WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

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ghostrunner
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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

Post by ghostrunner »

Freed Roger wrote:you can always tell when a select team is in the same hotel by the highway. continental breakfast is bedlam
I work for an organization involving tourism, and we interact with hotels regularly. Heard last year that they specifically don't want the baseball families if they have a better choice. Too many wild kids and drunk dads.

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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

Post by lukethedrifter »

ghostrunner wrote:
Freed Roger wrote:you can always tell when a select team is in the same hotel by the highway. continental breakfast is bedlam
I work for an organization involving tourism, and we interact with hotels regularly. Heard last year that they specifically don't want the baseball families if they have a better choice. Too many wild kids and drunk dads.
I can imagine what they say about a certain week in April.

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Secret Weapon
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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

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ghostrunner wrote:
Freed Roger wrote:you can always tell when a select team is in the same hotel by the highway. continental breakfast is bedlam
I work for an organization involving tourism, and we interact with hotels regularly. Heard last year that they specifically don't want the baseball families if they have a better choice. Too many wild kids and drunk dads.
I can confirm this. The parents are worse than the kids are. They congregate and get drunk and loud in the public areas while they let the kids run around the hotel and cause havoc. The worst.

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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

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It's the dad life


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cardinalkarp
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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

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Fan_In_NY wrote:Question is what organized leagues are really growing? I am sure Lax, Hockey, soccer are making big jumps over the last 5,10,20 years but their numbers were minuscule compared to baseball. I don't think the net number that baseball is losing is moving directly over to other sports, instead kids are just less into organized sports.
I think at the younger ages (10-14yrs) I would think that it can get pricey getting on good teams who end up traveling to different tournaments, although Hockey is about as expensive a sport you can get into IMO. Are baseball's #'s dropping significantly while the other sports are at a steady incline? Maybe in all organized sports, once they start to get to a competitive level and begin to involve travel are starting to out price the average family?

I don't have any children so this was a theory as much as a question to those who do have kids whom are starting to get involved in competitive leagues.

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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

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Maclowery wrote:As a kid back in the metro east, the kids leagues (soccer and baseball mostly, basketball and flag football lagging behind a bit) were a staple of my childhood. The only grade school kids not on teams were weirdos. Perhaps it was the Air Force town mentality? In any case, I brought it up to a friend who still works back there in the summer kids leagues, and he said they only have two thirds the signups as 15 years ago, despite the town more than doubling in size.

I blame video games.
I do too.

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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

Post by pioneer98 »

I think at the really young ages (like say t-ball through minors, or roughly 5 to 8) there is still a lot of participation. It's cheap, easy, fun, etc. That's how all of Little League used to be though. What I see in both youth hockey and baseball is that those travel team kids still play in the regular league. Their parents are likely to be coaches. And those kids are likely to make the all-star team(s). It becomes a showcase for those handful of kids who are really good and play twice as many games as everyone else. The other kids can't keep up.

My kid is 11, the smallest player on his team, and playing in this tough league* against some 12 year olds on traveling teams. My goal is just for him to show improvement, and he is a much better player now than he was at the beginning of the season. To get him there, I've spent a lot of time in the batting cage with him. Not all parents have time for even that, much less the traveling team thing.


* I have to brag for a minute - in that city tournament, the final 4 teams were all from our league. There was also a team that was winless in our league (like 0-14) and they won 2 games in the city tournament. It will be interesting to see how our league's all-star team does.

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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

Post by Freed Roger »

sighyoung wrote: Yeah, it's like the athletic equivalent of Duke TIP academic enrichment programs
^humblebrag on your kids. :D

just last night I pitched all that info, results, and upselling.

Ours sat for ACT as 7th grader this year - was somewhat relieved she is appropriately sub-national/state avg amongst HSers, and my tenure/obligation as parent of a genus is over.

My brother-in-law had it worse - his kid was a state level competitive youth gymnast! Then he dropped that and they doubled down on hockey. $$$ at least the hockey was fun though.

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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

Post by Freed Roger »

Parents pooped out on the local park district and school/church leagues. Like someone else said, when we were kids everybody was in those local rec-type leagues and it was inclusive to some lousy players- you just had to learn to win with some automatic outs. Just as much talent fostered there as today's exclusive specialized leagues where you haul your ass all over the land to play other kids.

My nephews are pretty good athletes back in the old hometown (well, of [expletive] course, they are related to me), the freshman plays 3 sports and was on varsity on 2. They did/do select teams, primarily because the kids love to play ball -and they have little other option with the traditional rec leagues anymore.

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Re: WSJ article about the decline in youth baseball

Post by Freed Roger »

another factor amongst the several - smaller families/less kids. this means more time parental doting on junior - and more "structure" to that kid's life. And your neighbors dote on their kids just the same. Back then, the parents were outnumbered, and didn't have as much time to ruin their kid's lives. On the plus side for parents, they didn't have to hire a coach to teach their kids how to play, most just took it up, and could scrounge a game up from local punks.

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