It is Thursday evening at Propst Park and almost every playing field is taken, including T-Ball Field A, where the Woods Brothers Construction team (ages 4-5) is practicing for the fourth and final time before their first game.
To say the team is a well-oiled machine would be, well, generous.
As the team’s coach, Shawn Stone, is hitting ground balls to the infield, two players are making what appears to be a sandcastle out of the red clay dirt on the pitcher’s mound as a ground ball rolls slowly past, unnoticed. The third baseman, meanwhile, has decided that her baseball glove is a better as a hat. The shortstop is looking at something in left field.
None of the players seems to be in a particular hurry to gather in the batted ball and throw it to the first baseman, despite the coaches’ urgent pleas to do so.
Up in the bleachers, one of the moms has noticed this.
“Nobody’s running,” she says in mild frustration to no one in particular. “Why is nobody running? When I was a kid, all day long my mama was yelling at me, ‘Stop running. You’re gonna break something!’ Do kids ever run nowadays?”
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Youth baseball (ages 4-12) and softball (ages 5-12) in Columbus begins Monday. In Starkville, softball (ages 5-18) begins Tuesday. Baseball in Starkville (ages 5-12) started April 4.
This year, there are 423 kids in the CLRA’s baseball program and another 134 kids playing softball. That’s 557 kids, 38 fewer than last year.
Numbers for Starkville were not available.
While soccer has eclipsed baseball, at least in terms of the number of kids playing in the area’s parks and recreation programs, baseball still has its appeal, said Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority Director Greg Lewis.
“I think baseball is still pretty popular, even though we have more kids in our soccer leagues,” Lewis said. “You have to remember that there are other places for kids to play baseball, so there are more kids playing baseball than some people might think. Travel team baseball has really grown over the years, so when you put all the numbers together, there are still an awful lot of kids playing baseball.”
Stone, who was the T-Ball coach for his oldest son, J.T., for the two previous years and now coaches his middle son, Thaxton, said that while his kids enjoy the game, he wonders if baseball is a good fit for today’s generation of kids.
“I don’t think kids are the same as when I was coming up,” said Stone, 40. “Nowadays, I don’t think kids have the patience that you have to have in baseball. Kids are always occupied — maybe, preoccupied — with something — their phones, games. They have to be busy. But baseball is a lot of waiting. You have to sit in the dugout and wait for your turn to hit. Then, when you’re in the field, you have to wait for the ball to be hit to you.
“I think that’s why soccer has gotten so popular — you’re always running around. It’s a faster-paced game and I think kids today like that.”
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Terica Hairston never played softball or baseball as a kid.
“Basketball was my sport,” she said.
Hairston, who has spent all her life in Crawford, is sitting in the stands, watching her daughter, Malaysia, who is 4 and one of two girls on the Woods Brothers team.
“She didn’t know anything about baseball,” her mom said. “But she loves being outside and I thought, ‘Let’s give this a try and see if she likes it.’ We came to the first practice and she loved it. After practice, the only thing she asked was, ‘Mom, where’s the trophy?’ I told her she had to play games first.'”
Stone said coaching 4-year-olds presents a variety of challenges.
“For most of them, they’ve never played the sport. They don’t know the rules, have never been on a team and have really short attention spans,” he said.
“If you don’t understand all that, you’re going to be very frustrated as a coach. But as long as you realize that, it’s really an awful lot of fun. We teach very simple things. Hit the ball. Run to first base. Get the ball. Throw it. That’s about all they can really absorb at that age. The most important thing we want them to learn is to listen to the coach. They can’t learn if they don’t listen.”
A successful season isn’t measured by wins or losses at this level.
“Before and after every practice and every game, we give the kids a pep talk,” Stone said. “The main message every time is ‘Have Fun! and ‘Great job.”
Hairston said the lessons that have nothing to do with the game are the most important, as far as her daughter is concerned.
“This has been a big year for Malaysia,” Hairston said. “She started pre-K this year and that’s a big change for her. And I thought (playing baseball) would be good for her, too. She’s around kids she doesn’t know who are different from her. I want her to be comfortable making new friends and being in new situations. I think that’s important for any child.
“I don’t know if Malaysia will want to play again. One year may be all she wants and that’s fine. But so far, she really is having fun.”
Even without a trophy.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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