Owen Giangrande

Downfall of Recreational Sports

By: Owen Giangrande

Recreation has always been a part of American history beginning when the colonists first settled in North America. Even though children in this period were needed from a young age to help provide for their growing families, kids still played games. In modern America the same cannot be said anymore; recreational activities have been consumed by parent-forced sports, depleting fun for those developing their lives (1). The organization of youth sports taking over America (actively seen in the rise and fall of baseball) has made recreation too intense and too expensive over the years, gate-keeping children from having the fun they used to have.

Early in America’s history, the Industrial Revolution brought more families out of the farms and into the cities. This meant there were more people in smaller areas, enticing more games to be played. Immigrants brought the first taste of sports in the late 18th century as they brought games from their European countries such as bowling, football, and cricket (1). Although these games were introduced during this time, they likely didn’t stick because there was no future in sports, and families' priority at this time was still survival. During the Industrial Revolution, most families chose to play games in the parlor such as cards and dominos (2). Exhaustion from long hours of work in poor conditions and the lack of space or fields to play sports gave youth sports the short end of the stick.

It wasn’t until the 1840s that organized baseball came onto the scene. Baseball became the first professional sport creating an industry for children to eventually fall into. Although baseball was the first professional sport, it was not the first organized sport in America, lacrosse predated baseball and was played by Native Americans. Baseball was created from a variation of the European game Rounders but there were no formalized rules until the 1840s (3). The first official game took place on June 19, 1846, in New Jersey (4). Five years later, the first professional baseball league was created, setting the standard for kids to play baseball as a career.

Throughout the middle of the 19th century, there was still a void for competitive youth-organized sports such as baseball, as there were only pickup or sandlot games. Towns and cities had hometown baseball heroes but there was no widespread exposure and kids didn’t know there was a future in the sport so they never made it to the professional leagues to make a career out of playing. A revolutionary move was made in 1852 when attendance was mandatory for students drawing more students together. This with the combination of creating more parks and playgrounds began the path to youth sports we currently have today. 

This rise in baseball which ultimately led to the increase in youth organized sports was not steady though. The history of baseball has a long connection with the history of wars in America. In the Civil War, children themselves entered the war as there was no age limit in the Confederacy as to who was allowed to fight. Those children who did stay behind played War in the playgrounds, imitating soldiers instead of playing games such as baseball (5). The children and teens that were in the war got to experience baseball for themselves as several sources confirm that soldiers played baseball when they were not fighting or training (6).

It wasn’t until 1880 that baseball leagues were first created for those who were described as pre-teens or under the age of twelve. In this decade the first official leagues were provided for children of this age range, but they did not flourish as they were small teams affiliated with the adult club teams. So the dominant form of youth-organized sports in this period was still pickup baseball played with sub-par gear that children were lucky enough to get their hands on. The rise of sandlot games began in the late 19th century as well. These sandlot games did not have formal rules but they did have an important stamp on what to become of youth sports (7). These sandlot games didn’t even have shapes or forms; it was just kids getting together and having fun, something that got lost later in American history. Despite not playing baseball themselves women also had a role in the developing game. It was the women's role in this age to attend games to drown out the sound of all the men who screamed and chanted at games. The hope of this was to take out masculinity making the game more civilized (8). 

Youth baseball became official and thrived although at the beginning of the 20th century. It is also in this century that women had a more active role in baseball. In 1903 the Public Schools Athletic League came to fruition, making school sports a normality. From this league, there were official contests formed by adults for children to play in. Not only did this beginning of youth sports instill American values into children they also were a reason to keep kids in school and away from the streets. At the beginning of the 20th century, these organized programs were mainly available to private schools, but soon after youth programs would be almost accessible to all ages.

A rich baseball community rose in Keene and neighboring towns in New Hampshire where various youth and adult teams commenced. Teams were created for towns, schools, stores, and even factories. Barnstormers appeared in the early 20th century as well. Barnstormers were travel ball teams who would go to other locations like Keene to play competitive games (9).

Community-based sports programs sponsored by the YMCA, Boys, and Girls Club, and community centers emerged around the 1920s and 1930s allowing kids of all economic classes to play sports. At the same time privately, owned companies like Little League were created to facilitate baseball. The original goal of Little League was to teach children valuable life skills but also to give players a spotlight and path to eventually becoming professional baseball players (7). This was the first time in American history that pay to play sports rose, starting the downfall of how parents pay for sports nowadays. Because of the insertion of pay to play many lower-class poor children were taken out of organized sports. This was the beginning of the end some would say. From this point on the game of baseball progressively got more controlled by parents as power fell out of the hands of kids (10).

  Little League baseball was established in 1938 but didn’t take off until almost a decade later when leagues were created not only for those in Pennsylvania but for all kids across the United States. Ten years later, Little League hosted its first Little League World Series. The pay-to-play aspect of youth sports was only beginning to happen with Little League baseball but the price to play would continue to increase over the years (7).

Youth sports boomed in the 1950s and 1960s as baby boomers followed America's victory in World War II. In these decades the United States government believed in investing in youth sports, so they passed the National Youth Sports Program in 1961. The point of this program was to make youth sports more accessible to all, but the ones with money in their pockets already had an unfair advantage. Economic classes became a major factor in who did or did not get to play on exclusive travel baseball teams (10). These pay-to-play supervision sports required money and a good amount of it. The pay-to-play genre of baseball got so bad that organizations like Under Armor have tried to combat high prices to allow children of all ages and economic backgrounds to play. 

Scholarships for athletic performance became every athlete’s dream in the 1970s. The platform for children in baseball to get scholarships and become a professional came from Carl Stotz’s founding of Little League Baseball. This wasn’t only the athletes' dream though, it was also the parents' dream. Parents statistically felt more achieved when their children went to college with sports scholarships. 

Since the 1990s there has been a phenomenon in youth sports named single sport specialization. This happens when parents and children believe that they will be more likely to get scholarships or go professional by playing only one sport. This idea shot down youth participation rates that skyrocketed post World War II. In a study done recently in 2018, “About 27 percent are involved in only one sport, according to the National Council of Youth Sports. Increasingly, they're training or competing year-round, often on multiple teams. Kids as young as 7 years old may join travel leagues in addition to school-sponsored programs.”(11). Single sport specialization likely began because in the 1990s there was an increase in the number of national championships for youths in all different sports. 

Another aspect that needs to be considered is also the increase in youth injuries because of sports. This drive to get scholarships beginning in the 1970s has driven kids past their physical ability resulting in numerous injuries across sports. Here is a credible source talking about how sports have changed and how injuries have increased by the change in how children and American parents view youth sports.