Little fans

Dejan Kovacevic talks some stuff over in this week's Q&A.

He also asks how we can interest the children in the Pirates. I've found baseball to be a pretty good hobby, so I share his selfless desire to raise our kids just exactly the way I was raised. Here are some suggestions that look beyond the most obvious solutions (WIN MORE GAMES, play more day games, hang the jolly roger in their bedroom, etc.)

1. Unsupervised play. When I was tot, all neighborhood children were unleashed and expelled from the home for several hours in the morning (before lunch) and many hours in the afternoon. Like Kovacevic, I also pretended to be Bruce Kison when I played wiffle ball. Children won't embarrass themselves so readily in front of adults. No one did this kind of role-playing in gym class. Nevermind that it's now a misdemeanor or felony offense to not supervise your children while they play wiffle ball in Drunk Joe's unused backyard. No child can properly learn the game of baseball without a heavy dose of freedom.

2. Cheap baseball cards. Around the late '80s, baseball cards lost most of their value for fan training. People started to regard them as investments, and card companies outdid one another making more and more expensive cards.

Fans raised on the baseball cards of the 1970s derived much greater value from them. They were not investments; they were toys. They were not cherished or encased in plastic; they were used and improved with magic marker. If I got mad at Greg Luzinski, I drew a funny moustache on him and felt good about it. Cards of my youth were not art-objects; they were flash cards. It's how I learned the names, faces, positions, and histories of all the players.

MLB should sponsor and distribute cheap cards to the children. They should be 25 cents a pack, and they should contain at least twelve cards. The Pirates should give away team sets to all fans under 16.

3. Better baseball toys. Too many of the promotional giveaways fall into the art-object / investment category. The Jack Wilson jack-in-the-box idea was brilliant. Future kid-oriented promotional freebies should also target the way children of various ages play. The Pirates should give away wiffle balls. And posable action figures would be a great improvement over bobbleheads.