Coach_May posted:Baseball for kids starting out is boring as hell. First of all none of the kids can catch. None of the kids can hit. They can't even play catch. They end up chasing after the ball instead of playing catch. Practice consist of everyone standing in the field waiting for the kid at the plate to put something in play that no one can field anyway. They get bored. They get frustrated. And that's the one hour a week where they get development.
Now the other kids. Someone has spent hours playing catch with them. Someone has spent hours in the yard throwing them balls to hit. Someone has encouraged them and started a fire for the love of the game. When they come home from school someone is there to play catch. When there is free time they are practicing and learning and again building a love of the game.
When these two different kids get on the same field at the youth level well we all know what happens. Sooner or later one will move on and the other will not. Baseball is a game where those assisting with the development are critical to the development. Critical to the process. Who's fault is it when one gets that assistance and one does not? Who is to blame? It's not the money spent. It's not the rich vs poor that makes the difference. It's the time spent vs the time not spent. Put a price tag on that one for me.
You make some great points. One advantage soccer has is that you can take kids as young as 3 or 4, divide them into teams, tell them "kick the ball that way" and they can sort of accomplish that. Baseball requires much more practice--and it hurts to get hit with the ball while you learn. (Being proficient at soccer requires much practice, but very young kids can play a pretty good approximation of the game.)
A couple of things I'd add to your post: First, the availability of a parent to teach a kid the rudiments of catching and throwing correlates with income. It's not a perfect correlation--plenty of upper class parents are absentees and there are moms and dads working two jobs to pay the rent who manage to spend time playing with their kids. But what I saw as a Little League coach is that kids from disadvantaged backgrounds too often didn't have that kind of figure in their lives. (In fact, if a kid has involved parents or relatives, they usually do ok even in difficult material circumstances.)
And second, as kids move beyond tee ball and into more competitive baseball, I think you'd agree that access to coaching, playing against good competition (which usually means travel ball), and having an adult available to shuttle a player to practices and games all come into play. Some kids find ways around these obstacles. But most kids aren't obvious future draft picks, and many don't have the good fortune to find someone who will help them along. As youth sports become increasingly specialized and expensive, more kids will miss out on playing, especially playing beyond the early years. That's a shame for those kids--and for society as a whole as those kids become adults. It's not a reason to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater by trashing youth sports; but I hope all of us will look for ways to create opportunities for more kids to play and learn about baseball. (And I know lots of folks here already are doing that.)