Is Our Baseball Slowly Being Taken Away from Us?

- Lucian

Baseball has been the American Pastime for well over 150 years. It has served as a passage of manhood, from father's playing catch with their sons, taking them to their first games with wonder in their eyes, and growing up idolizing their favorite players. However, there is a growing concern about baseball that can only be served up in a simple question:

Is baseball facing extinction?

Now I know what you are thinking. Despite the economic climate, baseball still enjoys huge attendance numbers and is Major League Baseball is currently the second most popular professional sport in the United States, behind only the NFL. But there is a bigger picture at hand here, and it isn't at the Major League level.

Yet.

As great a picture as MLB paints, the real problem is at the amateur level. There is a growing train of thought that the answer to financial crunch issues is to cut baseball programs at colleges and even some high schools across the country.

I first noted the problem when my local University of Vermont cut their baseball program following the 2009 season. The cut was made to reallocate funds to Women's Hockey and Lacrosse for both genders. Prior to its cut, the baseball program at UVM had the best winning percentage of any sports team in UVM history and had also produced 32 players who continued on to play in the majors. The most notable of which was Kirk McCaskill, who won 110 games over 12 seasons with the Angels and White Sox.

Dropping baseball at a school in Vermont is understandable to some degree, considering how short the season can be due to late season snow pushing the start of the season later than most universities. However, it was still a blow for the only Division 1 School in the state to now have no baseball or football program. The same year, the University of Northern Iowa also dropped their baseball program over budget concerns.

However, the real blow nearly came this past winter, when the University of California at Berkley dropped their baseball program in February. The program was later reinstated when donors rallied to raise nearly $9 million to save the program. Still, for a team such as the California Bears, who have a rich baseball history and play in a perfect baseball climate to even consider cutting the program speaks volumes.

It doesn't just end with the college level either. It was with great dismay that the Summer Olympics opted to cut baseball from its pallet of games after the 2008 Summer Games. Baseball, being one of the most widely spread sports around the world, it made no sense to take away the competition from the largest international sports stage. In this case, the cut wasn't made for budget reasons, but because of the length of games played. Still, it was just another example of baseball's importance in our current culture.

Recently, it was announced that African-American players in Major League Baseball has declined yet again to 8.5 percent, reaching the lowest level since 2007. One has to ask if the diversity of the game isn't as effected by the way the game is promoted in inner cities, but how it is promoted throughout the country. Can the game continue to survive and remain a staple of American culture if it continues to be considered as fodder for budgetary cuts across the country, costing scholarships and training for kids who need the extra hand up? Can the game survive if a kid can't pursue his dream because his school thinks that continued raises for superintendents, principals, and university presidents are more important than extra-curricular activities?

Baseball is a part of our heritage, our blood. It needs to continue to be passed down from father to son and not be road blocked by tightening purse strings and figureheads who think that the game is no longer important.

If you want to see how important it is, go to a little league game and see the joy in the eyes of every child on that field.