Slide 19
Slide 19 text
Rob Albericci saw the curve coming. He saw
his son Austin’s Little League baseball team
struggle to recruit enough kids to fill a roster.
He saw the rising demands of Austin’s
football team, the growing pressure for kids
to focus on a single sport, to specialize even
before they hit puberty. And he saw a sharp
swerve in his son’s passion.
The father tried to steer his son toward
sticking with baseball — because the injury
risk is lower than in football, because
baseball is “a thinking man’s game,” and
because baseball is how father and son first
bonded over sports. “I threw with him,” the
father says, and he looks at his muscular son
with a softness reserved for the littlest of
boys. “I’d take him to cages and throw and
hit. He always wanted to bunt.”
Baseball is
struggling to
hook kids – and
risks losing fans
to other sports