Turn out the lights, the party's over

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

I think the problem isn't with the kids, it's with the asinine parents. I mean WTF some of these people are thinking at a 7 year-old's TEE BALL game is beyond me.

 

I agree kids need to understand both how to win or lose, but at 7? Come on man.

[EastRochBillsfan]

Baseball's a dying sport and the lockout had little to do with getting people back. It's economic model has doomed that sport not their strike year. That's pretty easy to see at the youth level where kids could mostly care less about baseball anymore.

 

I cant speak for anyone else, but i have not come back to baseball ever since the strike. I'll watch a little here and there and some playoffs/world series. But the strike really turned me off to baseball. I guess it's a good thing seeing how I like the Mets.

 

Anywho, I am a fan off football more however, and I don't think this labor dispute will have any affect on supporting my BILLS.

[Wagon Circler]

I coached rec league soccer in my town from 7-8 year olds to teenagers. My experience is that the kids almost never cared what the score was or what the team's record was. Only the parents (and me) cared about that. The kids just wanted to learn the game and have fun. I figured out that is what rec league is for -fun.Let the kids have fun.I think age 10 presents plenty of time to teach about winning and losing.

If you think you are sitting on the next superstar- find a travel team.Just make sure you're kid is still having fun with 3x/week practices.

[Jauronimo]

I coached rec league soccer in my town from 7-8 year olds to teenagers. My experience is that the kids almost never cared what the score was or what the team's record was. Only the parents (and me) cared about that. The kids just wanted to learn the game and have fun. I figured out that is what rec league is for -fun.Let the kids have fun.I think age 10 presents plenty of time to teach about winning and losing.

If you think you are sitting on the next superstar- find a travel team.Just make sure you're kid is still having fun with 3x/week practices.

 

As a parent isn't it your responsibility to live vicariously through your child, and project all of your own failures and disappointments onto them? Children are a parents' second chance to achieve all the things they weren't able to do when they were young. Another chance at the pros. Do you really want to deprive someone of their parental right to ruin a child in pursuit of their own vain glory?

[dib]

As long as there's NCAA football I'll be Ok. Heck I'll probably be better.

[dpberr]

While I'd absolutely hate to see it, a cancellation of the 2011 football season would probably do the league some good. As of right now, the league, it's players and owners, are locked on a course of unsustainable finances. If it takes a canceled season to strengthen the long term financial prospects of the league and its teams, so be it.

 

MLB is in serious trouble. Their business model may have been viable in 1971 and their hesitation to change it has doomed the entire business.

[Lv-Bills]

I coached rec league soccer in my town from 7-8 year olds to teenagers. My experience is that the kids almost never cared what the score was or what the team's record was. Only the parents (and me) cared about that. The kids just wanted to learn the game and have fun. I figured out that is what rec league is for -fun.Let the kids have fun.I think age 10 presents plenty of time to teach about winning and losing.

If you think you are sitting on the next superstar- find a travel team.Just make sure you're kid is still having fun with 3x/week practices.

BINGO. You have a winner. And on top of that, do some of you really think a kid who is on a winning 7 or 8 year old team will automatically make his/her high school or maybe even college team because they were 14-2 when they were 7, 8, 9, even 10 years old? They need to learn the skills necessary to play high school ball or whatever their next level is, and not worry about their wins/losses as much.

 

Too many times, you have Superdad coaching, and he lets everyone know his "little league" record while coaching, and rides the jock of one kid who can pitch and just mow everyone down. Meanwhile, the kids move on through little league 50-5 in four years but still can't throw, still don't have a clue on the proper mechanics of the swing, catch, bunt, or properly run bases (which can be as deadly a weapon for a kid than anything else).

 

It happens in every sport too. You know you are failing at a basketball or football practice if within the first two weeks of practice, a coach is already running set plays. The kids at that level usually have little to zero basic skills and coaches are already running plays......meanwhile the kids can't shoot, pass, block, take a handoff properly, run routes, etc, etc, etc.

 

But hey, the coaches little league record is 50-5 because he can manipulate the other coach during a game more. Great. Meanwhile, you'll be the parent bitching when your kid, who's been an "all star" 10 years in a row, gets cut from his/her high school team. This is especially true in big communities with limited high school roster space.

 

Ugh.

[Gordio]

As a parent isn't it your responsibility to live vicariously through your child, and project all of your own failures and disappointments onto them? Children are a parents' second chance to achieve all the things they weren't able to do when they were young. Another chance at the pros. Do you really want to deprive someone of their parental right to ruin a child in pursuit of their own vain glory?

 

 

I hope your not referring this post to me on that. I could careless if my son plays sports or not. As long as he is doing something & not wasting away in front of a computer I am fine. He loves sports. I do not push him into it or get down on him when he misses a ground ball. Ever since he could situp & crawl he had a ball in his hands. That is just the way he rolls I guess. I am glad, because I love sports & we have alot in common but other then that I am not living vicariously thru anybody. I had my sports career, I have no illusions of my son going pro. I do think there is a problem when your kid is 7/8 years old & you son him up for baseball & they do not even know how to throw a ball. I would be embarrassed if I was some of these parents because what it tells me is you as a parent can not even be bothered to teach your kids the most simplest of fundamentals of a sport that your probably forcing them to sign up for.

[Jauronimo]

I hope your not referring this post to me on that. I could careless if my son plays sports or not. As long as he is doing something & not wasting away in front of a computer I am fine. He loves sports. I do not push him into it or get down on him when he misses a ground ball. Ever since he could situp & crawl he had a ball in his hands. That is just the way he rolls I guess. I am glad, because I love sports & we have alot in common but other then that I am not living vicariously thru anybody. I had my sports career, I have no illusions of my son going pro. I do think there is a problem when your kid is 7/8 years old & you son him up for baseball & they do not even know how to throw a ball. I would be embarrassed if I was some of these parents because what it tells me is you as a parent can not even be bothered to teach your kids the most simplest of fundamentals of a sport that your probably forcing them to sign up for.

 

 

I wasn't referring to you or anyone in particular with my post. Just poking fun at all the overly involved parents: the hockey dads killing each other, the parents leaving harassing voicemails for coaches, the ones who scream at their kids while they pick dandelions and do cart wheels in the outfield. It doesn't sound like you fit into any one of those categories.

[Direhard Fan]

Goose?? The Goose went the way of the golden spoon. It was swallowed. The union people don't care about anything but their ego and the owners are laughing. Lawyers?? We need more?? Sorry- they get everything coming to them. The players are the loosers and the rookies are really the loosers. Really makes me mad.

[MarkyMannn]

What happened to Little League? Did it go out of business? Before that I remember playing in a league that had fields that progressively got bigger and the kids pitched. Lots of walks, but just as many strikeouts.

 

Soccer................seriously

[BADOLBILZ]

I understand what you are getting at here, but in all honesty, most of you guys don't understand what you are participating in. That's the problem. A rec league is just that.......a rec league. People need to understand that. You will have kids of all skill levels playing in a REC league. It's for fun. Some kids are good, most are average, and a bunch are horrible. Some want to be there, most could care less and think the playground is actually more fun, and a bunch of them have no interest in even being out there. That's called a rec league.

 

Most of you who B word and whine about being around kids in a rec league need to play travel baseball or AAU if you want heavy competition at an early level. That's about the only way you are going to get it, unless your kid can play out a rec league and make it to all stars (which is usually a joke also).

 

Rec is rec. Higher level play at baseball academies or travel ball or AAU is unfortunately the way you have to go nowadays. That's also what is helping to kill the sport. Baseball is becoming a rich kids sport. Quickly. Getting your kids out of rec programs an into travel programs is a tremendous cost. Bats are way too expensive. Etc, etc, etc. But, unfortunately, for baseball, it's becoming an upper middle class suburban sport. And even at that, it's not all that popular.

 

Baseball is declining big time. Other sports aren't. I do this for a living and have easily backed that up with numbers for the last ten years. People continue to turn the other way and act like it's not happening, but it is. A lot of high schools in the inner cities don't even field teams anymore, and if they do, they get their heads kicked in by the teams in the burbs 20-0. And those schools without teams are slowly creeping toward the suburbs.

 

It's a shame.

 

I'm not a basbell apologist, I'm a relatively casual fan of the sport. But while baseball is decreasingly popular at the youth level in the US, it's still alive and well and it's going to stay well. What other sport can you turn on any given night for 6 months per year and watch your team playing live? It's a cash cow. Furthermore, with it becoming increasingly obvious that sports like football and hockey are sending athletes to VERY early graves......a relative non-contact like baseball only stands to benefit. More relevant perhaps to your take, the argument about baseball losing it's fan base because less kids are playing may have some merit, but what percentage of football fans actually played organized football? I mean, do the math. Far more kids play organized baseball than organized football.........does that fact keep fans from loving football? Also, it seems like every kid in the country plays soccer at some point.......does that make pro soccer a huge draw? Just don't buy the argument. The MLB is fine. The superstars are mostly foreigners or children of fairly recent emigre's but I don't think it matters if the superstars are A-Rod and Pujols or Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson.

[djrocks]

Willie Nelson once sang this famous line: "Turn out the lights the party's over, they say that all good things must end".

 

I am fully prepared for no NFL this season. Truthfully, maybe the NFL needs to fail. If there is no season, I look forward to the gimmicks the owners will pull in the 2012 season to get us back to the stadiums (free jerseys for the first 1,000 people at the stadium, $10 seat days, all those 65 and over get in free, free autograph sessions with all players (past and present) immediately following the game (on the field), dollar hot dog day, winning text gets free pro-bowl tickets, dollar beer day, buy one ticket get one free day, all school age children get in free day, etc...).

 

Did I leave any gimmicks out? Oh yeah, maybe they'll allow NFL players to use steroids like the MLB did in the 1990's, to get butts in seats.

 

dream on brother nothing you said will come to fruition. they hold all the cards and as soon as here is football again the fans will come right back.

[major]

Sad to say, you are probably right.

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

I would argue that by not teaching them about winning and losing, at an age where they can certainly handle it, we are conditioning them to lose for the rest of their lives. I could be totally wrong as I do not have kids, and no woman has been able to prove otherwise in a court of law, but it seems to me that the "Everyone Wins Again" mentality for raising children is just another step in the overall pussification of America. This great Feelings Factory of ours continues to pump out generations of fragile kids who are aggressively mediocre and proud of it, because its OK to suck, and its someone else's fault that they're a loser and they should probably sue.

 

Upon closer inspection, perhaps its good that I don't have children.

 

I disagree - - we'd have a better gene pool if you had kids. 60 Minutes did an interesting piece on the phenomenon you described - - here's the video:

 

http://youdontknowish.tumblr.com/post/4996877109/viral-vid-of-the-day-60-minutes-segment-the-age

[Pilsner]

Willie Nelson once sang this famous line: "Turn out the lights the party's over, they say that all good things must end".

 

I am fully prepared for no NFL this season. Truthfully, maybe the NFL needs to fail. If there is no season, I look forward to the gimmicks the owners will pull in the 2012 season to get us back to the stadiums (free jerseys for the first 1,000 people at the stadium, $10 seat days, all those 65 and over get in free, free autograph sessions with all players (past and present) immediately following the game (on the field), dollar hot dog day, winning text gets free pro-bowl tickets, dollar beer day, buy one ticket get one free day, all school age children get in free day, etc...).

 

Did I leave any gimmicks out? Oh yeah, maybe they'll allow NFL players to use steroids like the MLB did in the 1990's, to get butts in seats.

 

I would rather follow a variation of Lord Horatio Nelson. "England (in our case Bills Nation) expects that every man will do his duty." and also, "I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me." Perhaps I have lots to learn about Willie, but all I know is Horatio Nelson rocks. Even some of his foes are to be respected.

[Buffalo Barbarian]

Willie Nelson once sang this famous line: "Turn out the lights the party's over, they say that all good things must end".

 

I am fully prepared for no NFL this season. Truthfully, maybe the NFL needs to fail. If there is no season, I look forward to the gimmicks the owners will pull in the 2012 season to get us back to the stadiums (free jerseys for the first 1,000 people at the stadium, $10 seat days, all those 65 and over get in free, free autograph sessions with all players (past and present) immediately following the game (on the field), dollar hot dog day, winning text gets free pro-bowl tickets, dollar beer day, buy one ticket get one free day, all school age children get in free day, etc...).

 

Did I leave any gimmicks out? Oh yeah, maybe they'll allow NFL players to use steroids like the MLB did in the 1990's, to get butts in seats.

 

I thought the players still used steroids... er, supplements?

 

Baseball's a dying sport and the lockout had little to do with getting people back. It's economic model has doomed that sport not their strike year. That's pretty easy to see at the youth level where kids could mostly care less about baseball anymore.

That's because baseball blows, We want to see more action in our sports which is why football took over and MMA will be the biggest sport of this century.

[akm0404]

For a dying, antiquated, failed business, baseball sure makes a heck of a lot of money and is incredibly popular. I think reports of it's demise have been popular and premature for the last 20 years or so.

[boyst]

Willie also sings that rambling party song, "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time" so maybe you're focusing on the wrong Willie song.

That was Lefty Frizzel...waa waa waa. You lose. Learn your old time country. That song is probably older then you are...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FquEEkL8B0

 

"we'll go honky tonkin, and we'll have a time,

bring along your cadilac, leave your old wreck beeeehiiiinnddddd...."

 

anyway, he also has a pretty good song called Saginaw, Michigan,

Edited May 21, 2011 by jboyst62

[ExiledInIllinois]

For a dying, antiquated, failed business, baseball sure makes a heck of a lot of money and is incredibly popular. I think reports of it's demise have been popular and premature for the last 20 years or so.

 

:thumbsup:

 

Bingo! A "hyperactive" society does have a problem with baseball. Consider this, when baseball was invented, the game was considered "lightning fast." The game is still our pastime and will always be. People complain all the want about the game... But it is still run the way American sports should be. Baseball will last, it is the other games that most likely fail because of the way they do business ("socialize").