point.

None of this says anything about the game's popularity as a spectator sport. People now love going to professional baseball games more than at any time in the past because: (1) compared to basketball and football ticket prices, it is still a very cheap date, (2) it is like visiting the old amusement parks like Elich Gardens - you can stuff yourself silly while walking around and you don't really have to watch the game, and (3) unlike almost all the other public spaces in American cities the parks themselves are not dumps. Coors Field in Denver, which is a delightful place to see a game even if the altitude makes the game itself seem like a parody, is the 3rd oldest baseball park in the country. Only Wrigley and Fenway are older. 

Paul Marino adds: 

I should clarify "love" as in the love a child has for a player and that gets them interested in playing, the other love is the kind I had where I played for 15 years and got into the minutiae of the game over time.
 


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