Pastime with steep price
BOB PUTNAM - St. Petersburg Times - August 2, 2007
David Siegel's parents spend nearly $5,000 a year to help him become a better baseball player.
They pay for state-of-the-art aluminum bats, gloves, league registration fees, baseball camps, tournaments and private trainers.
The extra help may or may not help David reach his dream of becoming a professional baseball player, but, at 9 years old, he is an all-star on his Little League team and a starter on his AAU club.
"It's not cheap, but it's definitely worth it," said Bob Siegel, David's father. "Baseball is a good, wholesome activity and David is engrossed by it all."
Fueled by the growing sports culture of specialization, many kids are playing baseball at an early age and practicing year-round. To keep up, parents are opening their wallets in hopes of turning their children into high-caliber athletes or landing college scholarships for them.
This spending has trickled down to private instructors.
At the Randy Kotchman Baseball/Softball School in Pinellas Park, players like David come in droves, some so small the bats they wield drag along the ground behind them.
"We have kids from all ages and all levels," said Kotchman, a former Seminole High star and California Angels farmhand who started his school 13 years ago.
Parents pay Kotchman, whose nephew is former Seminole star and Los Angeles Angels first baseman Casey Kotchman, anywhere from $35 for a half hour to $95 for two hours to teach their kids the finer points of the game.
"I played a little baseball, but I could only teach my son so much," Bob Siegel said. "He needed more attention and this stuff makes him better."
Critics, though, see this spending in youth baseball as the product of ultracompetitive parents with unrealistic expectations who now have the time and financial wherewithal to administer and structure all so-called play. Even if it is a minority pushing too hard, they say, the majority worries about falling behind.
These parents feel pressure to buy into a system of year-round competition on travel teams, expensive private coaches and instruction at summer sports camps - a level of commitment routine at the upper echelons of youth competition these days.
"The cost of some of this stuff is astronomical," said Bob Tewksbury, a former standout at Saint Leo and all-star pitcher with the Cardinals who now is a sports psychologist for the Red Sox. "It's one of these myths parents buy into that you have to keep up with the Joneses. There's a socialization thing to it that if Johnny and Timmy have hitting coaches, then that's what we need to do."
But the move toward youth baseball as big business keeps growing, with camps and big-time tournaments popping up to meet the demand.
