Overgrown Sandlots: The Diminishment of Pickup Ball in the Midwest

Somewhere between the late baby boomers and the X generation, baseball seemingly lost its status as the object of spontaneous play among adolescent males. "My friends and I would get games going all the time as kids, but kids today don't," observed a Midwestern youth league coach.

At the same time, certain types of organized baseball have grown substantially during the 1990s. ¹ The characteristics and merits of both "informal" and "formal" baseball have been extensively debated. ² Some scholars have expressed concern about the erosion of pickup baseball from the cultural landscape and about the diminishment of baseball's role in the development of social skills. The extent of that erosion and its impact on "elite" youth players has been discussed little, if at all. A review of the sports sociology literature and interviews with youth baseball coaches and officials throughout the Midwest show that baseball is losing its status as a vehicle by which children and adolescents learn cooperation and negotiation and hone physical skills.

Background

According to Coakley and others, pickup, or "informal," baseball is spontaneously organized by adolescents or children without instigation or coordination by adults. ³ Rules are situational and are devised and revised by the players, depending on the number playing, the players' skill levels, and playing space (among other variables).

"Formal" games, or league games, are usually organized and officiated by adults. Games are played "by the book," with rigid adherence to rules, and league resources are "gathered, organized and dispersed by adults, with [players] having relatively little say in what should be done." ⁴

Disputes during the game must be resolved among the players in pickup baseball. In formal games, adults are the intermediaries and are usually the only ones who can challenge umpires. "In Little League, negotiation by players is unthinkable. The rules are the final authority--at least they are not allowed to be contested by the preadolescents." ⁵

Coakley says that one of the primary distinctions between formal and informal baseball, or play in general, is that the formal version is "rule-centered" while informal baseball is "action-centered." ⁶ Maintaining the action in informal games, says Coakley, depends on the players' abilities to reach decisions jointly and to manage relationships. Formal baseball, however, requires players to learn rules that are made and enforced by adults.

The formal version, of which Little League baseball is emblematic, is "a major American institution" and transmits to younger generations the "American ethos." ⁷ Through the rules and adult supervision of organized sports, young players learn cooperation and social values, say proponents of formal youth leagues. Formal play teaches players to deal with adversity and provides a sense of accomplishment and social status. ⁸ Organized ball teaches self- control and self-reliance while also stressing the importance of relying on others. "A team sport requires that the participants cooperate and sublimate some individuality for the good of the entire unit. In many ways, this is a good lesson in working and getting along with others." ⁹

However, Coakley feels that "the contributions made by participation in organized programs have been overrated by the general public and the contributions made by participation in informal games have often been forgotten or taken for granted." ¹⁰ Those contributions of informal play are numerous, scholars say. Herron and Sutton-Smith say that such play "increases the child's repertoire of responses, an increase which has potential value for subsequent adaptive responses." ¹¹ Parsons and Bales say that informal play with peers allows children to break free from the "superiority-inferiority relations" that characterize their lives with family, school, and adults in other authoritative positions. ¹² It is "only when ambiguities and differences of opinion occur as to what rule should apply [that] kids learn more general principles" necessary in the development of moral character. ¹³

In the games which...