how long do kids play baseball?

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Question: How long do you think the average youth plays organized baseball?



Is this considered organized 20dad?



If yes, then I'd say about three or four hours a day.




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Does anyone know...how long...on average?

Anyone?




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Good question but I have no clue, mine has been at it for 18 years. I do beleive that only a handful he played with when 12 are now playing ball.

My opinion is that all young children should be involved in some type of team sport or physical activity, it teaches more than just falling in love with the game, it teaches team philosophy, how to take instruction from others besides mom and dad, how to compete, how to react to failure and very important, may help to avoid being an overweight adult.

I guess we could take all of the HS bb players, college players and milb and MLB players and combine total, that would give us an idea of how many played after 12.

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discounting the pre 9 yr stuff. i'm curious what the thoughts are.

Interesting question. I think the LL numbers, while impressive are not a true barometer of the popularity of the sport. The move from the little diamond to the big eliminates a huge number of players, 30-40% IMO.

With that in mind, I will guess that as a whole, when considering all players 9 yrs and up, the average kid will play organized baseball between 3-4 years, but most will be fans for life.

That may seem too few in the eyes of many but we seem to soon forget those who quit at 9/10 yrs old who skew the average.

Of the 12 kids on my son's CR all star team (just about same kids 9-12 yo) six are playing in high school and maybe 2 or 3 of those will play in college.

I'll get back to you in 2 years with the real number when they're all out of HS.

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Originally posted by 20dad:
little league say's they have 2.6 million kids from 5 to 18. wow.

I'm not sure of the answer to the question, but LL numbers are way below the numbers actually playing. Around here, and I'm sure many other areas, there are tons of kids who live outside LL boundries who don't and never did play actual LL. Many, many city and county rec leagues accounting for an untold number of kids playing baseball outside of LL.

All that being said, in our town, I would guess that when my son was say 9, there were around 12 teams in his rec league. If there were 12 kids on each team, that is 144 kids. Those kids feed into two different HS's. If there are 8 Sr.'s on each team playing Varsity ball, that would be 16 kids. Take maybe another 4 going to private schools. 20 out of 108 playing baseball by the time they are Sr.'s. That's about 14%. I would say that is conservative, because I don't think there will be 8 Sr.'s on sons HS team. There aren't this year. A very small percentage of them will go on to play beyond HS. Gotta have drive, desire and talent.

In a small league, avg. about 140 players from 5 to 16.
As of last year:
17 total high school players in 6 different High Schools
1 collage player at this point.

We are losing kids to the other sports. Hockey and Basketball now play year round here, and that new sport with the ball and the stick that you throw around the field. Lacrosse was just picked up by our high school 2 years ago, same season as baseball. More kids are just playing one sport than ever before as well. But what are you going to do. I am sure they have sites like this and talk bad about baseball players.

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Originally posted by fivehole:
We are losing kids to the other sports. Hockey and Basketball now play year round here, and that new sport with the ball and the stick that you throw around the field. Lacrosse was just picked up by our high school 2 years ago, same season as baseball. More kids are just playing one sport than ever before as well. But what are you going to do. I am sure they have sites like this and talk bad about baseball players.

Reason a lot of kids drop baseball is because of the low MPR rules by little league. Signing up to play rec baseball and get 1 AB and 2 innings in RF will bore a lot of kids. Too often, it's about dads playing their kid at short, then they put a kid who at that time may not be as good yet,get pigeon-holed and are banished to little league punishment grounds....RF where they can't to no harm to anybody and where they're out of sight-out of mind until the rare ball comes their way....Then they go find some other sport with more action or where they''ll get more participation and become part of the action.

I'd guess that 50% stop at 12 years old with another 25% ending by the time they are 15 and done with Babe ruth or some prep league. The final 25% will make up the freshman, JV and Varsity teams with a hefty portion of those only advancing to Freshman or JV level.

Not scientifically valid, but another sample...from my son's 12-year-old fairly-talented area travel squad (age now 19)...11 team members...5 still playing...4 JC, 1 D-1...a couple doing (or done) some jail time.

(clarification re: jail time...NOT the ones still playing. )

Of our local all-star team at age 12 (in a town of 10,000), only 4 still play and only one is a regular in our senior year of HS.

Yes, I am the one regular.

FWIW, I didn't make the all-star teams at age 8 and 9, the first years our local leagues have all-star teams.

The other thing is that the jump from the little field to the big field. A lot of kids aren't big enough or strong enough for the change. Your LL short stops and 3rd baseman can't get the ball across the diamond. Hitter can't get the ball out of the infield. I think for middle school nationwide we should go to a pony field, inbetween LL field and the big field. It would better for coaching and development of younger players.

No matter what people do to prepare for the next level you are trying to reach in the game the numbers are going to stay the same when you start reaching the HS , College and Pro levels. The HS is not going to create another team. They are not going to create more College programs. And Pro ball is still going to be limited to a certain amount of players.

The fact is alot of kids play at a young age and then the weeding out process begins. When kids reach High School only a certain amount of players are going to play. Only a certain amount of players will go on to play in college. And the same for professional baseball.

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Originally posted by 20dad:

how long do you think the average youth plays organized baseball?

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7 Innings



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Or would that be 6? lol