RubberMallet wrote:Purple Haize wrote:
Sociologists will tell you that the #1 problem with Sport today is the decline and vanishing of Play.
drive around sometime in the spring and summer and you notice a few things. The first that there are no kids playing pickup games of baseball or football at parks...basketball courts sit for the most part empty. That is a symptom of multiple things i believe.
the First obviously (but i say is the lesser of all reasons) is the "video game" excuse. but it hink its more screen time not necessarily video games. we had nintendo/supernintendo/genesis back then too.
the 2nd is that many of the fields that i grew up playing on is now maintained by the local HEAT/VIPERS/ETC ETC traveling teams and are off limits to just playing on.
which leads me to the 3rd. Kids don't have time to just enjoy casually the game they play during that season. the season is 365 now. I have a good number of buddies who teach baseball stuff as individual trainers. they are BOOKED solid all the time. Last year we wanted to rent an indoor hitting facility to hit some bp for our mens slowpitch league. all booked solid for weeks. And there are like 20 of them in old warehouses that didn't exist 20years ago. when a kid has downtime, do you think they want to do more o that at the park with their friends? no.
I was helping in sunday school with children and there were some 10 yr old boys talking about baseball and i joined in the discussion and asked if they every played home run derby. they werelike you mean like the mlb home run derby. i said yeah like by yourselves, got he park and see who can hit the most hr's. and they looked at me like i was crazy. i was just like Stupid Hose is going on.
We've taken the fun out of the sport in a way. everything is about that eventual highlight reel they'll need to get into college. its about getting those scholarship offers when they are in jr high. its about selling kids (moreso parents) on buying that lottery ticket because the odds are great (they aren't) of winning.
my best friend is the president of the local little league and his kids is in his last year and he's done. he's taken 3 kids through it and what its become or how crippled little league is due to aau/private travel ball teams is bad.[/quote]
My point exactly