Quote:
Originally Posted by berto9
I grew up playing baseball my whole life. Started when i was about 5, I grew up in a small town in BC, and then moved to Alberta when I was 10 years old. Once i came to Alberta I was introduced to the "Rep" Program which until that time, i had never heard of. I Continued to play Peewee AAA, Bantam AAA and Midget AAA, as well as being selected for Team Alberta in 2002-2005 and Canada in 2005. Through those years I attended 4 National Championships and am thrilled that i was a part of the first ever Alberta Midget AAA team to win the National Championships in 2004. After High school i played 2 years of college and had offers to 2 different schools in the states. Lack of interest in school (oops) and a tare in my Labrum and rotator cuff held me back.
After finishing minor baseball, i attended the Prairie Baseball Academy in Lethbridge (where i still am today). Though it was a blast and I would never take any of it back, you need to honestly, truly love the game to play even at this Jr. College level. You show up for opening day camp which starts in September, and the first week you get your ass ran off till you puke. This is where you usually see 5-20% of the guys quit. You basically stay outside on the ball diamond till it snows. Then you start the indoor training and weight training (usually end of Oct till Feb). During February and march you do a bit of traveling to play teams in the States so you can get the feel back of seeing live pitching or taking real ground balls, all before season starts in March and last till mid may (If you make playoffs).
The reason i say this is the huge time commitment playing. Think about going to school until 3, heading over to the ball diamond frm 3:30-6:30 or 7. Come home, eat, do homework, head to bed... Do that Monday to Thursday. Friday was the travel day. You hit the bus at 7am, take your (minimum) 10 hour bus ride. Play 3-5 games in that weekend (remember to bring your books with you to study in between games) Take the red eye home sunday night, get home sunday morning and do it all over again.
Basically What I'm getting at is we are not in a climate for baseball. There are Kids here who are passionate and have the utmost love for the game, but for someone like me it was very hard to stay 100% commited to the sport because basically you would train 8 or 9 months out of a year and actually compete 3 or 4 months out of the year. Indoor facilities just isn't the same as the real deal. I can see a few months of indoor training but 5 months in a row eats on you quickly.
Hopefully this post makes sense to you all, i wrote this while moving back and forth to my computer at work. I skipped the proof-reading but hopefully this contributes to the OP topic.
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The thing is that's no different than football, and football participation in Calgary is way up from when I came up in the 90's. Your season is only 4 months or so, you get your ass kicked for 4 weeks at the start of the year followed by a 10-12 week grind through the regular season, then into playoffs. Once the season's over you have maybe a couple weeks of downtime before off-season workouts start. 2-3 days a week at 7am for group workouts, your own personalized weight and cardio routine to follow, and occasional testing to make sure you're actually working out. That lasts until May, when you go through a week of spring camp ass kicking, followed by a summer of individual workouts and the occasional team workout. Then it starts out all over again.
My point is that baseball isn't any different than any other sport, at least not at the higher levels, when it comes to the commitment and work that you have to put in, so that really can't be a reason for the low numbers. I don't know what the reason is, I personally stopped playing baseball because it was incredibly boring, but it's struggling all over the place. This isn't just a Canadian issue.