WSJ Looks at Why Kids Are Abandoning Baseball

[Don Buddin's GS]

Since no one wanted to guess, the half of kids who aren't really drawn to baseball because there's no real ongoing path to participation past puberty....is, girls. That's a big problem, when your sport pretty much eliminates 50% of the population.

It's called "softball" on the distaff side, Fred and their numbers are down as well and for the same reasons--lacrosse, soccer, travel ball, specializing in one sport.
 
My youngest played four years of varsity softball 10 years ago and the dropoff in numbers and skill level is readily apparent.

 

[Winger 03]

I just finished a season of assistant coaching my 7yo daughter's softball team.
 
As I see it, there are too many players in the field at that age level.  All season long, here were 3 total balls that reached the outfield.  We rotate players into differet positions each inning, but the looks on these girls faced when it was their turn in the OF was one of "what a waste of time".  We would have been better off with smaller teams (and more of them) with 6-8 players on them.
 
Basebballl / Softball is boaring as hell for kids with as many more interesting things to do as kids have these days.

 

[Spacemans Bong]

I'm bullish on baseball, but there's something to be said about tweaking the format of the game at the sub-Little League/teenager levels to get more kids involved in a single game - sort of like how soccer at youth levels is 5-vs-5 on a small pitch to emphasize skill development and doesn't build up to 11-vs-11 on a full-size pitch until you're a teenager (and even then some people think that's too soon). As far as I know, teeball is still 9-vs-9, three outs in an inning, just with the tee and a couple fewer innings.
 
I play indoor softball on an indoor soccer pitch during the winter and that format would seem much more engaging to small kids. You get one pitch to hit, if it's out of the zone you walk. There is a lineup but the half-innings are timed so it doesn't matter how many outs you make. In five minutes you'll get 3 or 4 chances to bat. Everything is fair, so long as it goes beyond an imaginary line perpendicular to home plate. The positions are nuts - you've got a 1st baseman, a shortstop, a catcher and a pitcher, but you've also got two folks playing halfway between 1st and 3rd (you can bunt in our league), and two outfielders who double as second basemen. If it hits the side walls on the fly and bounces back, you can catch it for an out - only the back wall is a home run. Each game is about 20 minutes (two innings each) and you usually play 3 or 4 of them in a day. 
 
It's an incredibly high-octane game, and it seems like adapting something like that to teeball and coachpitch and maybe even Little League, slowly introducing more elements of "real" baseball until you get to teenagers who have the attention span and the skills to play real baseball, could be successful. The skill development is there - if anything, it might be better for fielding and baserunning, since you're constantly on your toes. You do become a hacker though! And it has to be better suited for kids' attention spans. 

 

[Fred not Lynn]

It's called "softball" on the distaff side, Fred and their numbers are down as well and for the same reasons--lacrosse, soccer, travel ball, specializing in one sport.
 
My youngest played four years of varsity softball 10 years ago and the dropoff in numbers and skill level is readily apparent.

Softball isn't the same. Its a different game, with a different culture and a different feel to play. Splitting up into two different sports, two different sets of organizations and sticking a frankly insulting name on the female version of the game isn't at all the same as playing the same sport.

 

[Hagios]

Softball isn't the same. Its a different game, with a different culture and a different feel to play. Splitting up into two different sports, two different sets of organizations and sticking a frankly insulting name on the female version of the game isn't at all the same as playing the same sport.

 
I don't think getting rid of softball would work. Colleges and good highschools would have no problem, but overall, you'd be hardpressed to find girls who can make the throw from shortstop and third base to first. It would make for a pretty ugly game. Maybe I'm wrong ...

 

[Fred not Lynn]

If anything, I would say the 60' diamond has become too small for softball...

I do think you are probably a little wrong about enough females being able to throw from ss, if that was a legit issue, perhaps you would adjust and have women play on a 80' diamond instead of the 90'.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

I am almost certain that starting times for night games in every World Series in the 1970s was 8pm or so. The same time it is now.

Ah, but they used to have day World Series games, which were better in ways I don't understand, because most kids were at school and adults were at work.

(I remember well as a first grader in 1967 when my big brother told me to pedal my damn bike faster so we could get home to see part of the game.)

 

[CaptainLaddie]

In this thread:
 

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

A couple of observations but first some background.  I have coached my son in Little League from farm (our version of tee-ball but with coach pitch instead) to Majors as well as in travel ball from U11 to U16.  I have also coached my daughter in softball in our local little league.  Finally, I've volunteered with our little league as a player agent and scheduler.  
 
I live in San Francisco and our local little league has actually grown after being established in the mid 90s so its the exception rather than the rule.   That said, we (and other Bay Area little leagues) only saw rapid growth after the Giants won the World Series in 2010 and have seen bumps in the seasons following their subsequent two titles.  I wonder if the town referenced in the article would see more interest if the Yankees or Mets reached the playoffs or World Series.  For those of you who have kids in little league around New England, did your league see a spike in interest after the Sox won in 2013?
 
That said, its clear the numbers are down. From where I sit, there are a couple of main reasons:
 
1.  Baseball requires a pretty hefty time commitment.  Above farm/t-ball, a youth baseball game is typically a three hour affair (hour warm-up plus ~two hour game) not including commute times to the fields.  Most games are error prone affairs and there is a lot of standing around.     Many parents have difficulty committing to the ~90 minutes a typical youth soccer or basketball game (where there is constant action) takes so they aren't going to be pushing their kids to play unless they have a passion for the sport.  This is even more acute in poor communities where parents have neither the time, resources (kids need gloves, cleats and baseball pants) nor the ability to get their kids to/from practices and games if the fields aren't within walking distance. 
 
2. Poor coaching.    As we know, the sport is very technical and requires a high degree of instruction on the individual level.  Coaches who don't plan baseball practices or don't have help are going to have a lot of kids standing around which usually devolves into anarchy quickly.  Furthermore, the aforementioned focus on being super competitive leads some leagues and coaches to create super-teams or work with their better players at the expense of their weaker ones.  The focus for the youth leagues (ex-travel) should be on teaching fundamentals and a love of the game while still being competitive.  This is tough balance to pull off and even tougher if you have coaches who are hyper competitive.  Guess who tends to want to be a coach or league administrator at this level?
 
The list goes on but you get the idea.  One way to reverse this trend is for parents who care about the sport to be that super-parent and play catch with their kids - imho, its time well spent for all involved as a kid can talk and learn fundamentals at the same time.  Furthermore, if you care about the sport, get involved by volunteering with your local league as a coach or player agent etc.  Its work and the parents can often be a pain in the ass but its also very fun and rewarding.  And nothing fires kids up about baseball like having a fun season with an enthusiastic set of coaches.

 

[Doctuh]

I coached a local Little League team last year, it had my daughter and a bunch of other kids half boys, half girls, some with minor physical disabilities, ages 6-8. It was the first level up from T-Ball: no experience necessary, coach pitch, kids could still use the T if they weren't making contact. I had a great time coaching, the kids were really learning some fundamentals and rules of the game. The games were against other teams with similar skill levels, no big deal.
 
One Saturday we play against another team, and I noticed going through the team list that the head coach was also the league president, the assistant coach was the league vp In fact, almost all the kids on the team were the boys of current or former league officials. And they were unbelievable, my kids were still learning how to hit a live ball, these guys were making double plays, diving for balls, every one could hit the ball into the outfield. They straight up killed our team and had a great time doing it. I visibly watched the love for the game I spend weeks building in my kids, disappear from their eyes in the matter of an hour.
 
It was a ringer team, formed by those parents so their boys would get better. Not one of the kids from my team who were excited to be playing before this (my daughter included) played baseball the following year. They lost a bunch of kids, and an enthusiastic coach so they could work on their next travel team.
 
LL parents can suck.

 

[curly2]

One game killed their spirit? Were the ringer kids really rubbing it in? Was there a mercy rule?

 

[Doctuh]

No mercy rule, we do not keep score at that level, and you always switch if the other team bats around. Yeah one game, the ringers were shitty about it (teasing the kids that couldn't hit). 

 

[Hendu for Kutch]

Games are just a waste of everyone's time at the 6-7 year old level. 
 
I coached a team of 6 and 7 year olds last year and the practices were always great.  You can split the kids up into small groups of 4 or 5, so nobody's left standing around, and you can come up with fun little games that allow them to actually practice the skills you're teaching them.  My favorite was a modified version of Knockout using a bucket on a tee as the target.  if they start getting too restless, you just have races around the bases.  The kids always seemed disappointed when practice would end, they wanted to keep playing.
 
Contrast that to games, where they're either standing in the field with over 50% of them unlikely to see any action for an entire trip through the other team's lineup, or they're sitting on the bench waiting for the chance to bat for 20 seconds.  If we ever play 3 innings, half the kids are complaining and asking when it's going to be over.  Trying to get anyone to focus is like pulling teeth.  By the end of the game, they've spent 2 hours and they've taken maybe 6 swings and fielded maybe 3 or 4 balls.  They're not getting enough repetitions to actually get much improvement out of it.
 
I think everyone would be better off if they just had an end-of-the-season wrap-up game or two.  As it is, the kids are very enthusiastic for the first 20% of the season where we're just doing practices, and then the last 80% sort of drags on where it's mostly games.

 

[Plympton91]

EIGHTEEN kids on a 8 year-olds baseball team? That's just incompetent organizing.

 
Or a lot of parents who want to be free riders.  You can only have as many teams as you have coaches. 
 
I have three kids, I can only be the head coach of one team, because the schedules overlap a lot with only 3 fields.  But out of 13 kids on my oldest daughter's team, there was one person willing to be a head coach - me, and I really didn't have the time to devote to it this fall, so the kids got a little gipped on practice time both between games and before games.  But that was better than splitting those 13 up among the other three teams, which would have meant that each team had 17 or 18 kids.  

 

[Plympton91]

Games are just a waste of everyone's time at the 6-7 year old level. 
 
I coached a team of 6 and 7 year olds last year and the practices were always great.  You can split the kids up into small groups of 4 or 5, so nobody's left standing around, and you can come up with fun little games that allow them to actually practice the skills you're teaching them.  My favorite was a modified version of Knockout using a bucket on a tee as the target.  if they start getting too restless, you just have races around the bases.  The kids always seemed disappointed when practice would end, they wanted to keep playing.
 
Contrast that to games, where they're either standing in the field with over 50% of them unlikely to see any action for an entire trip through the other team's lineup, or they're sitting on the bench waiting for the chance to bat for 20 seconds.  If we ever play 3 innings, half the kids are complaining and asking when it's going to be over.  Trying to get anyone to focus is like pulling teeth.  By the end of the game, they've spent 2 hours and they've taken maybe 6 swings and fielded maybe 3 or 4 balls.  They're not getting enough repetitions to actually get much improvement out of it.
 
I think everyone would be better off if they just had an end-of-the-season wrap-up game or two.  As it is, the kids are very enthusiastic for the first 20% of the season where we're just doing practices, and then the last 80% sort of drags on where it's mostly games.

 
I agree with this as well, and I think a couple other people upthread also had good ideas for this age group.  I just had the final fall league game for the 8U group, and I was thinking the same thing about the waste of time that the games are.  There was one point where the other team batted around their 11 person lineup, with an average of 3 or 4 machine pitches per hitter, with time outs for the coach to give individual instruction every other swing.  It was 25 minutes of kids standing around in 45 degree weather.  Miserable. 
 
On that team we had 4 very involved moms and dads, and we could have set up 4 stations, one for popups, one for ground balls, and two hitting stations and rotated kids around them at will for 90 minutes.  With interludes to have them do relay races around the bases to teach them how to do that right.  The other idea someone had above of just having the teams be 6 or 7 girls each at this level is great, but again gets back to whether you've got enough parents willing to be a head coach.  My guess is they only found 4 for that level, and so there were 4 teams (I helped whenever I could at that level, but between work and 16U (which, because there weren't enough kids for a separate 14U actually had 13 year olds playing against 17 year olds) I couldn't be a head coach).