An Age-Old Question

It seemed like a nice idea when we first heard about it, so it's hard to admit now that we were wrong. It has become obvious, though, that kids should not be playing sports. People under 18 shouldn't be playing football, baseball, or basketball, shouldn't be ice skating or golfing or learning to hit a ball with a racket.

They simply aren't mature enough — physically or mentally — to put in the extensive training hours, deal with the stress on their bodies and minds, or cope with the publicity that accompanies athletics. There can be no argument that it is fair to ask children to devote the time necessary to master a sport, to push their bodies with long hours on the track or in the weight room, or to have a nation watching when they come to bat with the game on the line.

Or maybe kids should play sports, but somehow be exempt from those pressures anyway.

Of course I don't believe that children should be kept away from athletics — just the opposite. But I do believe children participating in athletics should be kept off of television and away from public scrutiny. I know it's cheaper for ESPN to televise the Little League World Series than a Major League Baseball game, and years ago, when I first saw the LLWS on television, I thought it was a great thing to do for kids.

My thinking has changed. Professional baseball, for better or worse, is a business. Little League is a game. Treating children's sports the same way we treat adults' deprives kids of all the benefits athletics are supposed to provide. It's as kids that we learn about being a good teammate, dealing with losing, the joy of victory, and a pizza party. Growing up, we discover that it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. We learn about being good sports. And when the game's over, we get to go home and do something else.

Televised, high-pressure sports teach us the opposite of all those things. They're hard, cold, adult lessons. Make kids' sports like the other sports on television and you'll have 12-year-olds treating their teammates the way Terrell Owens and Kobe Bryant do, treating their bodies like Rafael Palmeiro and Bill Romanowski, paying more attention to the cameras than to the game, their friends, or their coaches. The last thing we need is a generation of athletes raised to behave like Leon from the Bud Light commercials.

Even success stories like Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters should raise a few eyebrows. What tennis fan hasn't questioned the way Richard Williams raised his daughters and manipulated the early stages of their careers? Does any golf fan not have some misgivings about the amount of his childhood Tiger spent on the course, away from anyone his own age?

Played at the Little League level, baseball is just a game, and we shouldn't treat it as more. Let kids be kids, and let sports be games, at least until high school. Young people should play sports for fun, as hobbies and social activities, not for fame or profit, or as obligations. All children should be encouraged to participate in athletics, but not to take them as seriously as we take the same games when adults are playing.