Giving kids baseball bats is a GOOD thing?!

Before the riots that have spread across the UK were first conceived, the use of the baseball bat was limited to, although not exclusively, baseball.

And many of those who play the game here in Britain are youngsters, from a variety of backgrounds and upbringings.

Like any sport, anyone can play, although with kids the distances required to travel does put substantially more pressure on parents to ferry them from place to place. In the USA there are many Little Leagues where players are drafted from a large pool and play against their schoolmates during their leisure time.

In the UK there are some systems that work like this, such as the Herts’ Little League, but because there are fewer children wanting to take up the sport, it bears a striking resemblance to the seniors’ competition, with journeys routinely taking an hour or two.

And like the seniors competitions, there are power houses. The London Mets have produced a number of winning teams in both Pony (under-17) and Bronco (under-14) levels since their inception around a decade ago, and clubs such as Bracknell, Halton and Manchester have seen the progression of boys to men as they go on to represent the adults in senior competition.

But not every senior team is able to run a youth section; many are currently struggling to fulfil one 9-man line-up on Sundays, so to find players willing to give up their time during the week to go above and beyond the call of duty is notoriously difficult.

The exceptions are often the healthiest examples of baseball clubs in the country; the Essex Redbacks formed only in 2010 but has enough numbers to think about a third adult team in 2012 to complement the extensive kids programme. The Herts’ Little League has massive support and the club has three senior teams and two junior teams playing in competitive leagues.

The London Mets, Bracknell Blazers and the Manchester As/Torrent/Saints – are all flourishing when others around them are suffering.

So are kids the answer to all our worries? Should we put baseball bats in the hands of youths who have proven again this week that they are the scourge of the earth and should be locked up and shot (depending on what news source you get your information)?

I argue that there should be a more extensive programme, but I’m acutely aware of the financial shortcomings of the sport here. People are understanding baseball better, but without a fully developed schools programme (softball is taught as an afterthought and only a handful of institutes offer baseball as a part of PE GCSE) there’s no way we can guarantee its future.

This year there’s a strong chance that the best kids teams that present themselves at Richmond for the Youth NBCs (weekend of 17-18 September) will be from the south, as in the past. Last year the London Mets won the Ponies division and the Herts All Stars took the Broncos crown. But with many of the Herts’ players moving up through the age group, the Broncos division is looking as though it’ll be between the Mets (11-3), the Forest Glade Redbacks (9-5), and Cartmel Valley (6-0) from the North.

And the Ponies who will contest will inevitably again be the Mets (14-1), as well as the Cartmel Valley Club (10-3), Halton Polecats (9-4) and Horsham Hornets (12-6).

Unfortunately there’s not been a huge amount of competitive baseball for the kids again in 2011; many clubs started with great intentions but interest wanes and teams have failed to fulfil any fixtures. In reality, disappointingly, only around 10 youth teams (six clubs) have managed to put teams out with any regularity.

Perhaps an interesting aside to take into account will also be that Richmond are hosting the Youth NBCs without a youth team themselves. They are hoping that the event will reignite passions for kids baseball, especially as it helps with player recruitment at senior levels as well.

The GB Juniors and Cadets have been in international action as well this summer, and although they didn’t win any games themselves in Florida at the Gold Medal Games, they did gain from the experience. But how much they gained is yet to be discovered.

Follow Michael Jones on Twitter @DazzMcGuinness