5 girls’ sport, behind basketball, track, volleyball and soccer.īaseball ranks fourth in Iowa, too, behind football, track and basketball. 4 boys’ sport in terms of participation numbers (trailing football, track and basketball) in 2013-14. The National Federation of State High School Associations reported that baseball is the No. (In fairness, basketball and soccer also lost about 3 million participants apiece in that time). The Wall Street Journal reported in May that youth baseball participation nationwide has fallen from 8.8 million in 2000 to less than 5.3 million in 2013. The ESPN Sports Poll’s annual survey of young Americans’ 30 favorite sports figures finds no baseball players on the list.ESPN’s data show the average age of baseball viewers is 53.According to Nielsen ratings, 50 percent of baseball viewers are 55 or older, up from 41 percent 10 years ago.I have two sons and I coached little league teams on the south side of Des Moines when they were playing.Ī Washington Post story published in April listed some sobering statistics for baseball: I played baseball at Newman High in Mason City from 1967-71 as a pitcher and third baseman. I played a lot of pickup baseball as a kid and also a lot of little league.
“My dad played for the University of Minnesota and my uncle played professional baseball with the Cardinals organization. It has always been a big part of my life,” he said. He worked as a police officer for the State of Iowa for 32 years, having served as a state trooper for 13 years and with the DCI for 19 years, where he retired as an assistant director. Joe Diaz grew up in Mason City in the 1950s and 1960s and currently lives in Des Moines. So goes the passing of another American icon: sandlot baseball. Time marches on and sometimes things are not as good as the old days. I hope the love of the game will not suffer in succeeding generations. Parents are controlling the entire game now at this level and nothing is left for the kids to organize. Many kids being left out is just one reason for the sentiment. Organized traveling teams, clubs, tryouts, professional one-on-one coaching, these are now the norms and perhaps it is not for the better. I fear we have lost a bit of our innocence in this country where now all baseball for kids is controlled by adults in organized league play and all of the many derivatives thereof. Kids spending all their time with video games, and the list could go on.Parents’ concern for kids safety while away from home.The reasons for this decline of an American icon are many, including: Sadly, the kids today are given a set of rules with their video games rules invention skills developed on sandlots are but one casualty of this bygone phenomenon. I doubt even more any kids today would know the rules of workup or strikeout. I doubt if you can even find a game of strikeout, a game that needed only two or three players.
Today? Not a single game can be found anywhere. This scene which played out for me in Mason City, was perhaps played out back then in every town and city in America. What? Kids out after dark and the parents were not concerned? Those were innocent times, and it was OK as long as it was not too late. Sometimes when it got too dark to see the ball, you would play a game of Red Light, Green Light or Hide and Go Seek before you went home. You would return home for lunch but then it was back out for more baseball. They were granted that by their informal status and your turn to bat would come soon enough as you worked your way from right field to batter.
Usually the older kids or the best athletes got to bat first. This was a game where you would be allowed to continue batting as long as you got a hit. If you had about nine or so players, then you played workup. If you didn’t have enough players for two teams, then you invented some rules to cover the shortage. Everybody played, and I mean girls as well as boys. Sometimes you knew all the kids and sometimes not. Some kids didn’t have gloves - no matter. All you needed was a ball and a bat and maybe some pieces of an old tire for bases.
It wasn’t long that on some vacant lot or ramshackle diamond or perhaps a school diamond, you would find one and play perhaps all day. In the morning, you would slip your glove though the handlebar of your bicycle (if it wasn’t already there) and head out looking for a game. I was reminded of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, when on weekends and throughout the summer, pickup baseball games took up a great deal of my time. I heard on the radio recently that a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer traveled the entire country for quite some time looking for a game of pickup baseball.