Is national pastime past its time for suburban kids?

The Winter Olympics end Sunday. The Blackhawks look to reignite their juggernaut. The Bulls search for consistency. The long-buried Bears prepare for a labor dispute. Winter-weary sports fans, after a season-long slog with shovels, beg for a glimpse of spring.

That's why folks are talking about baseball and the new, go-go White Sox and the "if everyone stays healthy" Cubs. Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is twittering his rear off. Cubs manager Lou Piniella is hoping to learn what in the Sam Hill twitter means. Fans of both teams, having packed winter fan festivals, now are buying tickets and champing at the bit for baseball.

But here in the suburbs, baseball is having a tough time prying kids off the couch. The number of kids signed up to play on baseball teams this summer has plummeted. The numbers have been falling for a decade.

Is the pastime formerly known as our national pastime simply past its time?

Experts have blamed baseball's decline on the economy, competition from other sports, schools that no longer stuff baseball signup sheets in kids' take-home folders, obesity and the temptations of time-sucking video games.

All true, I think. But I suspect there is another reason youth baseball isn't as popular as it used to be us adults.

The goal of suburban youth baseball leagues should be "to teach sportsmanship," "to have a good time," and to make kids "want to come back," says Marc Brauer, a veteran coach, parent and volunteer with Palatine Little League.

That works for me. I donned my first Little League uniform when I was 8 years old and found baseball enough fun to spend the next 30 summers as an infielder for some organized ball team, eventually moving from baseball to fastpitch 12-inch softball to incredibly slow 16-inch softball. For the last decade, I've donned a coach's cap when needed for some seasons in an attempt to pass along my love of the game.

Try to do more than that with youth baseball and you often end up doing less. Sometimes the beginning league is treated as part of a "feeder system," which means adult organizers want those players to feed into a junior league that would feed into an intermediate league that would feed into a senior league that would feed into a high school team that would feed into a college program that would feed into the professional minor leagues that would feed into Major League Baseball that would feed into the Baseball Hall of Fame that would feed a story about coaching that superstar athlete back when he wasn't sure which hand his glove went on.

The drive to create great baseball players can kill the game for the vast majority of kids. Fun suburban leagues sometimes split apart so kids can join more competitive travel leagues. I thought my love of baseball came from playing all summer long as a kid, but I really played only eight or 10 games a year until I got older. Today's adults push for more.

Instead of being a pastime, baseball becomes almost a chore that occupies too much of summer (and in some cases, spring, fall and winter).

Olympic short-track superstar Apolo Anton Ohno was a champion swimmer and in-line skater before his dad gave him his first pair of ice skates at age 12. By the age Ohno started ice-skating, many suburban kids have played more than 100 games, invested more than $1,000 and already have burned out or given up on baseball.

The suburbs need baseball. Baseball teaches kids how to handle failure and success, how to deal with people who contribute a lot and not so much, how to share victory and defeat with teammates, and how to cope with life situations that aren't always fair. Coaches and parents need to remember that baseball, above all else, should be fun for kids.

"Your goal is not to train Major Leaguers," Brauer reminds. "Your goal is to train future coaches of Little League."

If we don't do that with our national pastime in the present, we aren't going to need youth baseball coaches in the future.