Baseball on the decline in US?

[CMH]

All good points, but you could also say playing pick up basketball doesn't prepare for a game either. There are no refs, no set plays, etc. My point was if you love baseball, you don't need all the trappings of organized league play to get into it. Yes, it's always easier to play hoops...not denying that. I just don't buy that it's too difficult for these kids to play baseball if they want to.

That's true. If you wanna play you figure it out. I did as a kid. I found any way to play even if I had to sneak onto a field or schoolyard. We played.


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[TheMatrix31]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

It's not glamorized anymore, bottom line. Whether that's exposure on Sportscenter, or whatever.

How many kids are going to say "When I grow up, I want to be the next Albert Pujols!" versus saying "When I grow up, I want to be the next LeBron!"

[Chrisksaint]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

After his last contract my future kids better say they want to be the next Pujols or Peyton Manning

[Money99]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

It's not glamorized anymore, bottom line. Whether that's exposure on Sportscenter, or whatever.

How many kids are going to say "When I grow up, I want to be the next Albert Pujols!" versus saying "When I grow up, I want to be the next LeBron!"

Good point.
Basketball is much easier to promote stars. In almost every Heat game, you can pretty much put money on Lebron getting 25+ points and doing something entertaining.
The same can't be said for a star like Pujols. In baseball, you can earn a quarter-billion-dollars if you're successful 1-out-of-3 times and hit a home-run every .07 at-bats.

[bkrich83]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

I am not sure it's all doom and gloom as some people think.

Baseball attendance this past season was actually up. This past season it was a little above 73 million.

10 years ago it was 72 million.

15 years ago it was 60 million

Last year baseball averaged 30,000 per game in attendance. In 1985 that number was was 22,000 per game. And that was before the proliferation of all the new smaller ballparks.

Also if baseball is so down, someone forgot to tell the TV networks, they are handing out money for new TV contracts like it's going out of style. Padres, Rangers and Angels for instance all got massive increases in their TV contracts this past year, and once the Dodgers are sold, they may break the bank.

Baseball popularity is certainly lagging behind football, football has become America's pasttime, but it's certainly not doomsday for baseball like some are saying .

http://www.baseball-reference.com/le...tendance.shtml

http://bss.sfsu.edu/tygiel/hist490/mlbattendance.htm

[Money99]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

I am not sure it's all doom and gloom as some people think.

Baseball attendance this past season was actually up. This past season it was a little above 73 million.

10 years ago it was 72 million.

15 years ago it was 60 million

Last year baseball averaged 30,000 per game in attendance. In 1985 that number was was 22,000 per game. And that was before the proliferation of all the new smaller ballparks.

Also if baseball is so down, someone forgot to tell the TV networks, they are handing out money for new TV contracts like it's going out of style. Padres, Rangers and Angels for instance all got massive increases in their TV contracts this past year, and once the Dodgers are sold, they may break the bank.

Baseball popularity is certainly lagging behind football, football has become America's pasttime, but it's certainly not doomsday for baseball like some are saying .

http://www.baseball-reference.com/le...tendance.shtml

http://bss.sfsu.edu/tygiel/hist490/mlbattendance.htm

Very interesting numbers. But then why are less kids actually playing the game? Especially African-Americans?

[bkrich83]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

Very interesting numbers. But then why are less kids actually playing the game? Especially African-Americans?

I saw something on the other day, they mentioned lack of facilities to play with in the inner city. Lack of youth programs in those areas as well.

I live in So. Cal, I can tell you there are more kids playing today than ever, and they play year 'round.

MLB definitely needs to market the game towards the younger generation though. They never have seemed to grasp that.

[Perfect Zero]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

I wonder how successful the R.B.I. program really is. I see a number of kids playing around here too, but the numbers have dropped from when I was a kid. When I was playing, there were five little league associations. Now, there are three with the threat of moving down to two. Granted, that is "Little League," but in the home of a professional team, there should be more kids playing then when I was playing.

Then again, I don't really live in an "inner city," so I don't know what they are going through.

[lonewolf371]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

I saw something on the other day, they mentioned lack of facilities to play with in the inner city. Lack of youth programs in those areas as well.

I live in So. Cal, I can tell you there are more kids playing today than ever, and they play year 'round.

MLB definitely needs to market the game towards the younger generation though. They never have seemed to grasp that.

Yeah but So. Cal has a large Latin American population. Here in the Midwest everyone wants to be a basketball player or a football player (toss in hockey as you get further north).

Another thing is its status as a high school sport. Baseball is played in the summer when everyone's out of school, so you're not going to get tons of people coming to your games. At the college level, it's played in the spring and that means that the northern schools basically play all their games on the road until the weather gets nicer. Those factors probably hurt participation as well.

[CabreraMVP]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

The reason for the decline in blacks is simple. Look at the NBA, the majority of those black players came from the city and not a from a nice little suburban neighborhood. Same with NFL.

You can be poor and easily play basketball. Just find a ball, and their are courts everywhere. That's all you need.

Baseball? You need gloves, bats, balls, and at least 6-7 people and a field too. I live in a pretty typical American neighborhood and my whole childhood was consumed by asking for hours until we had enough to play a game. Even when we had kids to play, there was times we couldn't play because we would hit all the baseballs in the creek and we couldn't get more.

I can't count the number of times I've gone crazy because I wanted to play but nobody else could play. It's a horrible feeling. I had 2 years where I didn't care much about baseball and instead really got caught up in basketball and wanted to make the NBA. Why? I would go outside to the park everyday and shot baskets by myself for hours and hours. But even when you want to play baseball, you still can't sometimes.

And there is soft toss, hitting off a tee, etc. but how much fun is that? I've done that a million times to improve my swing, but there is times when you just want relax and hit, and watch the ball fly off your bat. I've even pitched to a net in my garage in the Winter but I hate that, I just want to be out there with my friends playing in the Summer.

Baseball is just a tough sport to play, with all the equipment/money needed. Basketball is a game where you can play by yourself, and still improve and become great. Baseball, dang. You can play catch I guess, but if you really want to play and become good you need to find a lot of kids to play with so you can face real pitching. It's tough.

What we always did was 3 vs 3, or 4v4. Real slow pitches, so there's a pitcher, shortstop/LF, Outfielder, and a 1st basemen. Everybody pulls the ball so everything is hit to Left Center. We make it work. But even getting a simple game like that going is tough.

I think the only way to spike interest again from black athletes, is to provide all the equipment needed to young kids, and provide them a field. I drive through Detroit, and every field I see is 5 foot tall weeds with a backstop that is about to fall over. Can't play.

Baseball is weird game. Hard to play. Can't play by your self. Can't play all day everyday, because your arm will fall enough. Seems extremely boring. But if you are introduced to the game at a young age, and you grow up with it, there is nothing like it. People think baseball is boring, and say "oh you never get any plays out there." Even when I'm standing in the field, not getting any balls hit to me, I love it. I just love being on the field. There is no better feeling than the satisfaction of a clean hit. Or being on the mound knowing that the you can directly effect the outcome of the game.

[Money99]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

Baseball is weird game. Hard to play. Can't play by your self. Can't play all day everyday, because your arm will fall enough. Seems extremely boring. But if you are introduced to the game at a young age, and you grow up with it, there is nothing like it. People think baseball is boring, and say "oh you never get any plays out there." Even when I'm standing in the field, not getting any balls hit to me, I love it. I just love being on the field. There is no better feeling than the satisfaction of a clean hit. Or being on the mound knowing that the you can directly effect the outcome of the game.

Well said.
My two kids (8 & 5) bug me to play basement-baseball with them every night. I have a couple of soft sponge balls and both have mini bats from Comerica that they use.
I put hand-towels down for bases and I pitch to them. They have to score 20 runs before I get 5 outs. We play that at least 4 or 5 times a week.
The other night, I introduced a grounder-game with them, and I had to beg them to quit because I was getting tired, hahaha. It was well past bedtime but they kept asking for 'one more round'.

We have hockey nets and goalie gear in the basement too, as well as dart-guns, but it's the baseball games they want to play most.

But compared to other sports, it seems that baseball has to be 'forced' on kids a bit more for them to really enjoy it. I didn't have to do any pushing for my kids to like basketball.
But I had to introduce them to baseball and over the last couple of years, they've really begun to appreciate how much fun the game can be.

[nomo17k]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

Very interesting posts. I think all points made in this thread are true, to varying extent.

As much as I love baseball, the only sports I actually care about), I'm actually surprised how such a weird sport can be so popular. (While it has lost ground to football, it still is a major sport with a large fan base compared to others.)

To me, a thing that stands out about baseball is its apparent complexity.

With other sports, it's much easier to understand what goes on. Soccer, arguably the most popular sport in the world, is very easy to understand. Basketball... pretty obvious. (American) football can look kinda weird (I admit I never bothered to learn it), but it's still obvious when you should be getting excited just by watching.

Baseball? ... I don't know.

What I mean here is, if you have some random Russian guy watch the game of baseball, I bet he would have absolutely no idea what is going on. Unfortunately I've never coached baseball, but if you have along with other games, don't you generally have harder time teaching kids the intricate parts of baseball, compared to other sports?

I feel kids need to be actively "initiated" to baseball, whereas in other sports, they can develop appreciations quicker, mostly from visual actions...

My theory for why baseball even had a chance to become so popular to begin with, is basically its history and how that matched the time and cultural climate of the society in general.

I don't digress but I often wonder how people can get interested in baseball to begin with, even though that's the question I should be asking about myself.

[Money99]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

Very interesting posts. I think all points made in this thread are true, to varying extent.

As much as I love baseball, the only sports I actually care about), I'm actually surprised how such a weird sport can be so popular. (While it has lost ground to football, it still is a major sport with a large fan base compared to others.)

To me, a thing that stands out about baseball is its apparent complexity.

With other sports, it's much easier to understand what goes on. Soccer, arguably the most popular sport in the world, is very easy to understand. Basketball... pretty obvious. (American) football can look kinda weird (I admit I never bothered to learn it), but it's still obvious when you should be getting excited just by watching.

Baseball? ... I don't know.

What I mean here is, if you have some random Russian guy watch the game of baseball, I bet he would have absolutely no idea what is going on. Unfortunately I've never coached baseball, but if you have along with other games, don't you generally have harder time teaching kids the intricate parts of baseball, compared to other sports?

I feel kids need to be actively "initiated" to baseball, whereas in other sports, they can develop appreciations quicker, mostly from visual actions...

My theory for why baseball even had a chance to become so popular to begin with, is basically its history and how that matched the time and cultural climate of the society in general.

I don't digress but I often wonder how people can get interested in baseball to begin with, even though that's the question I should be asking about myself.

I understand exactly what you mean. I've coached a variety of sports (some I've undertstood, others I haven't) and baseball is, by far, the most complex - and I know baseball. At first I thought it should be easy; you hit, throw and catch, big deal, right? But then when you start getting into the finer details, you realize how deep the sport is - force outs, tag-ups, double-plays, etc. And that doesn't include pitching strategies, stealing, bunting, small-ball, etc.
I can see why some find it confusing. Still, there's nothing like crushing a ball or playing catch with your dad or kids.

[Sportsforever]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

Those are very good point about the complexity of baseball, and also a good reason why I always tell people it's never boring (something is always going on!).

A few years ago my squadron had an Australian exchange officer/pilot assigned to us for a few years. We got to be pretty good friends and I would take him to Padre games to teach him about baseball. He really enjoyed it, but had NO idea what was going on. Finally, we reached some common ground when I realize he was a HUGE cricket fan. I had now idea how that game was played so he taught me how to play cricket and I taught him baseball. In the end we both ended up learning something and he really enjoyed baseball.

[TheMatrix31]

Re: Baseball on the decline in US?

Baseball is just something you're constantly building on. There is ALWAYS something to learn, and really, it's quite difficult to explain things if you're not brought up with it and learned the nuances yourself.

Think about all the **** that we don't know, even though we're people here who know WAY MORE than the average baseball fan does.

Overwhelming.