Youth baseball participation rising

Survey: 3M more kids took up sport recently

WASHINGTON — David Fox and his wife, Mary Ann, have a rule for their sons, 11-year-old Dewey and 8-year-old Jimmy: They have to play a team sport. The kids get to choose which one. Dewey tried soccer and Jimmy had a go at flag football, but for them, nothing compares to baseball.

“They always came back to baseball,” David Fox said. “Every spring or fall we ask, ‘Do you want to try something else?’ And they say, ‘No.’ ”

Dewey and Jimmy are not alone: Over the past six years, participation in youth baseball has been on the rise.

While no one is saying the erstwhile national pastime is returning to its glory years, Major League Baseball is encouraged that kids are returning to baseball and sticking with it. From 2013-18, the number of U.S. kids playing baseball and softball combined increased by nearly 3 million, according to annual surveys by the Sports Fitness & Industry Association. During that same period, participation in soccer and football declined and basketball increased only slightly.

“The increase in baseball participation is real, there’s no question about it, and it’s substantial. It’s statistically significant without a doubt,” said Tom Cove, president and CEO of the association.

More than 25 million kids played baseball or softball in 2018, and nearly 15 million of those were “core” players who played 13 or more times in a year. The number of participants in youth football — including tackle, touch and flag — was down by nearly 1.7 million over the same stretch, and soccer participation dropped by nearly 900,000.

According to the Aspen Institute, which promotes youth sports participation and uses the association’s data, 13.6 percent of kids ages 6-12 played baseball in 2018, a 3 percent increase from 2015. Baseball was the secondmost popular sport for kids in that age group, after basketball, which had a 14.1 percent participation rate.

The 2018 numbers were released this month as 11- and 12-year-old ballplayers gathered in South Williamsport, Pa., for the annual Little League World Series.

David Fox coaches and his kids play in Washington’s Capitol Hill Little League, which didn’t even exist a decade ago. It was founded in 2011 and has grown from 120 players in its initial season to more than 640 baseball and softball players this spring.

Fox said a well-run Little League with engaged parents can build loyalty to the sport.

“My son’s group of friends are all baseball players, all kids he has ever played baseball with or continues to play baseball with, so I think the thing I love about Little League is it’s communitybased. Everybody lives on Capitol Hill, goes to their local schools and lives within a few minutes’ drive,” Fox said. “Our circle of friends are the families I coach with, the parents we’ve played with for the last five or six years. We’ve vacationed with them, go to restaurants with them. We hang out.”