Suburban T-ball: everything that's wrong with child sports

[George the original one]

"But, when I looked around, I immediately realized I had failed my son. Many of his new teammates were sporting sparkling, rain resistant baseball pants and athletic shirts and had equipment bags that would have made them look entirely comfortable showing up at spring training in Arizona."

http://cni.pmgnews.com/lor/52-sports/26 ... for-t-ball

[Laura Ingalls]

Any baseball or softball before about six is just developmentally inappropriate. My SIL didnt like that assertion she signed her kids up up at 3

Its still painful to watch until about the paticipants are about 10

[Dragline]

Yeah, I would suggest steering the kids towards more active sports, like soccer or basketball, that take less time and involve more basic movements. Baseball was quite tedious when my kids played, both for them and for us watching.

I think the really junior stuff is just pablum/enticement to try to get kids to keep with it later. The "war of attention" for sports -- and everything else -- begins earlier and earlier.

There is no real magic to baseball, despite the commercialization and "national pastime" monikers. Baseball was founded as a rural game, with unusually shaped fields of play (also a very English tradition). In the last 80 years, standardization has become much more popular. But watch a televised football game from the stands these days and all you will see is mostly people standing around waiting for the commercials to end.

The historical popularity of various sports tells you only that it changes rather quickly from generation to generation. The idea that particular sports are timeless or necessary to culture is just a myth. Cycling or boxing could just have easily become the "national pastime" if you looked at their popularity in the early 20th century.

[Ego]

This is part of a larger overall phenomenon where seeming is becoming (has become?) more important than being. In this case, seeming like a good parent vs. actually being one. A nice clean uniform is a signal of supposed good parenting. Doesn't matter what's true. What matters is what appears to be true.

Everyone would be better off teaming up to make a catapult in the backyard or playing stickball in the rain.

viewtopic.php?p=77026#p77026

[jennypenny]

Don't get me started on this topic!

Like others have said, the best thing to do is steer your kids away from equipment-heavy sports. Mine do track, soccer, swimming, and MMA/boxing. Some schools/clubs are better than others. My son's HS is pretty good about keeping costs down. Their gym uniform is a tech shirt and shorts, so it acts as the freshman team uniform in many sports and the coverup for sports like swimming and wrestling. They changed the gym sweatshirt to a nice zip fleece, so it acts as a team jacket for most sports. The PTA hosts swap shops throughout the year to help with equipment. Freshman are told not to buy any equipment (for sports like football and lacrosse). They want the kids to try the sports before investing in equipment.

My feeling is that if I'm going to invest a bit of money in a sport, I'd rather it was for one that they could continue as an adult like golf, tennis, or cycling. I'd rather buy DS16 a $200 set of used golf clubs than football pads. He might use the clubs 20 years. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for organized sports. The kids can learn a lot. The trick is finding a balance between cost, benefit, and interest level.

BTW ... My son (who's now in HS) made an academy soccer team at 9yo. When we went to the first meeting, they told us the buy-in (per year) was $1500 and the uniform package was $500 (again, per year). Those fees didn't include travel, tournament fees, or camp fees. We said thanks, but no thanks, we'll just keep him in intramurals. The coach couldn't believe it and told us DS would never be good enough to play even HS-level soccer because he wouldn't develop like the academy kids. Well, not only did he make his HS team, but he just had his first interview with a Div II college team. And trust me, it's not because he's a spectacular athlete or I'm a spectacular coach. It can be done. Don't feel pressured to participate out of fear that you're handicapping your kid's future.


@Ego--That post LOL. I like pick-up games better not only because it encourages creativity, but also because it forces the kids to learn to work out the rules and enforce them while playing. The clubs all make the kids sign Code of Conduct agreements at the start of every season. While I totally get why they do it, I also think something is lost when the code of conduct isn't allowed to develop organically based on the participants involved. Important skills aren't being developed. I always think that's why businesses are forced to have those nutty bonding retreats for employees. Adults have to go and 'play' to learn skills they should have learned as kids.

[champ0608]

I ran cross country and track in high school. And while we didn't have much equipment we HAD to buy, there was a lot of peer pressure to constantly be buying new shoes. You weren't cool unless you had trainers, training flats, cross country spikes, mid distance spikes, and long distance spikes. On top of that, a lot of kids wouldn't wear their main spikes to more than a couple meets. They'd easily spend $1000 or more per year on shoes. I got a lot of flak for only owning two pairs of running shoes.

[Tyler9000]

The coach couldn't believe it and told us DS would never be good enough to play even HS-level soccer because he wouldn't develop like the academy kids.

Aaaand that's when you know it's all marketing. The degree to which companies use kids to extract money from their parents is amazing to watch.

I was not the athlete in the family. I was the artist/musician. Even then, I remember turning down a fairly prestigious performing group one year because I could not afford the several hundred dollars in clothing required (I got a summer job to afford it the next year, a good learning experience in itself). I also remember a fundraiser for the choir to earn money for an expensive trip to NYC where they signed up parents for paid medical testing. Seriously.

[jacob]

I think we could make a parallel thread for adult sports except that instead of equipment expenses, it would be time expenses at a $7/hour rate.---But same ridiculous conclusion.

However, given the extraordinary rate of obesity and cost of healthcare in the US, maybe it's worth it?

If I had kids I'd be willing to pay a lot/overpay to avoid the risk of instilling a sedentary mentality. Sitting on your ass all day is the body-killer.

PS: The alternatively is to think of sports as a voluntary/get together activity regardless of age. That can be done for very little money down regardless of age.

[Kriegsspiel]

I think, if you want sanity, move out of Portland to the midwest somewhere. Shit gets retarded the closer to the coasts you get.

[7Wannabe5]

Ego said: This is part of a larger overall phenomenon where seeming is becoming (has become?) more important than being. In this case, seeming like a good parent vs. actually being one. A nice clean uniform is a signal of supposed good parenting. Doesn't matter what's true. What matters is what appears to be true.

Everyone would be better off teaming up to make a catapult in the backyard or playing stickball in the rain.

So true. I had the great good fortune of having no brothers and a frustrated jock of a father who liked to play. So, almost every evening and most weekends, my sisters and I were running and screaming, because we were being tossed into boxes, lakes and down snowy hills. There was a yearly seasonal rotation of ice skating, snowball fights and fort building, kite flying, bicycling, croquet, badminton, swimming etc. etc. My third sister actually turned out to be a bit of a natural athlete, but the other three of us were hopelessly uncoordinated nerds who were unable to ever learn how to properly throw a ball, and we were constantly whining for cocoa or soda, but now still decades later, we can't not go outdoors and do something most days. (Of course, nod to Freud, this will also result in raising daughters who decades later are still evaluating their potential mates on likely ability to toss them about. He also taught us how to read and how to play cards and gamble and took us to concerts and the theater and the library and bought us trains and race tracks and other boy toys that he liked. I've been thinking about this lately because I think my problem with relationships might be that I was spoiled in my youth because most men are just not as much fun as my dear old Dad was (sigh) )

[Scrubby]

My third sister actually turned out to be a bit of a natural athlete, but the other three of us were hopelessly uncoordinated nerds who were unable to ever learn how to properly throw a ball, and we were constantly whining for cocoa or soda, but now still decades later, we can't not go outdoors and do something most days.

A bit late for you, but I read somewhere that a lot of girls don't lock their wrist when they throw. Almost all boys do this naturally. If girls are taught to do it they won't throw much shorter than boys.

[7Wannabe5]

Scrubby said: A bit late for you, but I read somewhere that a lot of girls don't lock their wrist when they throw. Almost all boys do this naturally. If girls are taught to do it they won't throw much shorter than boys.

Interesting and likely true. My wrists are definitely the weak link in my chain. How do you lock them? I remember once reading that men are often not as good at activities such as frosting cakes and fine needlework for the opposite reason. My gentleman father rarely lost his temper, but when my youngest sister once asked him why he didn't teach us how to throw, he went into a rage. He also would get quite cranky when we couldn't remember which large feline played baseball vs. football, and he loved the movie "Bad New Bears" because he could so relate to the Walter Matthau character. One of our family jokes was that he was the opposite of over-protective about the boys/men we dated because he was so happy if anybody he could talk to about sports would show up on a holiday. Unfortunately, his first three grandchildren were also total nerds ( but he got used to rooting for a win at such events as the state finals for the National Geography Bee) and he died before the younger ones became champion athletes. I should also note for the record that even in 1970s suburbia, a middle-class child such as myself, did take lessons in swimming, bowling, tennis, ballet, tap, jazz, scouting, arts and crafts, drama, girls' friendly society, ice skating, etc. etc. so this tendency is not new. Pretty much we were expected to grow up to be lawyers who could play a decent game of tennis while looking cute in a little skirt and maintaining a tastefully appointed home. It's sort of interesting and amusing at mid-life to observe the ways in which we all varied from or achieved those standards over the years.

[enigmaT120]

I think, if you want sanity, move out of Portland to the midwest somewhere. Shit gets retarded the closer to the coasts you get.

Too big of a paint brush.