Soccer vs Baseball fields

Same in our area. One public park that I've hunted a bit 4 baseball fields on the old aerial photos, and now has 0 baseball fields and 2 soccer fields. Seems to be the same in a lot of aerial vs modern comparisons -- either gone fallow or replaced by soccer fields.

In our area. most of the baseball fields seem to be privately owned (youth associations dating back to the 50s and 70s), while most of the soccer fields are newbuild in public parks. Lacrosse is also popular in the mid-Atlantic area, so I guess they figure they can get two sports on one field. I do however, seem to see much more baseball than soccer being actually played.

Whether on public or private land, you need a permit to use any of these fields anymore (and just recently, I saw three kids kicked off a field just for kicking a soccer ball around in a public park, as they had no permit (fortunately they didn't bother me for a permit detecting the sideline)). When I was a kid, we would just hike up to the fields and play (football or baseball in those days), and no one cared.

The times they are a changin'

Maybe the answer is economics? Baseball has to have a dirt path, a back stop, protected areas to keep players not busy fielding safe from line drives, and a few other requirements. Soccer (football, in honor of the World Cup currently going on) can be played on a sufficiently level and large area of grass, marked by chalk lines, with goals that can be moved as necessary.

Soccer requires uniforms, maybe special shoes. Baseball requires this and more, with bats, multiple balls, batting helmets, special gloves, etc. While my interest in soccer is increasing, I haven't watched a complete MLB game since the players' strike cancelled the World Series (why is it called the World Series, when only two countries are involved at most?). I'll watch college and minor league baseball, but MLB games are too expensive to go to anymore, and only recently have they been cracking down on drug abuse (though even now, it seems that the policy is 2,760 strikes and you're out), unlike the NFL where they've been cracking down on the drugs for a long while now.

Baseball is still a great game for kids. I wish the MLB players would come back to reality and see that they are being paid MILLIONS for playing a kid's game.

-- Tom

We tend to build baseball fields like crazy.We have one that has 11 and one more that has 15. both of these were made in the last five years. Our county has had a lot of land donated to it for the use of public lands.we don't have a shortage of soccer fields. We have parks with up 5 fields. Plus the public can use any of the school fields.I live in a big county so I can't tell you how many of each field we have.

On one of the new fields is were I found my 1852 three cent piece. It was a old fram that was donated for public use only. how sweet is that. Most of our parks come to us that way.

Soccer is bigger here than baseball also, don't know why though. Mere twenty some years ago when I played baseball, soccer wasn't as popular.

Nobody plays soccer here except for the immigrants. Locals want to play baseball but have no public accessible fields. Our only 3 public? baseball fields are kept locked up by the city.

If I didn't know better I'd say we were being forced to either play soccer or nothing. Almost as if our kids are being made to play soccer and forget baseball.

I used to watch ball games every night of the week. There were four diamonds and each played games until around eleven at night. Now they use two diamonds once or twice a week and only play a couple of games on each one. They use the ball diamond to practice football for the kids. The city started charging the leagues so much to play, most of them couldn't afford it. No one had ever heard of soccer when I was in school.

Having once coached baseball at the high school level and watched as soccer has taken over for kids, I'd say a good part of the reason is baseball is much harder to play beyond the little league level. There is much frustration amongst the early teens as they go up the ladder in baseball. This is evident even at a much younger age. Tee-ball was invented because kids could not even make contact with a moving pitch tossed underhand.

Today's child needs instant gratification and his parents must be able to see him active and happy right from the start. Soccer supplies this action for all it is is running and advancing a ball. Not to disparage soccer, but it is a very easy and natural game for anyone to play. They may not play it well, but at least they are still out there running and doing something.

A bad baseball player strikes out and is sitting once again. In the field he has a very good chance of never handling the ball at all each inning. And when he does have to handle it, well, good fielders are like hen's teeth. The game's demand of hand-eye is unmatched in any other sporting contest.

Personally I hate soccer but understand why kids and their parents flock to it.

OT

Soccer fields are alot easier to maintain...Less money out of the budget of the towns.
Funny, the city I live in here in Mexico probably has as many or more baseball fields than soccer fields!

zeemang said:

Soccer fields are alot easier to maintain...Less money out of the budget of the towns.

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I agree. Also, they can be used for other sports. Around here, flag football and Rugby are played on the public soccer fields.