Was baseball always THE sport?

For my 2021 kid Baseball has been #1 since he was 6 years old, he has always loved the game more than anything else.

We've made sure he's tried other sports.  Soccer only lasted a few days.  He played flag football from 3rd Grade through 6th Grade and had fun with it but it was never a big deal.  Of course we made sure he learned to swim.  

Basketball he had fun with from 2nd Grade through 7th Grade but this year in 8th Grade he told us he didn't want to play on a Basketball team, he just wants to play pickup Basketball with his buddies.  Basketball was interesting since both his Mom and I had D1 offers so we really know the game, and sitting in the stands hearing parents talk about their kids as future NBA players was amusing.

The best thing about playing Basketball for him, to me, (besides the obvious of the winter exercise, the increased agility) was that he experienced being a backup player and just a role player off the bench.  I think that made him a better teammate in Baseball.

The one sport he still really enjoys playing on a team besides Baseball is Ultimate Frisbee.  There is even an Ultimate Frisbee team in High School (who knew?) but unfortunately in HS it is a Spring sport.  So he is trying to find a club team.  Apparently he's pretty good at it.  I have zero frame of reference to even know if he is.  But he has fun with it and he's outside running around.

We're trying to get him to consider trying out for Volleyball in the Fall.  He is somewhat on the fence about it.

if we'd let him he'd play Baseball year round.  We won't.

When he was 6 I said pick a sport, any sport, he picked baseball.  Showed up in jeans with a walmart bat and glove to rec ball assessments.  He was picked by a VERY good coach for the simple reason that "He didn't hit the ball, but he swings very fast." By 6u Spring he was on the All-star B team, 7u all star A team, 9u we let him join travel ball.

In 9th grade he said "I want to play Football in the Fall."...um...okay.  So he did that, it was okay, he liked the brotherhood but didn't much care for the sport.  He wants to play Fall Ball and Spring Ball this up coming year so yeah, okay.  He dabbled with the idea of Basketball, was asked to join the basketball team, but it overlaps with HS baseball by a few weeks and didn't want to jeopardize his JV tryout. Now that he has some stats in "the book" he's still thinking if he wants to do basketball next year. I'm good with whatever, but I do know HIS sport will always be baseball, he bases everything else around it.

Our son started in LL at age 5-6 (T-Ball), played very well (head & shoulders above the rest) and the rest is history.  By 10 years  of age he was on a 11U travel team.  He would go on to be a major player for HS and college (JuCo & D2).

He did want to play football in HS, but travel ball, legion didn't allow time to participate in the 7-on-7 drills in the spring/summer and fall ball (local league and travel ball) didn't allow much time (if any) to do both.  He had to pick one.   He chose baseball.  One player did try to do both in the fall, but he was almost always late for practices and games - ended up dropping baseball since he was just a little bit better at football than baseball, but he wasn't a real good athlete.

The other reason our son didn't play football was Ma Ma wouldn't allow it.  I could have signed to let him play anyway, but then I would have probably needed to move out. 

He never had much interest in basketball or soccer.

My son started playing T-ball at five so baseball was his only love until he started playing football at seven. At that point, the favorite was whatever he was playing at the time. He dabbled in basketball for a couple of years but that was never a love for him. 

At 13U he said beaseball was his favorite during football season, which was a first. He still enjoys playing baseball and football but, according to him, if he was forced to give one up it wouldn't be baseball. 

The kid played baseball, football and basketball.  Loved them all, but mostly said baseball was his favorite (there were a few occasions during football season or during basketball season where he might say that was his favorite). We moved prior to his 8th grade year to a large school (approx 700 students per class).  Before that, his goal was to play baseball, football and basketball all through high school, and it is very likely he would have (approx 150 students per class).  In 8th grade, they don't offer baseball as a school sport, so he played football and basketball. His plan was still to play all three sports but someone convinced him that if he was late to baseball because of the overlap with basketball, that he'd be too far behind - baseball begins intense workouts the Monday after football ends.  So he didn't try out for freshman basketball in late spring of 8th grade.  

After he started HS baseball, he said he absolutely agreed with the advice he'd been given.  I don't think he's looked back, although he still likes to play pick-up basketball when he can.  He likes football, and wants to continue to play throughout high school, but I think he's dropped his dream of playing both in college.    So, I suppose the answer to your question is that baseball has always been his first love, but he consciously chose to drop another sport in favor of baseball goals at the end of 8th grade.

Out experience is pretty similar to a lot of others. Son started Tball at 5. He played ref football and basketball. He never really loved football, but he was really good at a young age because he was the fastest kid in the county. Son was extremely athletic and was good at everything he tried. His older sisters were doing gymnastics and competition cheerleading. He would walk in the gym with them at 7 or 8 and just mimic anything they were doing. The coaches were floored he could do their routine without any practice. He loved jumping on trampoline and doing crazy tricks. He was a daredevil. I look back now and am just thankful he didn't break his neck. 

Anyway, he actually loved basketball the most and played through 9th grade. That's when he realized basketball wasn't his future and it interfered with preparation for baseball. 

"THE sport" is not a question I ever pondered.

I wanted my kids to play sports because sports build character and teach important lessons.

And I told them to strive to excel at something honorable of their own choosing--without specifying whether that something should involve sports, visual arts, music, academics, enterprise or some other sphere of activity--because even if they don't stick with it, learning how to master something will serve them well at whatever they pursue later in life.

The one who is playing college baseball might have had a better college career in wrestling. There were colleges that didn't want him as baseball player but did want him as a wrestler because of his profile as a big man with little guy skills and agility.

But he was sure baseball was the sport he wanted to play beyond high school, so he never gave any encouragement to the wrestling coaches who called. And even though the baseball path has had its share of bumps and detours and is fast approaching the "road ends" sign, he has never expressed any regrets about his decision to go "all in" on baseball.

Somewhere around 4 years old when he first started catching fly balls that I threw as high as I could and about 150' away from me.  I know, I know, you think I'm full of $$$$, but I'm completely serious.  I had a friend who was a major league agent....he saw it and was speechless.  He played soccer, football and basketball too, but they always took second to baseball.  He gave up football after 6th grade and basketball after junior high because his summers were for baseball.  He did play soccer thru HS, but his HS coach had told him he didn't need to participate in the summer....knowing that if he made it mandatory, he would lose him. 

When he was younger it was whatever sport he was doing at the time, baseball, soccer, Ultimate Frisbee (UF).

In middle school he did mention that he like UF better. He thought he could get a scholarship for it. I explained that opportunities for UF are minimal currently and he might only get 2K if he's lucky and that is from the team members not the college. I explained UF can be a sport he enjoys for fun but he'd have more opportunities with baseball: bigger scholarships, more places to go etc..

He just played his first season of basketball ever. He made varsity for MS and liked it but not interested in doing it in HS. He is looking forward to football and wrestling in HS so we'll see if those sway him away from baseball. He's a fast strong kid so I think he'll do well in both but time will tell.

Baseball was always the number one sport.  T-ball at 5, travel ball at 8, but also played soccer, flag football and basketball.  This year he started on the HS freshman basketball team.  He could not attend the HS baseball weight lifting sessions because it was during the basketball season.  Now he tells me that next year he might not play JV basketball to do the weight training with the baseball team instead.  He is now one of 2 freshman on the varsity baseball team (2A) and is starting CF.  I want him to continue playing basketball though.  He has time to think about it.

When the boy was 2 I rolled a big plastic kickball to him in the yard and he would hit with a little 15" plastic bat and run in circle....that winter he worked on his swing in the living room hitting nerf balls off my hand like T (much to his mothers dismay) He used to trail me to my adult league games with his own bat bag and helmet at 3

he has played pretty much all sports at some level but nothing has ever been remotely close baseball!!

Motocross was his first sport/love. He was 7 I think and asked for a dirt bike, so I got him a Honda 50cc bike. The neighbors saw him riding and as their kids raced they invited us to a track for a practice day. We didn't have that Honda for maybe 4-6 months and we traded it in for a KTM. Then I sold that and bought another KTM from a high level rider. Then a Suzuki RM 80 from another high level rider. At that point he was 10, the bikes had gotten scary fast and expensive, and people were starting to talk about him baseball wise. I can still remember the conversation in his room about quitting. I know that was a very hard decision for him and we still talk to this day how we miss it.

Practically speaking it was the right thing to do. And baseball has been very good to him. But if it weren't for the danger and expense I'd probably be posting on some MX forum right now.