In his 2000 best-seller, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, political scientist, Robert Putnam, argued that the demise of informal social organizations like bowling leagues has led to, or at least been concurrent with, the decay of community cohesion in the United States. Because fewer people participate in experiences that force them to interact with people who may hold very different opinions from them or come from socio-economic circumstances with which they are unfamiliar (as happens when your bowling team is playing another), we have, as a society, become less inclined to hold an inclusive attitude about who qualifies as fully-fledged members of our shared community.
I’m sure he’s right about the basic claim, but wonder if his data about participation in recreational sports leagues are accurate. He ought to come out to the Woodland Park fields in Greenlake, where I umpired on Tuesday night, and see for himself just how many people are playing games together.
The complex has six baseball diamonds and every one was booked, all night long from about 5:00 to nearly 11:00. On half the fields, teams were playing softball; on the other half of them, spirited games of kickball were being played. Bookending these six are two soccer fields, both of which hosted games. And just down the block is a gym, in which a spate of basketball games was being played.
So, maybe it’s bowling that has declined in popularity; maybe all those keglers have become infielders and outfielders or maybe forwards and mid-backs, (or whatever it is soccer players are called.)
Admittedly, my sample is pretty small, but it’s impressive that, on a mid-week night in a mid-sized city on the far edge of the continent, so many folks were out running around playing with each other. Granted, most of them were white, apparently middle-class, twenty and thirty somethings, but presumably, not all of them hold the same political opinions.
Hope for the future? I hope.
I’m sure he’s right about the basic claim, but wonder if his data about participation in recreational sports leagues are accurate. He ought to come out to the Woodland Park fields in Greenlake, where I umpired on Tuesday night, and see for himself just how many people are playing games together.
The complex has six baseball diamonds and every one was booked, all night long from about 5:00 to nearly 11:00. On half the fields, teams were playing softball; on the other half of them, spirited games of kickball were being played. Bookending these six are two soccer fields, both of which hosted games. And just down the block is a gym, in which a spate of basketball games was being played.
So, maybe it’s bowling that has declined in popularity; maybe all those keglers have become infielders and outfielders or maybe forwards and mid-backs, (or whatever it is soccer players are called.)
Admittedly, my sample is pretty small, but it’s impressive that, on a mid-week night in a mid-sized city on the far edge of the continent, so many folks were out running around playing with each other. Granted, most of them were white, apparently middle-class, twenty and thirty somethings, but presumably, not all of them hold the same political opinions.
Hope for the future? I hope.
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