Baseball is still the great American sport and while it is slow and lacks that action that hockey, lacrosse, or even soccer have - it is a tradition that father's and sons can still celebrate each summer. Luckily there are lots of ways to get your son involved in baseball this summer on and off the field.
Play Catch In the Backyard
At almost any stage of development you can begin playing catch.
While this might start as simply rolling the ball across the carpet, it can rapidly evolve into getting your child a baseball glove (you can find one among Louisville Slugger equipment offerings) and throwing first underhand and then overhanded at an increasing distance. While everyone loves a challenge, make sure to keep it fun and adjust the difficulty with your son's physical development, agility, and of course interest.
Get Them Started Playing Baseball at a Young Age
While baseball involves quite a bit of coordination, you can introduce kids at a young age by using a batting tee. This takes the pressure off of both the pitcher as well as the batter and allows young kids to learn the game. From tee-ball teams you can move up to little league where the game more closely resembles what you see in the MLB.
Take Your Son To A Baseball Game
Baseball is still an amazingly affordable sport. A most major league ballparks, you can still get tickets for under $25 and you can save even more by visiting minor league parks. Additionally, many schools, libraries, churches, and youth groups offer fantastic deals to get kids out to the ballpark. For instance, some of my earliest games were at the Oakland Coliseum because they had a deal where if I read a certain number of books I'd get tickets. That was pretty cool and started my lifelong passion for the sport.
Play Baseball Video Games Together
While you can't always go to the ballpark for a game, spending a couple hours on weekends or after dinner playing baseball video games. Sadly, baseball video games aren't nearly as well developed as football and basketball and in particular, EA Sports doesn't have a license at all. However, there are some good options including MLB The Show 19 (Playstation Exclusive), and R.B.I. Baseball 19 available on all of the major console platforms as well as Apple and Android mobile versions.
Play Fantasy Baseball Together (or against each other on the same league)
Another great opportunity to spend some father and son time together is to play Fantasy Baseball together. You could either cooperate on picks together, or play against each other. Either way, this is a great opportunity to spend time talking about the sport and getting excited about the season as it develops.
