I understand why some leagues shut down this year, but there has never been a time where pay to play has been a bigger barrier to entry to baseball and it’s disgusting. It’s our national pastime. Opportunities should NOT be based on your parents’ income.

Turn away if you want to. Ignore it if you want to, but we complain about all the reasons the game is being ruined except for this one. The dirty little secret is people set it up this way on purpose.

“The little league just isn’t competitive enough”. If that’s your reasoning, you missed the point of LL from the beginning. Is it really supposed to be “competitive”? Really?!

If you have that mindset, you are the problem. Community baseball CANNOT die.

“Kids just aren’t interested in baseball anymore”. Garbage statement. Kids aren’t interested in things they don’t feel connected to. They don’t feel connected because they feel the exclusion. Kids are our conscience. Baseball should not be a status symbol in this country.

What am I doing to help? I bring in kids from the district from grades 3-8 every other week for the ENTIRE offseason for FREE and we teach them the fundamentals, we make them feel like they’re a part of our COMMUNITY. We don’t exclude them because of their financial situation.

We don’t run paid camps because while, yes, we need to raise funds; we don’t need to target and exclude those kids and families who may not be able to afford it. There are plenty of other ways to make money and still give these kids an experience and make them feel included.

We avg 20-25 kids every time we hold these workouts, and as we grow the program, I’d like to see that number get up to 70-75 or more, which is completely reasonable given our size.

If you’ve made it this far. That’s what I’m doing. I’m not just complaining. I’m doing my part. Do yours.