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Children Are Abandoning Baseball

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Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#41

Post by Symbiote »

douche wrote: post #16

Let's see... 1.) You need a shit-load of people to play baseball anything like for-real. At minimum 15-20 people for two teams. Pretty tough to do as a kid, unless you're free to roam free all over town to gather a crew, which approximately 0% of kids have license/protection from CPS to do. 2.) You need a big enough area for a baseball diamond, where you don't have to worry about knocking out a window with a foul bal…

Does anyone play cricketin the USA?

It solves some of your problems - you can see poor kids in India playing it in alleyways pretty much the same way rich kids in England do - and, I think, it's a bit easier to hit the ball.

Plus breaking for tea is part of the game...

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#42

Post by jlgaddis »

brandonmenc wrote: post #25
w1ntermute wrote: post #19

That's because baseball is terribly boring, especially compared to football or basketball. Who wants to spend 90% of the time standing around?

> Who wants to spend 90% of the time standing around? If you've never managed to throw a nice curveball, or hit a homer, or make a great diving catch, you'll never understand. You do something like that once, and you can easily get hooked on standing in line for another chance to replicate it. It's kind of like golf, but it sounds like you probably don't like that game either.

You're probably right. Like w1ntermute, I find baseball incredibly boring (even though I did play baseball for a few years when I was younger and quite enjoyed it). Golf? Even worse.

Probably related, I am an incredibly impatient person. I absolutely cannot stand to be sitting around "idle" or doing something I perceive to be a waste of time. It even bothers me to be having a conversation with people who take forever to tell a story ("just get to the damn point already, I don't need to hear every little detail!"). Baseball and golf fall into that same category for me. Why would I want to spend three hours watching a game when I could be doing something productive?

On the other hand, I ride my Harley every chance I get (to the tune of almost 10,000 miles this past summer). Many days I don't even have a destination when I leave home. I jump on and just ride. I have many friends I ride with and occasionally we'll ride a few hours together just to have lunch somewhere and turn around and come back. Really, I should consider this just as much of a waste of time but, for whatever reason, I don't see it that way. People who haven't ever rode a bike can't/don't understand the allure of it or why I enjoy it so much.

Different strokes for different folks.

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#43

Post by informatimago »

douche wrote: post #16

Let's see... 1.) You need a shit-load of people to play baseball anything like for-real. At minimum 15-20 people for two teams. Pretty tough to do as a kid, unless you're free to roam free all over town to gather a crew, which approximately 0% of kids have license/protection from CPS to do. 2.) You need a big enough area for a baseball diamond, where you don't have to worry about knocking out a window with a foul bal…

And let's not forget smartphones that are much funnier than hitting a ball and running!

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#44

Post by burmask »

When you fly over the US, there are thousands of baseball fields. Sadly, however, there are more options (video games, computers, etc) for how kids spend their time. Most new baseball players are in-sourced from the Dominican, Columbia, etc, too. There are still 13-15 million people playing little league in the US.

Want to see decline - take a look at US Slow Pitch Softball - http://www.athleticbusiness.com/Recreation/slow-pitch-softba...

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#45

Post by yareally »

jlgaddis wrote: post #31
yareally wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baseball, in its original form (circa 1860s and 70s) was played with a softer makeshift ball and a modified axe handle and no gloves. It was an activity a small town could play together as well as a community event where two nearby communities would come together to play. I believe the American Civil War played a part in spreading it thoughout the country in a time where news didn't travel as fast. Basketball also ca…

I'm not a big fan of baseball anymore but we watched one of these "historic" games a few years ago at a casino/resort we stay at often. It was pretty neat to watch, although it took me a bit to understand it as the rules then were significantly different from present day rules.

Oh yeah, they're quite different. I don't believe they really count strikes unless you swing and no ground rule double means that if a ball gets caught in a hole or brush, the runners almost always end up with an in the park home run.

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#46

Post by budde »

firebones wrote: post #37
w1ntermute wrote: post #19

That's because baseball is terribly boring, especially compared to football or basketball. Who wants to spend 90% of the time standing around?

That sounds like American football too. 3.25 hours of clock time, 60 minutes of a game, and 11 minutes of actual action (or closer to 96% of the time standing around.) http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/64441086/nfl-statistica... Good quote: It's curious that few complain about NFL game lengths, considering they take 13 minutes longer, more time than the 11 total minutes of actual game play during an NFL game. In o…

Setting aside personal preference and the vast differences in play between the two sports, you also need to consider the number of games played in a season. An NFL team plays 16 games in the regular season. An MLB team plays 162. While a baseball game and a football game may be similar in duration and proportion of action to dead time, a football game carries much more weight and I think this contributes to the relative popularity of the sport over baseball.

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#47

Post by rfrank »

Yhippa wrote: post #17

I get the feeling that having so many games dilutes the quality. I can't watch regular season basketball, baseball, or hockey because you get the feeling players sleepwalk through the season until it gets closer to playoff time. The playoffs of these sports are very exciting to me usually because if you don't win you're done. Add to that the idea of intentionally tanking your season so you can do well in a draft (hap…

Completely agree re: tanking a season, but ticket sales and viewership tend to drop accordingly with that strategy. 76ers tickets this year are currently less than beer in the stadium [1]. The baseball season feels absurdly long to me.

I personally only watch regular season basketball, and it's more because I love the sport than any particular game. Probably wouldn't watch if I didn't play fairly seriously once upon a time, however.

1: http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/12/8/9870812/sixers-tick...

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#48

Post by jlgaddis »

pool wrote: post #32

When my father was growing up, teenagers in the towns around were self-organizing and played baseball on their own, the guys from this town against the guys from that town. All summer. When I was growing up, the grown-ups organized everything and decided who played when, and we had...maybe ten? games in a summer, with a few practice sessions before that. It's been a while, but I have the idea that if you were good en…

Baseball was my favorite sport as a kid. I followed it very closely, had thousands of baseball cards, and could rattle off statistics for hours. I was about 15 when the strike took place, just old enough to understand what was going on and decide that I didn't like it -- it really struck me wrong and made me not care about baseball anymore. I stopped watching it and haven't cared for it since.

Re: Children Are Abandoning Baseball

#50

Post by jlgaddis »

alistairSH wrote: post #13
ColinWright wrote: post #5

Registration required - I can't care enough to bother finding an alternate source. Closed.

Use the "web" link under the title. It does the search for you. (I wish HN would rename the link, as I see these posts several times a day and it's a useful feature).

It definitely needs renamed, I didn't know about it until just a couple days ago when someone else mentioned it.
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