John Steigerwald: Just let the kids play ball

Could the pick-up game make a comeback?

You would have to be of a certain age to remember when kids didn’t need to have adults around to organize everything they did.

Baby Boomers remember picking two captains, having them “shink it out” and choose from a group of kids to fill out two baseball teams virtually every day of every summer.

(If you don’t know what “shink it out” means, refer to your favorite old person.)

In the mid-80s I did a report for WTAE-TV in which I had a camera follow me to the fields where I played parent-free pick-up games every day as a kid.

Every one was empty every day. I simply looked into the camera and asked, “Where are the kids?”

It got more reaction than any TV piece I ever did.

Stan Savran had been filling in on Myron Cope’s radio show and hosting his own one-hour show downstairs in the WTAE Radio studio that night.

When he came upstairs, he told me the phones had rung off the hook. Guys were calling in to ask what kids did every day if they didn’t play ball.

I’ve found it interesting over the years to hear from guys who were kids back then about how they played pick-up games every day.

They didn’t.

They may have played some pick-up, but they didn’t play every single day, as I remember doing. I had proof.

Florida has somehow managed to start youth baseball up again despite the covid-19 pandemic, with a 70-team tournament played this weekend in Brevard County, but most of the organized leagues in the country have canceled or delayed their seasons.

So, why should that mean kids can’t play sports? Does it have to be organized by adults?

How about parents organizing it only to the extent that they provide the balls and bats and a ride to the field if it’s too far away for them to walk?

But what about the danger to the kiddies from covid-19?

Apparently it’s not that dangerous. What’s obvious from all the data is that kids are not in much danger at all even if they get the disease.

Phil Kerpen at the federalist.com did some research and found that, in Europe, they’ve discovered kids not only usually suffer mild symptoms, but they rarely transfer the virus to adults.

Remember when we heard the reason the schools needed to be closed was to prevent kids from bringing the virus home to their families?

Iceland has tested a larger percentage of its population than any country in the world.

Here’s what Kari Stefansson, CEO of deCODE Genetic, who has studied the spread of the virus in Iceland said: “What is interesting is that even if children do get infected, they are less likely to transmit the disease to others than adults. We have not found a single instance of a child infecting parents.”

Not one.

They’ve found similar results in the U.K., Germany, France, The Netherlands and Australia. Health officials in all of those countries say kids should be going back to school and organized sports have returned in some.

Too many parents would find it excruciatingly painful to see their kids playing a sport without adults, in many cases, ruining it, but it would be a gift to kids everywhere if they used the pandemic to show kids the beauty of playing a game without them around.

And, by the way, with the discovery that kids can be together in groups without spreading the disease, how about letting them fill some of the empty seats at future NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA games?

Adult ticket holders could be encouraged to give their tickets to kids’ groups, or teams could find sponsors willing to buy tickets for them. They could be supervised by a minimum number of adults and, if what they’ve found in other countries is true, there would be no danger of them bringing covid-19 back with them from the game.

Safely rescuing the kids from what’s shaping up as the worst summer of their lives seems like an effort worth pursuing.