If players strike, they could risk millions of future fans

It's August 30. Do you know where your kids are? We know where they won't be a week from Friday, if grown men can't decide how to split $3.5 billion. And if there indeed is a strike, it makes you wonder if today's kids will ever again connect to big-league baseball the way their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents did.

For every adult who swears he'll never go to another game "if these bums walk out on us again," there might be three kids who really mean it. More kids than you think might drop their Derek Jeter cards, grab a computer and insert the latest Quake CD-ROM. Or buy a skateboard and dream of doing the half-pipe in the X Games. Or catch The Rock at a WWE smackdown. Or join the ever-swelling numbers in youth soccer.

To some, baseball might become, like, you know, ill.

We might never know the degree to which a baseball strike alienates the very demographic it absolutely must have. Oh, sure, no matter what happens, the game will never escape the imagination of most kids. They'll always play it and watch it. But you'd be naive to assume baseball has the same spell over this generation as all the others. Not so. Today's kids have options. You didn't. You spent hours outside Yankee Stadium, hoping for a glimpse of The Mick. Your kids stake out the gizmo store at the mall, hoping to be first in line for the next PlayStation.

Missing the passion

Make no mistake, fathers will take their sons and daughters to games, continuing a cherished American tradition. But in the event of a second work stoppage in eight years, how are they supposed to develop a lifelong passion for the major leagues the way you did? What the owners and players risk losing most isn't their precious fortunes but the attention span of some kids. That would be a shame, because baseball is nothing without kids.

Baseball has relied on children to carry it through three different centuries. Kids adopted baseball and passed it down, one generation to another, creating a national pastime and seeing it through wars and recessions.

Even now, kids still carry baseball. But baseball doesn't seem to be foremost on their minds, not like before. Have you seen how much it costs for a family of four to attend games these days? Have you studied the TV ratings lately? Have you noticed the many options your kids have in this high-tech, entertainment-saturated world?

Protecting the customer

Today's kids are tomorrow's customers. By driving yet another wedge between itself and the paying public with a work stoppage, baseball runs the risk of alienating future audiences.

My hunch says it won't come to this, that the owners and players will come to their senses before Aug. 30 and realize how lucky they are and how important the game is to the country.

Hasn't baseball done enough to make it tougher for kids to embrace it? The biggest games of the year, the World Series, usually start after 8 p.m. and run close to or past midnight, losing most kids around the sixth inning. More players today are major stars and therefore too far removed from the kids' reach. And ticket prices at some ballparks are losing large families trying to stretch their entertainment dollars.

Basically, baseball better keep an eye on the kids, or Vince McMahon will get them.

Shaun Powell is a sports columnist for Newsday.