POWER PLAY: KICK THE BASEBALL HABIT WITH FORGOTTEN SPORT

One reason why Americans like the sport of baseball so much is that virtually everybody starts playing the game at a very young age. Our feelings about the sport are heightened by nostalgic longing for the days of our youth.

Over the years the greed which has become ubiquitous in the sport at the professional level has tainted much of the innocence and purity that has long been associated with the game.

People are looking for something to replace it in their hearts, a sport which will re-instill that youthful excitement which professional baseball no longer provides. Football, basketball and even hockey are bigger than ever but all lack the same allure as baseball.

Few start playing football and basketball until they are somewhat older. The former requires a bit of size in order to avoid being smashed into a bloody, unrecognizable mass (something most kids' mother tend to frown upon), and the latter requires a measure of height before you can even see the hoop. As for hockey, it is expensive to play and not everyone has access to an ice rink. (However, the advent of in-line skating has made the sport much more accessible.)

Taking all this into account, the time is ripe to launch a professional kickball league. It is one game that everybody played as an elementary school kid and for which most have fond memories.

Played under the basic rules of baseball, except that a large, rather bouncy red ball is used instead of a baseball, it shares much of the strategy of that game and a number of its elements -- throwing, pitching, catching and baserunning.

But it also possess some different aspects. In baseball its not at all acceptable to peg the baserunner in the head (or any part of the anatomy for that matter). In kickball, however, viciously slamming a base runner with the big red ball is a primary method for getting people out. That should appeal to many sports fans' appetite for rough and tough play.

But as the name indicates, unlike that of American football, kicking is a key skill. With the increasing popularity of soccer, this aspect of the game should appeal to many.

Athletes developed in football, soccer and baseball could easily adapt to kickball. Also, it could become the first co-ed professional team sport. Like schoolground activities should be, it's an equal opportunity game.

Although it is a fun, exciting sport which requires diverse skill, for some strange reason nobody plays it after they hit about the fifth grade. Before anyone smugly says that people stop playing it because it is a child's game, remember that is also true of baseball, basketball, football and most other sports. Grown men playing childish games has made many people very rich over the years.

And if arena football -- a game which nobody has ever played expect for professional Arena Football League players -- can generate a modest level of popularity and revenue, there's no reason why kickball can't make it.

If people can become obsessed with hitting a small white sphere with a oblong wooden stick or running around kicking, carrying and throwing the inflated skin of a dead pig, why can't kickball take hold too.

Sillier things have taken Americans' fancy.

Marc Powers is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.