New problems, meet old game. This book explores how America's most time-tested sport can inform and counteract today's unique childrearing challenges. Modern kids face obstacles blissfully absent from their parents' childhoods. Soaring gun violence and record drug deaths. Academic hyper-competitiveness, exorbitant college costs and a yawning generational wealth gap. Social media's addictive algorithms and dialogue-coarsening extremism. And then there's us parents. The unintended side effects of today's kinder, gentler approaches to childrearing can impinge upon mission-critical qualities like grit, independence, and the ability to form true friendships rather than accrue fair-weather acquaintances.

Our national pastime hits home as a reliable, relevant salve to confront such challenges. Baseball has more than a few tools in its toolbox--and its batter's box--serving as counternarratives to some of today's least tenable trends. This book addresses how all facets of baseball--from Little League participation to Major Leagues fandom, and from running out a grounder to geeking out on statistics--can help children build buffers against modern-day America's pitfalls. Today's parents would be well-advised to get their kids away from their smartphones, off their rear ends and onto a ballfield. In 21st century America, the baseball diamond is a parenting gold mine.