The Best Paragraph I've Read:
“I need you to take him.”
The father on the phone was upset. If his 10-year-old son did not make the team at the $2,500-per-season private baseball club where I coached, the boy would lose friends and the family’s routines would be upended, he argued. They would have to drive to another suburb for ball games.
Looking for a deeper, more forceful argument, the dad added: “This team is our community.”
The privatization of American youth sports over the past 40 years is one of those revolutions of late-stage capitalism that should shock us more than it does. We have commodified the play of millions of children into a $19.2 billion business, weakening volunteer-based programs that promise affordable sports for all children. It is a trend mirrored by our schools, hospitals and military. Once-proud public institutions are being privatized, with many unintended consequences.
For millions of American families, paying private for-profit clubs—euphemistically termed “travel teams”—thousands of dollars a year to organize athletic games for their children is now an unquestioned way of life that shapes family routines, work schedules and commutes. That is why I was sympathetic to the angry dad’s argument and, in the end, took his son for the team.
This paragraph comes from www.americamagazine.org. The article is titled: "How America Sold Out Little League Baseball." The article is written by John W. Miller. You can read the rest of the article here:
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/05/19/catholic-youth-sports-little-league-club-baseball-243016
Zac and Don talk about the rise of youth sports culture. They wonder if its good for parents and kids to take sports so seriously at a young age. They talk about why parents are willing to spend so much time and money on club sports. They also talk about the future of baseball in America.