A Million Kids Stopped Playing Baseball. MLB Wants to Win Them Back

When he took over as commissioner of Major League Baseball in January, Rob Manfred put youth participation at the top of his priority list. Manfred, to judge by his public comments, wants kids playing baseball even more than he wants big leaguers to spend less time standing around between pitches. While youth participation is part of the boilerplate of any league office, the new commissioner is backing his talk with dollars. On Monday, MLB announced that it had joined with the players' union in committing $30 million to a handful of programs meant to make amateur baseball better and more available. While the league declined to provide numbers on previous budgets, a spokesman calls the three-year funding a "significant increase" over past spending on youth baseball.

This push comes in response to mounting evidence that baseball is beginning to lose its place as a pastime for U.S. children. Since 2007, according to data from the Sports & Industry Fitness Association (SFIA), the number of kids from six to 12 years old who play baseball has fallen from 5.44 million to 4.34 million. Baseball is not alone in suffering a decline: