Bring Back The Barnstorming Women Of Baseball

Major League Baseball is not inattentive to what is happening to the game at the grassroots level in the U.S. The Travel Ball bonanza has hobbled recreation leagues sucking ambitious kids—some good, some average—off the community ballfield. The travel ball dreamers take their amped-up, cut-the-infield-with-scissors-so-it-is-perfect parents with them to play on private teams that cost $3,000 to $15,000, or more.

The travel ball mavens—kids and parents—are ambitious. Good for them. They want to achieve. That’s not a sin.

It would be a sin if MLB wasn’t looking for remedies for the pinch that causes kids of more modest talent and income to get left behind on the community field.