Nate's excellent adventure

[New York Red]

I obviously can't post on ORG, but I wanted give a shout out to Nate for posting his experiences at GABP last week. I know not as many kids live and breathe the game nowadays the way most of us did in my childhood. They don't take their allowance money and walk to the store to buy a couple packs of Topps, hoping like crazy to get at least one Reds player. They memorize cell numbers and their Facebook friends list instead of the stats on the back of their favorite player's card. But for those of us who grew up with baseball being an every day part of our lives, the game remains the same.

There are always going to be good seasons and bad, great seasons and sad, but it's the stories you carry with you for the remainder of your life that make baseball the incredible game it is. Whether it's getting Johnny Bench's autograph as a 10-year old, or being in the ballpark to witness Jay Bruce's walk-off division clincher (two of my personal experiences), these memories only get better with time. Thank you for sharing your story, Nate. Definitely an excellent adventure.

High Five! :beerme:

[Assembly Hall]

That was an awesome story. I got a warm feeling just reading it. :thumbup:

[lidspinner]

Just to kind of piggy back off that....isn't it sad that today's kids don't live and breathe the game like we did? My kids could care less the reds are on tv. My daughter will actually watch a few games a week with me but that's only if she has nothing else to do or we take away her laptop and cell phone.

I die for the day when my kids act like I did towards the reds....my kids would kill to go to a reds game and they do do appreciate the art of a good pitchers duel, but even at the game they are on their cell phones or walking around gabp....not sitting there watching for the next wow moment of the season....

When I was young my dad would take me to about 10-15 games a year and I will be dammed if I got up from my seat unless it was between innings. I guess it's normal for kids to act that way nowadays but I hate it....maybe my grand kids will appreciate the game the way I did...history repeats so maybe that generation will be like ours...

On a side note, my kids do love playing the game, from baseball to fastpitch softball, they study the game and treat it like an art and not just playtime with their friends so I guess I can appreciate that. :D

[Assembly Hall]

There are just too many things for kids to do these days. I grew up in a time where we only had 4 TV stations, a rotary telephone, and my baseball games were listened to on a radio. Today they have the internet, sateliite TV, cell phones, and video games that boggle the mind. I use to plan my Saturday afternoons around NBC's "Game of the Week", my kids planned there Saturday afternoons around text messaging and chat rooms on the computer!

I guess they are just a product of their environment. My kids had a good teacher I suppose. As I am replying to this post and watching the Reds game on the flat screen via my dish network. I would like to chat more about this topic but my buddy just texted me, I got to free up my fingers! :laugh:

[redsfanmia]

I am not that old I guess, almost 40 but it seems to me that having every game on tv is just overkill for a kid or even an adult. There was something special when the Reds were on Tv when I was a kid, I used to watch them on a snowy black and white tv on a local/independent television station that used to carry 40 or so games a year. I remember when I discovered WLW and Marty and Joe, it was fantastic. Kids today don't have that, they have everything on the internet.

[New York Red]

I'm not knocking technology. I think it's fantastic. I love the fact that my kids are only a cell phone call away, no matter where they are or what they're doing. When my daughter starts driving in a couple years I'll be even more grateful for cell phones. I love being able to talk with Reds fans on the internet, and being able to watch almost every Reds game, even when I am in New York. I'm not at all a Facebook fan, but it serves a purpose for 800 million people worldwide, including most of our children.

But it isn't just the technology that's changed. When I was in school we didn't have lacrosse teams or girls softball. Very few kids were interested in soccer and very few played golf. If there were youth soccer leagues, I didn't know they existed, and I didn't grow up in a small town -- I grew up in southern Ohio and Lexington, KY. Summers meant baseball and nothing else. Now you have the NBA extending into summer and the NFL starting before summer is over. A lot of things have changed.

[bounty37h]

I cant wait to take my son to his first game and hope he catches the love for the sport that I have! I went to a Carolina Mudcats game saturday night and there was a kid @ 2YO in front of me, I couldnt stop thinking about how much I cant wait to take my own.

[New York Red]

Does anyone else think the baseball card industry has hurt the game's popularity with kids? When card prices started skyrocketing 15 or 20 years ago with all the different specialty cards and insert cards, they basically took the hobby from kids. It's now almost strictly an adult industry. I stopped collecting 15 or 20 years ago, but I still occasionally go in card shops to look around. You can't buy cheap cards anymore. They don't even have them in stock. It's all about insert cards, autographed cards, etc, and the prices are outrageous. I used to bring up card collecting to my son occasionally, but he'd just laugh and say, 'dad, kids don't collect cards anymore.' To me, that's sad.

[New York Red]

I cant wait to take my son to his first game and hope he catches the love for the sport that I have! I went to a Carolina Mudcats game saturday night and there was a kid @ 2YO in front of me, I couldnt stop thinking about how much I cant wait to take my own.
That's going to be a great experience for you. Just make sure he leaves his cell phone at home. :D

[MrRedLegger]

When I was very young, the most exciting thing when opening a pack of baseball cards was finding a Red's card. I would have cared about those cards more than another team's future HOF player's card. True story. It really is a shame that baseball cards are worthless to newer generations but are priceless to those who have collected them.

People who don't love the game have probably never been, or have never been exposed to it in the right way. Sometimes, the only exposure they get is when baseball is on TV and the Royals are playing the Blue Jays and they're convinced baseball is boring. The last thing baseball is is boring. I took my girlfriend to her first MLB game & Reds game (4/24 vs. Giants, Latos pitched) and she was somewhat skeptical. Since then, we've been 3 other times, two of which were her idea. She loves it, the game and the atmosphere...hot dogs, peanuts, cold beers...The last game we wen't to, the Reds had just turned two, and I overheard her talking to a kid in our section explaining what a 6-4-3 double play was. She fell in love with Cozart the first time she saw him approach the plate, but thankfully for me he's married. ;)

The spirit of the game has remained unchanged. During the 2010 playoff game, Votto approached the plate late in the game. With towels waving, 42,000 + fans chanted and repeated just one word: "Joey". Everyone was fixated on him, waiting for the pitch, waiting for the big hit. Not one sport is capable of a moment like this. It's a shame we couldn't get just one playoff win at home. Hopefully I live close enough to Cincinnati so that when I have kids I can take them to games.

BTW, Reds are 4-0 when my girlfriend and I attend games, 5-1 when I've been there. Look for us on the kiss cam! Sorry for the long post but I hope you enjoy it.

[brm7675]

Problem is simple...baseball is more of a thinking persons game over the "action" that both the NFL and NBA brings to the table.