Is baseball an elitist sport?

Baseball is not an elitist sport. If it was, I would not have been spending so much of my springtime evenings watching my two boys play baseball and my daughter play softball over the last 10 years. There are probably more kids involved in baseball than any other sport.

So why do you not see pickup games anymore? I played when I was a kid. But I believe today's world is different. There are so many creeps and weirdos out there that we do not allow our kids the freedom that we had. You can play basketball, football, or soccer in your back yard, but you can't play baseball. You have to go find a field, and I think that's where the difficulty is. In today's world, I can not allow my 12-year-old to ride his bike 2 miles to the nearest baseball field.

Our society has changed as well. Sports has become more about how you can show off your ability and get in your opponent's face. In basketball, that's slam dunking the ball and hanging on to the rim while screaming your lungs out. In football, it's spiking the ball when you score a touchdown (the closer to your opponent the better) and then performing some off-the-wall antic to play up to the crowd. You can't do that in baseball. Why? Because in the field, you may only get a ball hit to you a few times. You will only get to bat 3-5 times. There is no room for hotdogging. That's baseball's culture. That's why it has lost popularity with many older youth.

Baseball still is America's pastime. If you don't believe me, check out attendance numbers over the course of a season. Good teams will draw 3,000,000 fans at home over a season. Attendance at MLB games has been going up. I believe you will start to see a shift away from football and basketball at the professional level as peopple get more fed up with baloney that goes on. Other than the playoffs, I watch very little of the NFL, and until the NBA Finals this season, I hasn't watched the NBA in 20 years (I admit to being intrigued by the Celtics/Lakers matchup).

Can you tell I'm a bit passionate about this??

I will die with a baseball game going on in my head. I love this game. But, just as a father can look at his children with cold logic, baseball is an elitist sport, yes. Things have changed. Little league is awful with parents berating their children and bashing the coaches and bawling out the umps. Kids play catch these days with a football because a baseball and two gloves is $250. I am glad players are finally getting a fair salary, but they act like it. Playing 135 games or starting 27, and then whining. I don't know. The grassroots is gone. It used to be when I'd go out to the park for a pick up game fully half the kids were black. Those kids aren't there anymore. Priced out. I love baseball. I love it. But the game has gone Hollywood.

I agree that part of it is that there are more options for kids these days (wrestling, lacrosse, football, basketball, video games, skateboarding, snowboarding, etc.)

Also, at least where i live, you couldn't play a pickup game of baseball without a team to be there practicing or having a game. They have Fall, Summer and Spring leagues where I live and it's a metropolitan area so there are all kinds of leagues trying to use a limited number of fields.

Plus its cheap to join organized sports. A youth league might only cost 50 or 60 bucks to join and that gives kids a controlled environment with adult supervision, safter measures (helmets) and umpires to call a fair game (or at least try). Combine all of these factors and you get a sport that's not as attractive to play "pick-up" games like you can with basketball or touch football.

Oh, Yeah!! Sure.

A very small group of eighty million or more people in The USA like or play baseball, and or attend baseball games. Probably another "elite" group of eighty million or more people world wide are crazy about baseball.

This kind elitism has got to stop. Down with a sport loved by "millions".

C'mon, get real.

No, it's not the National Pastime anymore. The ball diamonds in my town sit empty everyday. Thirty years ago, those same parks were full. In a lot of ways, you're correct. These kids are so busy with practices, they never get a chance to go to a park without their parents and learn how to play and think. That's cheating the kids.

what are you talking about? There been littleleauge to acutally play regular games.

no a quick 30 minute game with friends. that dont last long. ESPN cover it

There litle leauge, cal ripken minor, cal ripken, major

baberuth baberuth senior leauge

high school baseball college base ball.

Times are changing.