So my oldest son had his first little league practice last night.

[DefenseLawyer]

He's 7, very excited about it. The coach was a nice guy, the kids were all good kids. One thing really struck me though. I'm 41, so I played little league myself back in the late 70's and early 80's. While the kids are the same and the game is the same, the thing that was different was that every kid brought not just a ball glove, but brought his own bat and even batting helmet. Way back when I played ball there was equipment that belonged to the league and was shared by the kids. Granted it was kinda old, but everyone got to use it. Now it's just sort of assumed that everyone is on his own. Of course we still pay a pretty hefty fee to play on a municipal field, but somewhere along the way they decided to stop using that money for equipment apparently. It's a small thing I know, but damn, I hate to see that "every man for himself, cause I got mine" mindset filtering down to something as community based as little league.

[pnwmom]

1. Sharing batting helmets is a good way to share head lice.

My sons never fit into the standard issue helmets anyway.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. Wuh-Wuh!

[tridim]

17. LOL

[SidDithers]

14. +1...

our league supplies 4 batting helmets for each team, along with 4 bats, about 2 dozen used balls, and catchers equipment. But we recommend that players bring their own helmets and don't share them for reasons of hygiene.

Sid

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

20. Shave the kids heads! That's the ticket!

/

[JVS]

22. You're supposed to use your hat as a liner for the helmet.

[pnwmom]

23. So the too-small helmet would be even smaller? But that wouldn't

matter. Lice are good at crawling.

[Buzz Clik]

2. Yeah, about that. Save your money for another bat and bag.

In two years, a lot of kids will be carrying $200 bats in $100 bags.

It ain't the same game we played.

[DefenseLawyer]

6. Well yeah, that's the other thing

It's a medium sized town so, you have all kinds of kids playing. So the haves all have the newest and the best and the have nots just get by I guess, or ultimately just don't play. I already told the coach to let me know if there was anyone on the team that needed equipment that I would take care of it. The whole thing is just seems so typical of where we are as a society.

[Buzz Clik]

8. Do you folks have travelling teams in your town?

That's when the stripes really begin to show.

[jdlh8894]

15. All kids will get to play if they have equp.or not!

Where I coach , each team is given a bag w/mitts,balls,protection,bats,etc
that can be used by anyone.

[yellerpup]

3. I've seen a series of ads lately re:bats

and they were sold at a "discount" of either -$70 or -$50, depending on the bat (don't remember the brand) and was stunned that they cost over $200 each! Tell me it ain't so! You are right about the 'filter down' factor. That blows.

[Hannah Bell]

5. interesting. so kids who can't afford the equipment can't play little league?

what do they spend the money on then?

[JoePhilly]

13. Um, no.

Most city leagues for kids supply bats, helmets, balls, catching equipment.

Players have to bring their own glove, and spikes (spikes usually optional).

Children CAN bring their own bats and helmets, and catching gear. They are usually not required.

There are some leagues in which the teams travel and are paid for not by the town or city, but by the players and their families (maybe some local business sponsors). Those often require that your kid pay for almost all of their own equipment.

[Hannah Bell]

35. i'm asking the op.

[ieoeja]

7. I suspect fear of lawsuits is the real reason.

They are afraid someone will sue if the provided item, helmet or bat, is defective and someone gets hurt.

[seabeyond]

9. son, 13, did first baseball this year. kept telling me he needed a bat. dad and i kept telling

him, no you dont. they always have a bag of bats....

we were wrong. had to buy a bat.

got off him using his fathers mitt

i hear ya....

[SoCalDem]

10. When our son played club soccer, it about killed us..

The fees were bigtime, and we had travel expenses too, since they played all over the place. They had to have different shoes for different turf....one place they played was on the polo fields and their shoes were checked by staff there before they could take the field.. those damned shoes cost us about $150.00..

the fees for the Club team ran about $1k a year (this was circa 1993-97), and of course weekend tournaments in San Ysidro & Sacramento & lots of other places came with a price tag too.. Then we had the ankle braces & shin guards & of course the routine treips to the ER :(..

Kids sports are no longer kids sports:(

[LisaM]

11. League fees have gotten out of hand

I played softball in Seattle for a number of years, and the fees for the fields just kept rising and rising (and we got less for it - fewer ballfield attendants, less field grooming). The final straw was when they outsourced the league director position. We were paying way more for fewer games, a league director was was never there or completely unaviable, no one to track the scores/standings on the field, plus we were paying some daycare fee for the community center. They effectively killed slow pitch softball in Seattle.

Re the bats - the coach should insist that they share.

[DefenseLawyer]

16. Well I assume no one is going to turned away if he doesn't have his own bat

I know they won't on my kid's team because he'll share his or we will bring extras if necessary. I guess the point is that the "norm" now is that everyone is on his own.

[JVS]

26. If I were a coach, I'd strongly encourage the kids to have their own bat.

If there were a kid who couldn't afford it, I'd lend him a bat for the season. My reasoning is that he should be practicing his swing at home and with the same bat that he'll be using while in the game.

[DefenseLawyer]

29. Then I'm glad you aren't the coach

You sound a little intense for the 6 and 7 year olds, coach. Hopefully they are just trying to have fun at that age and run to the right bag if they happen to hit it.

[ipfilter]

31. Most teams share a composite bat now.

Those bats get "hotter" the more they are hit. So, more hitters = hotter bat as the season goes. I think USSSA is going to outlaw those next year and they probably should. We have a -10 composite that is getting hot right now. We had a 12 year old hit a 250ft dinger with it last week.

[tridim]

12. My dad was a coach and he had to buy a lot off that stuff himself

The rest of the cost came from local sponsors who paid a fee in exchange for advertising on the uniforms.

[barbtries]

18. and what about the kids

whose parents can't afford all that? my children were in little league and they all had their own gloves. helmets, bats, even uniforms as i recall, were provided by the league. and it's a good thing, because i was a poor single mother.

[TornadoTN]

19. Our league provided the bare minimum - and shoddy stuff at that

I coach my sons little league team and usually the league provides enough stuff to get the team started, so anyone that doesn't have the gear will have something to use. This year apparently they went away from that and basically gave us a load of 20 year old stuff. We patched some of it up but most of it will stay in the bag. Yet the league still wants us to donate and fund raise while essentially getting nothing in return aside from use of the fields and placement on a team. I've asked and they claim it's because of liability issues, which I'm sure are real and expensive, but for the entire league to just be turned on it's head like that?

I went out and bought my team new equipment and uniforms completely out of my pocket. When I played little league, we always had nice uniforms at the very least and that was something of a source of pride for all of the kids who played. A couple of the other coaches did the same, but I still feel bad for the teams who can't afford it. Next year I think we're going to pool our resources and get parents involved so we can make our money spread further throughout the teams so all of the kids get to experience Little League like we used to as kids.

[JVS]

27. Does the league play for officiating?

[Erose999]

21. Our team had 2 helmets, one for the batter and one for the on-deck . Nobody got lice. You only wear

the helmet for 30 seconds or so before its passed on. Bats were communal.

The only thing a kid needed to bring was a glove, and even in that case there were 2 or 3 gloves that belonged to "the team" that anyone could use.

[pnwmom]

24. Do you think everybody that gets lice announces it to the world?

[Erose999]

33. Good point, but you'd notice them scratchin' ad stuff, I would think. anyway, I never got lice

during the time I played little league ball. But I had gotten them once before that. And my little sister had them a couple of times and she never played sports. Its just a part of being a kid and going to public school in a poor rural community.


I guess parents are more uptight about that sort of thing now. As a side job I work in concessions at the county rec dept. during the girls softball tournaments. Those kids are all outfitted with professional looking uniforms, have their own helmets, their own bats, all sorts of equipment, etc. and the teams travel in from all over the state and pay hundreds of dollars to enter the tournament, on top of the $8 for each person to enter the park. I guess they don't have little league for girls so these tournaments fill that need, but its just crazy how much these tournaments cost... in time and money. The will usually start at 8am and play until the final bracket game at 10 or even 11. The winning team will have played 7 or 8 games in the course of one day. And some of these tournaments last 2 or even 3 days

[Keith Bee]

25. I got booted from Little League after less than one inning

I was my team's starting pitcher, and gave up three bunt homers before they yanked me.

[JVS]

28. I bowled over a kid who stood in the baseline. Refs didn't like it.

My coach had us leave the game in protest.

[ipfilter]

30. 12U coach here. You should see the back of my car.

I have about $1000 in baseball bats and equipment sitting in there. One of our "team" bats was $300. I didn't buy the gear - I'm not made of money - but I help coach and get stuck lugging the stuff all over the state.

As far as the leagues go....it's expensive to run a baseball league. I've been to board meetings for our local league and the amount of money that goes out is staggering. The biggest expenses are paying umpires, insurance, and field maintenance. If we had to provide equipment the registration fee's would double. So, the parents could either pay the league more or just buy their own gear. Nobody's making any money running a league other than the cities' take of concessions.

[Erose999]

34. The umpires in GA have a union. Which is pretty rare since we're a right to work state.

I work a side job at the county rec. I think the umps make something like $50 a game. Which ain't bad considering they can work one of our weekend tournaments and umpire from 6 to 10 games a day.

Field maintenance is expensive... here they treat the kids games like they are major league. Any sign of rain and out comes the quick-dry. Fields leveled and re-marked before every game. etc.

The people organizing the tournaments are the ones making the money. The county charges maybe $1500 per day renting out the ball complex. They spend nearly that on payroll and supplies, especially if its wet and they toss out a lot of quick dry and spend a lot of hours on maintenance. The county makes all of its money on concessions, maybe $3 grand in a weekend.

From what I've seen, its the organizers of the tournaments who are making the money. All they have to do is pay the rec to rent the fields, pay the umps, keep insurance in case of liability, and collect $$$ entry fees from the teams. They charge each team an tournament entry fee of several hundred dollars, and then on top of that they also charge an $8 admission fee for every person entering the park. And they make $$$ from t-shirt sales too.

[walldude]

32. Good luck... I had one baseball player

he played about 5 years in Little League, same situation, we had to pay for everything.

When the 6th year came and I asked my son if he wanted to play again he said.. and I quote: "Only if no parents come to the games".

Sports is great fun for kids right up till the parents get involved.