There has been a decline for the past 10 or 15 years in kids playing youth baseball. Look at how many kids never start playing baseball much less play in high school. IMO, the problem is really a combination of problems. Many kids today (50%) are being raised by single parent mothers that know little if anything about baseball and are not able to play catch or throw BP to their sons. It's much easier for this mother to place her son in s****r, LAX, football, basketball, etc... Kid's today have many more sports opportunities today than the kid's of past generations. Just look at how many baseball fields have been eliminated where kids now don't have a place to play sandlot baseball with their friends. Travel baseball has become very expensive and we also have 8 & 9 year old kid's playing 75 games (spring,summer, fall) each year. IMO, this is crazy! Why not play 25-30 games in your league with your friends and then play another 5-10 games with the league All-Star team if your kid is selected. Another problem is that we now have these Mega Comprehensive high schools (2500+ students) and it's very diffecult for anyone but the very best athletes to make the baseball team. If you have 2500 students (1250 boy's) it is very difficult to shine when they are only going to keep a total of 30-40 kids in the program. A kid must be one of the top 10 players out of 312.5 to make the high school baseball team. The numbers say that to make the team as a freshmen the kids at a 2500 student school must be in the top 3% of all players. This is very difficult for the players that are late bloomers and mature at a later stage in their life.