By James Pethokoukis
Not every problem has a solution. Or at least not every problem has a solution that wouldn’t be worse than the supposed problem itself. Or maybe even much of a solution at all. Example: The rise of for-profit travel baseball and its impact on traditional volunteer youth leagues. This is the subject of a piece by John W. Miller in America (The Jesuit Review) magazine, “How America Sold Out Little League Baseball.” As Miller writes,
The privatization of American youth sports over the past 40 years is one of those revolutions of late-stage capitalism that should shock us more than it does. . . . In the United States, baseball is becoming a mostly white country-club sport for upper-class families to consume, like a snorkeling vacation or a round of golf.
I have no doubt that Miller is correct that pricey travel baseball has undermined Little League, as well as Babe Ruth and Pony League baseball, and made the sport less inclusive. There’s also been long-time concern by Major League Baseball about the decline of black players at the pro level and black participation in youth baseball. One thing I never thought about is how the siphoning of the best players by travel baseball affects the viability of free, volunteer leagues:
A good example is pitching—youth baseball relies heavily on the skill of its pitchers. Without strike-throwers or fielders to back them up, baseball is absurdist slow-motion theater starring one pitcher hurling pebbles to the backstop. The rise of privatized sports has drawn the best pitchers away from volunteer-based leagues, raising the likelihood that a local recreational team lacks the skills needed for a decent game, driving average players to find other sports or to quit. Or, if they can afford it, to seek out private clubs.
That said, lots of kids still play regular baseball at their local parks with teams managed by local moms and dads. Miller notes that although the share of American kids ages 6 to 12 who play baseball has declined to 12.2 percent in 2020 from 16.5 percent in 2008, some 3.4 million still play the National Pastime, second only to basketball (4.1 million) among team sports.
Now, about this “late capitalism” business. I’m not sure that angle really adds much here. Americans are richer than they used to be. Median household income after taxes and government transfers increased by 64 percent between 1980 (about the last time I played youth baseball) and 2016. (The numbers are similar for those in the bottom fifth of the income distribution.) So it’s not shocking that Americans might spend more on youth sports, especially if they think it might lead to a college scholarship or an MLB gig where the average salary is more than $4 million a year. I’m reminded of a 2016 piece by Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh that offers a reality-based reminder that life indeed can be unfair and poses a question: How far is society willing to go as it pursues greater equality and social mobility:
No chess grandmaster can out-think an upper-middle-class couple trying to rig life for its spawn. This awesome ingenuity is what you are up against, Prime Minister. If you want a “truly meritocratic Britain”, not just a slightly more meritocratic one, you must bring something mightier to the cause than a tweak to school admissions criteria. The policy is not too controversial, it is not controversial enough.
The state would have to curb personal freedom, even human nature, to make downward mobility a serious risk for people born to rich parents. Would voters support confiscatory taxes on inheritance and lifetime gifts, the criminalisation of nepotism, the regulation of work experience, tutors and other kinds of “soft” cheating? Would the well-off pay taxes for universal public services if schools in poor districts had much smaller class sizes than those in their own coveted catchment areas? The rich compound their privileges by marrying each other: what chance government diktat in matters of the heart?
To spell out the reforms is to see their political unthinkability. Almost everybody talks a good game about social mobility and almost nobody means it. They want a world in which their kin cannot move down, or even feel the shiver of insecurity at the prospect. This impulse is entirely natural but it should not be cloaked in a pretence of concern for fairness and merit.
Most parents will do whatever it takes to help their kids. And again, it’s not as if the MLB is unaware of the issue. Last year it announced it was making a $150 million investment in the Players Alliance, a nonprofit organization comprised of active and former major league players who are trying, among other things, to increase the participation of black youth in baseball. Also, maybe the travel sports phenomenon is a passing thing. Perhaps parents will get tired of the cost and grind of travel sports — and maybe realize kids playing a variety of sports throughout the year is better for them both physically and mentally.
The post Capitalism Isn’t Hurting Little League Baseball appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.