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>> Is it so hard to set up a game between your kids and others? Yes. Yes, it is actually reasonably hard to coordinate 18+ kids and thier familes (thats the mi

>> Is it so hard to set up a game between your kids and others? Yes. Yes, it is actually reasonably hard to coordinate 18+ kids and thier familes (thats the minimum size for two baseball teams), have an experienced adult coach them, and hire a referee (if that is judged to be necessary), coordinate field usage, advocate for local governments to set aside sports and play space and protect existing space from development. Now are many American youth sports leagues a bit nuts about the competitive or developmental aspects? Absolutely, and baseball is one of the worst. I really want a checkbox that says "do you want your kids to play in the major leagues some day" so I can not check that and hang out with other parents just there for fun. But coordinating sports and recreation (and ensuring space and facilities for sports and recreation exist in the first place) is not a trivial exercise and is why most local governments have an entire department set aside for it. Parks and Recreation may be a funny and absurd series, but in real life those people do real work that has real benefits.

Teever 6y ago
> Yes. Yes, it is actually reasonably hard to coordinate 18+ kids and thier familes (thats the minimum size for two baseball teams), have an experienced adult coach them, and hire a referee (if that is judged to be necessary), coordinate field usage, advocate for local governments to set aside sports and play space and protect existing space from development. How did people coordinate this before the invention of all these digital communication devices that we now find our selves so desperately dependent on like we're stuck in The Matrix?
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  >How did people coordinate this... I think you might be referring to a time when kids could play unsupervised and before independence-building play was replaced with wall-to-wall no-trespassing signs and overseen by a system that makes sure each minor transgression is forever leveraged into multiple, life-harming punishments.
  - caturopath 6y ago
    Sports leagues have been a thing for generations, so it's worth noting that the answer to "What did you do before all this digital stuff" isn't "kids just did their own thing" -- they still organized leagues. (Fewer of them, to be sure.)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - watwut 6y ago
      If I recall right, sports leagues are a thing of 20centure. It was not much of a thing before. It may or may not qualify as "generations".
      - caturopath 6y ago
        Many of the kids in little league today had grandparents and even great grandparents who did little league.
        WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
        1970s: Our rural town had a little league field. Up by me was another plot of cleared land where we hillbillies would play. The decades before this favored informal games. Afterward, league play dominated kid-ball.
- andrewguenther 6y ago
  Pen and paper, the way most organizing was done before the digital age. You went to a community center, signed your kids up. Can you imagine organizing 18 kids without all these devices? Little League has been around since 1939, the need for a coordinating organization isn't a recent change.
  - ryanhuff 6y ago
    And that’s pretty much how it’s done in the LL my kid played in a few years ago. Parents show up to a local pizza place during a registration day. They bring the filled out paper enrollment form, the kid tries on some jerseys for size, and then pay the fee. Congrats, Johnny (or Jane) is signed up for LL.
  - Teever 6y ago
    I read in a history book that human beings managed to coordinate entire empires that stretched across continents with out digital electronics. Facetiousness aside, I'm flabbergasted that I'm reading people on HN defend these kinds of abhorrent data collection and retention polices and using the difficulties of coordinating 18 people as an excuse for them. It's like some cyber stockholm syndrome where people feel the need to make justifications for the behaviour of malevolent entities that they have wilfully shared their data with. The requests are so unbelievably intrusive that they remind me of the Ivy League nude posture photos[1] I give it 6-24 months before we're reading a story here about a mass data leak from Little League or something equivalent like Boy Scouts of America or whatever. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League_nude_posture_photos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League_nude_posture_photos
    - watwut 6y ago
      > I read in a history book that human beings managed to coordinate entire empires that stretched across continents with out digital electronics. You asked specifically for little leagues. The across continents coordination is done by a.) delegating rulership to local warlords b.) keeping military power strong enough to keep those you those in check. It had massive limitation in terms of what it could achieve and has zero to do with organizing of competitions for kids. Plus, the central power would not bother to micromanage little teams. It is our culture that finds little leagues important, not theirs.

Teever 6y ago

> Yes. Yes, it is actually reasonably hard to coordinate 18+ kids and thier familes (thats the minimum size for two baseball teams), have an experienced adult coach them, and hire a referee (if that is judged to be necessary), coordinate field usage, advocate for local governments to set aside sports and play space and protect existing space from development. How did people coordinate this before the invention of all these digital communication devices that we now find our selves so desperately dependent on like we're stuck in The Matrix?

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
>How did people coordinate this... I think you might be referring to a time when kids could play unsupervised and before independence-building play was replaced with wall-to-wall no-trespassing signs and overseen by a system that makes sure each minor transgression is forever leveraged into multiple, life-harming punishments.
- caturopath 6y ago
  Sports leagues have been a thing for generations, so it's worth noting that the answer to "What did you do before all this digital stuff" isn't "kids just did their own thing" -- they still organized leagues. (Fewer of them, to be sure.)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - watwut 6y ago
    If I recall right, sports leagues are a thing of 20centure. It was not much of a thing before. It may or may not qualify as "generations".
    - caturopath 6y ago
      Many of the kids in little league today had grandparents and even great grandparents who did little league.
      - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
        1970s: Our rural town had a little league field. Up by me was another plot of cleared land where we hillbillies would play. The decades before this favored informal games. Afterward, league play dominated kid-ball.
andrewguenther 6y ago
Pen and paper, the way most organizing was done before the digital age. You went to a community center, signed your kids up. Can you imagine organizing 18 kids without all these devices? Little League has been around since 1939, the need for a coordinating organization isn't a recent change.
- ryanhuff 6y ago
  And that’s pretty much how it’s done in the LL my kid played in a few years ago. Parents show up to a local pizza place during a registration day. They bring the filled out paper enrollment form, the kid tries on some jerseys for size, and then pay the fee. Congrats, Johnny (or Jane) is signed up for LL.
- Teever 6y ago
  I read in a history book that human beings managed to coordinate entire empires that stretched across continents with out digital electronics. Facetiousness aside, I'm flabbergasted that I'm reading people on HN defend these kinds of abhorrent data collection and retention polices and using the difficulties of coordinating 18 people as an excuse for them. It's like some cyber stockholm syndrome where people feel the need to make justifications for the behaviour of malevolent entities that they have wilfully shared their data with. The requests are so unbelievably intrusive that they remind me of the Ivy League nude posture photos[1] I give it 6-24 months before we're reading a story here about a mass data leak from Little League or something equivalent like Boy Scouts of America or whatever. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League_nude_posture_photos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League_nude_posture_photos
  - watwut 6y ago
    > I read in a history book that human beings managed to coordinate entire empires that stretched across continents with out digital electronics. You asked specifically for little leagues. The across continents coordination is done by a.) delegating rulership to local warlords b.) keeping military power strong enough to keep those you those in check. It had massive limitation in terms of what it could achieve and has zero to do with organizing of competitions for kids. Plus, the central power would not bother to micromanage little teams. It is our culture that finds little leagues important, not theirs.