[z28jd]

It's definitely the popularity of the sport. I've done research extensively for the last few years on the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise and it's amazing how many teams they had during the 1880s in this country. Every town had teams, big towns had multiple leagues in town. The amount of teams in and around Pittsburgh back then was insane to think about now. Everyone was playing baseball, so you grew up playing baseball against people who grew up playing baseball all of the time. It was the sport to play. By the time the all-time great players who came around like Wagner, Cobb, Ruth, Johnson, Mathewson, the country was already many generations into the sport and everyone played.

Compare it to when you were growing up. I played baseball all of the time, but a lot of my baseball was me improvising on how to play by myself, or with 1-2 people because no one else was around. The only time I played 9 on 9 games was organized little leagues, with 10-12 games a year. Kids in the 1880s were playing so much more baseball than anyone you know. They had no trouble finding games. I was playing Little League from ages 5-16 mostly against kids who probably didn't touch their gloves once between games.

The popularity of the sport in the U.S. right now is at an all-time low, so you're seeing a decline in the talent that I'm sure will continue because it's not getting any better, but go to the Dominican right now and the kids there are basically mimicking the 1880s here. They can get games going whenever they want and they all play all of the time. The overall talent there is going to surpass the U.S. if the popularity of the sport continues to decline here. Most kids here aren't growing up surrounded by kids who play the sport.