BATTER UP!

[LizzieMaine]

In addition, there seems to have been a pro-active effort to move kids from baseball to soccer. Clearly, there is a cost advantage - but the country, overall, became richer not poorer over this period - so something else had to be driving it.

Growing up (I'm the same age as you are), from playing pick up games - as you note - to school and community efforts (Little League was almost a community religion), most were centered on baseball with soccer an afterthought. Now, there are almost no pick-up games as all activities are structured, but for those, soccer seems to dominate.

How did this happen? Who made this decision? Why did "they" decide to switch?

I think the biggest part of it is that soccer is cheaper for schools to run than baseball -- a baseball field is more complicated to build and maintain than a soccer pitch, and more equipment is required for baseball. All you need for soccer is a ball and a couple of nets. This is a very big deal in a small town school district, where every nickel is haggled over at budget time.

Another part of it is that there just aren't as many places for kids to play random pickup baseball anymore. In my neighborhood we had several vacant lots to play, as well as the street, but those lots are all built up now. And today's parents would be struck dead before letting their kids play anything in the street.

I never heard of soccer growing up. We had girls' field hockey, but soccer was not a big deal to anyone I knew forty years ago.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Stadium admission prices are dear. Last season, a Cubs-fan manager married to a White Sox fan who lives in Chinatown near Sox park
told me her husband adamantly refuses to visit the stadium due to the exorbitant cost.

I bought three tickets this year to the cheapest section of the right field grandstand at Fenway. Cost me about $120 for the lot. When I sat in those same seats in 1970, they were $3 each. Even with inflation, that's exorbitant.

 

[Fading Fast]

I bought three tickets this year to the cheapest section of the right field grandstand at Fenway. Cost me about $120 for the lot. When I sat in those same seats in 1970, they were $3 each. Even with inflation, that's exorbitant.

I think the biggest part of it is that soccer is cheaper for schools to run than baseball -- a baseball field is more complicated to build and maintain than a soccer pitch, and more equipment is required for baseball. All you need for soccer is a ball and a couple of nets. This is a very big deal in a small town school district, where every nickel is haggled over at budget time.

Another part of it is that there just aren't as many places for kids to play random pickup baseball anymore. In my neighborhood we had several vacant lots to play, as well as the street, but those lots are all built up now. And today's parents would be struck dead before letting their kids play anything in the street.

I never heard of soccer growing up. We had girls' field hockey, but soccer was not a big deal to anyone I knew forty years ago.

You are correct. The internet handy dandy inflation calculator says $3 in '70 is about $19 today. Hmm, methinks major league baseball has increased its prices a bit more than the general level of inflation. I really enjoy going to games, but simply don't find I enjoy them enough to justify the cost.

Now, let's connect two dots: Major League baseball costs a stupid amount more in constant dollars than it did in 1970, but we don't have (or don't want to) spend enough to support baseball as a sport for kids today, but did in 1970 and for many decades before that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Some of it I can understand -- the cost of players is more today, and the cost of maintaining a hundred year old stadium isn't cheap. The Fenway of 1970 was a dirty, smelly, rat-infested hole -- a lot of people forget Tom Yawkey had let the place deliberately go to seed in the 1960s in hopes of blackjacking the city into building him a zippy new multipurpose donut like Cincinnati and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh got, and I'm certainly glad the city had more important things on its mind then to go along with it. And I'm grateful to the current ownership for spending what had to be spent to get the place up to code and keep it viable -- I don't want a new park, ever. But even all that doesn't account for the extreme cost -- if it's $120 for three people to get into the place, and another $50 for food and such, how are working families going to afford it as anything other than a very rare treat? And it's those working families who have always been the core of support for baseball.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

I usually get my "live" baseball fix by watching college or minor league games; they are usually a lot more affordable, and even though there's not any 'big' stars (yet), they tend to play a style of small ball, which keeps the game exciting. Not everyone swings for the fences.

Rob

 

[Harp]

I... and even though there's not any 'big' stars (yet), they tend to play a style of small ball, which keeps the game exciting. Not everyone swings for the fences.
Rob

Wilson Contreras-plays like a maniac-attempted a 9th inning bunt several weeks ago. The Cubs were desperately behind with men on base.
Small ball has its place, of course, but situational hitting needs conflicting with suicidal small stuff aroused even the acolyte chorus calling the game
over 67*AM The Score. ...Joe Maddon's fingerprints were all over this.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is the oldest surviving complete recording of a television baseball broadcast -- Game 7 of the 1952 World Series. (Game 6 also exists but is missing small portions.) Red Barber and Mel Allen call the action for NBC-TV from Ebbets Field. You'll note that the director goes to extreme lengths to avoid showing any shots of the right field wall -- which carried a big painted ad for Gem Blades, Gillette's arch rival. Mustn't make sugar daddy mad!

 

[belfastboy]

You are correct. The internet handy dandy inflation calculator says $3 in '70 is about $19 today. Hmm, methinks major league baseball has increased its prices a bit more than the general level of inflation. I really enjoy going to games, but simply don't find I enjoy them enough to justify the cost.

Now, let's connect two dots: Major League baseball costs a stupid amount more in constant dollars than it did in 1970, but we don't have (or don't want to) spend enough to support baseball as a sport for kids today, but did in 1970 and for many decades before that.

Yes, but in the 1960's ball players needed an offseason job to make ends meet. Methinks they don't need to do that any longer.
Somebody has to pay for Pablo Sandoval's contract!!

 

[Ghostsoldier]

One of the earliest known photographs of a baseball game was taken inside Fort Pulaski in 1862, and featured members of the 48th New York Volunteer Infantry.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nice to see that annoyingly long-winded pregame ceremonies are a time honored baseball tradition. But it's hard to do a flyover with an observation balloon.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

One of my favorite quotes:

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

And this one, possibly my favorite quote of all:

Rob

 

[2jakes]

http://baseballhall.org/catchers-courage
Dottie Maguire Chapman

“She owned home plate!"

 

[2jakes]

The Strangest At-Bat in History - Neatorama

Eddie Gaedel, a midget, at bat during the second game of a St. Louis Browns doubleheader against
the Detroit Tigers on Sunday, August 19, 1951.
Weighing 65 pounds and standing 3 feet 7 inches tall, Gaedel walked with four consecutive balls
before being replaced by a pinch-runner at first base. His jersey, bearing the uniform number "⅛”,
is displayed in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York.

His autograph is said to be worth more than Babe Ruth’s.

 

[2jakes]

Joe DiMaggio and the Summer of ‘41

I have other cards more expensive or valuable,
yet this card is my favorite.

Joe DiMaggio, The Streak | 1991 Score Baseball Card (#4)

 

[2jakes]

 

[2jakes]

 

[LizzieMaine]

My favorite Gaedel moment involves that promotion with the White Sox in 1959 -- where, dressed in his Martian getup, he declared to the crowd "You don't have to take me to your leader. I've already met him."

 

[2jakes]

My favorite Gaedel moment involves that promotion with the White Sox in 1959 -- where, dressed in his Martian getup, he declared to the crowd "You don't have to take me to your leader. I've already met him."

I don’t know why, I always thought you were born in the 60’s, my mistake.
Thanks for sharing my friend!

Keep ‘em coming Lizzie!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Behold the remarkable Herman "Germany" Schaefer --one of baseball's great screwballs, and the only man ever to steal first base in a major league game.

It happened on August 4, 1911 at National Park in Washington. Schaefer, playing for the Senators in a game against Chicago, had just stolen second base, with teammate Clyde "Deerfoot" Milan on third. On the next pitch, Schaefer, seemingly inexplicably, raced back to first. Confusion reigned on the field over the legality of the move, and White Sox manager Hugh Duffy ran out onto the field to discuss just what the hell was going on with umpire Tommy Connolly. In the heat of the moment, Connolly forgot to call time -- and that was all the incentive Schaefer needed to go steaming back to second, drawing a throw to second base. This time, Milan figured out what was going on, and took his cue and headed for home, but the White Sox were one step ahead of him and he was thrown out at the plate to end the game. Connolly finally had to acknowledge that there was, at that time, nothing in the rule book to prevent a runner from going back to a base he'd previously occupied -- but now there is, thanks to the actions that day of Herman "Germany" Schaefer.