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Have you bought a baseball glove for your Little Leaguer lately? Did you pay more than $100 for it?
How about a $250 bat?
A New York Times story headlined "Big Price Tags Attached to Even the Littlest Leagues," looks at the big business of equipping youngsters for participation in youth baseball and softball leagues, quoting those costs and more.
"A batting helmet protects tiny heads for $39.99," the Times reports. "A pair of Nike Jordan Black Cat cleats will make your child fast and fashionable at $51.99 until he or she outgrows them."
For the Coventry Little League, this year's registration costs were $90 for the first child and a maximum of $150 per family.
The price tag to play softball in town this year is $105 per player for fast pitch and $85 for the slow pitch division.
So what do you think? Has the cost of youth sports taken our kids too far from the simpler days of sandlot and playground ballgames? Or have you had better luck finding more modestly-priced equipment for them?
Steven
7:01 pm on Saturday, April 28, 2012
The price for a good glove is still reasonable, especially if you take good care of it and it lasts a few seasons. Just because a glove costs more than $100 doesn't mean the child will catch better, and a $250 bat doesn't help them hit. While I won't berate a parent for spending this amount of money on their child, the equipment that costs that much is superfluous and unrelated to performance. Bats and helmets are normally provided by leagues, and the cost of baseball is still cheaper, or at lest on par, with soccer and basketball.