Illusions

The article in the September 4, 2017 edition of Time “Kids Sports Inc.” was a modern day recipe for adults wishing to escape from reality by illusion. According to the article, the child’s recreation league is now a $15 billion industry. Yes, I’m old-school. When I was a kid, playing sports was essentially for kids. For instance, if I wanted to play baseball, football, or hockey, I either went over to my neighbor’s homes looking for my friends to play or I went to the elementary school playground to find a pickup game. When I got a little older, I put together a team; visited businesses to donate money so I could buy team jerseys; and entered the recreation league. It seemed so simple in those days. All one needed back then was a few friends, mitt, ball, bat and a field to play either softball or hardball. The Time magazine article focused on one 10-year-old boy playing baseball. The boy stated he was working hard. He has a $15,000 batting cage in his backyard; his father paid $100 per hour for pitching lessons, $100 per hour for hitting and $100 per hour for fielding instruction. His father had already spent over $30,000 on his son’s baseball sport. His father rationalized and said baseball was his son’s passion. Sure! I will bet that that his son, at his age, doesn’t know anything about passion. Other troubling statistics in the magazine article were as follows: 1. the odds of playing the MLB after high school are 1 in 764. These odds are much better than playing basketball. 2. The odds of playing in the NBA are 1 in 1860? 3. By the way, the odds of playing in the NFL are 1 in 603. To Be Continued