Is a ticket to a MLB game wasted on a 6-year-old kid?

[AsahinaKimi]

Here's the situation. You're a San Francisco parent. You sort of follow baseball, especially when your local team, The Giants, are doing well as they are now. A friend gives you two tickets. Do you take your 6-year-old son or your old elementary school friend who is a lifelong Giants fan yet would never have the means to go to such a game?



I polled some local parents to see whether they think a ticket to tonight's game is wasted on a 6-year-old kid. Keep in mind that for a 6-year-old the game could be a long-lost memory or it could be the most vivid memory of the child's early life.

San Francisco dad Chris Arnold says: "As a season ticket holder and lifelong Giants fan, I can say unequivocally that the ticket is wasted on a 6-year-old. The only instance where it would not be is if the kid is a baseball fan savant. Otherwise, the child may have trouble seeing over the adults sitting in front, will get jostled, and likely not appreciate the experience. I am a huge baseball fan as are my 2 sons and none of us really were able to sit through games caring about what was going on out there until about age 8. My older son was 8 when he joined me in 2002 when the Giants clinched the penant at home againts the Cardinals and he definitely remembers that special experience."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=75159

[charlie and algernon]

1. to a World Series game? maybe. To a regular season game? take the kid

I don't think a 6 yr old would appreciate being at one of the World Series games this week and that WOULD be too intense for them. However, to any old regular season game? Absolutely take the kid to see the game. I think it would be a blast for the kid. At that age, they'll at least KNOW where they are. I went to my first game when I was 11 and I still remember what the teams were and the score.

If I had two tickets to Game 1 of the World Series tomorrow, no, I would not take a 6 yr old. But if those tickets were to a game in June, then absolutely would.

[terryg11]

2. not wasted

can be a great experience even at that age.

[HuckleB]

3. No, it's not wasted.

Heck, my kid's first game was Red Sox - Yankees at Yankee Stadium when he was five months old. Granted, he wasn't paying attention to the game then, but I didn't have to buy him a ticket then, either.

The only thing that makes taking him to a game at four, this past season, an issue, was the timing (afternoon games typically run into nap time and 7:00 games are too late -- unless we had traveled to the east coast, which turns those 7:00 games into 4:00 games for a west coast boy). Luckily, we live in a minor league city (Well, it was a minor league city until now. We said goodbye to the Beavers on Labor Day.), and there were a number of 11:00 AM games on Mondays and Thursdays. He loved those games, watched a good portion of them until the middle innings. Then I got him some food, and then he looked at books.

However, he absolutely loves going to Portland Timbers soccer games, as long as we sit relatively close to the Timbers Army. He gets sing, dance, chant, clap, pound his feet, yell, cheer, throw his scarf up in the air, etc... for most of the game. It's a great time, and that environment would be much more like the environment at a World Series game than the environment at a minor league game. A kid would have a blast at a World Series game, IMO.

[KamaAina]

4. A baseball ticket is NEVER wasted on a six-year-old.

ESPECIALLY not the Series. We're talking lifelong memories here, especially out here where he might be in grad school before it happens again. :eyes:

All too often, however, postseason tickets, in any sport, are wasted on alleged grownups who couldn't give a flying rip about either team but happened to have the right corporate connections. :eyes:

[HuckleB]

5. It may never happen again.

I've been waiting 28 years myself, and that's with an appearance when I was in middle school. Unfortunately, my family didn't have the resources to go to a game.

So, yeah, take the kid!

[thatsrightimirish]

6. nope

I remember my first day of kindergarten when I was 6. Would I forget a world series game? Not at all.

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. I hope you took the kid.

I really, really do. It's a regret you will carry with you for the rest of your life.