This month, 21 current and former Major League Baseball players invested their own money in youth baseball. If that sounds like a feel-good story in which baseball’s past paves the way for baseball’s future, think again.

The MLB team invested in Perfect Game, a company that holds pricey tournaments and prospect showcases for college and professional scouts. But those events aren’t for everyone. For example, at a recent weekend tournament for Houston-area 8-year-olds, the company charged a $750 entry fee.

Can’t pay? Find somewhere else to play. And good luck with that because free or cheaper options across the country, such as Little League, have been reporting shrinkage for years. Pay-to-play models have replaced them.

The new way of doing things is good for operators, investors and families who can afford them. However, a large group of kids come from households with budgets that can’t accommodate the hefty prices or just want to play for fun.

The exclusion undermines the social and health benefits that youth sports have long offered.

There’s a lot to lose. Kids who are physically active have lower rates of obesity, better mental health and improved academic performance.

For decades, youth baseball served as a community-based initiative that helped kids achieve those goals. Children played for free in neighborhood sandlots and backyards. If they wanted a more organized experience, their families paid fees that ranged from $0 (or whatever they could afford) to $300 to join a local Little League chapter staffed by volunteer coaches (oftentimes parents). Later, if an athlete had promise and interest, a high school team might beckon.

So long as a child and family had the time, baseball was accessible.

Not anymore — and it’s not just baseball. According to a 2022 survey by Project Play and Utah State University, families pay an average of $883 per season for one child’s primary sport.

Higher costs are driven, in part, by the rise of privately run club and travel teams with more professional coaching. The New England Baseball Journal recently estimated that the average cost of travel baseball for kids between 8th and 12th grade in the Northeast is “north of $5,000 per year.” That’s not including travel costs. Between 2021 and 2022, the share of youths playing in travel sports doubled to 29%.

Participants have their reasons. Unlike Little League, which welcomes anyone, club and travel teams tend to require tryouts to secure better athletes and competition.

For parents (and their kids) dreaming of college scholarships and the pros, the expense is worth it — assuming they can afford it.

Often, paying to join an actual team is just the start.

Using Perfect Game as an example: For those who want to spend more on preparation before they showcase their talents, there is no shortage of private coaching and video analysis available. Aspen Institute data from 2022 shows that parents who make over $150,000 spent 83% more on sports travel than parents earning under $50,000.

That gap in spending doesn’t only affect who gets the best coaching and competition. Along with Little League and other community-based baseball dwindling, the domination of pay-to-play youth sports also lowers opportunities for kids of different backgrounds to develop friendships. That consequence goes hand-in-hand with another one: exacerbation of long-standing health and achievement inequities.

For example, physical inactivity is strongly correlated with low income levels. Due in large part to the widening racial wealth gap that limits discretionary spending, Black children play sports at lower rates than white kids. (It’s a problem made worse by long-standing issues with access to parks and other recreational facilities in urban neighborhoods.)

Ultimately that disparity shows up, among other places, in baseball at the college and professional level. The Racial and Gender Report Card study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found that in 2023, African Americans represented just 6.2% of Major League Baseball’s opening-day rosters. It was the lowest level since the study was first done in 1991, when Black players represented 18% of the rosters. If more Black kids played baseball, those numbers would certainly be higher. The drop correlates with the decline of high rates of Black youth participation in baseball in areas such as Oakland, California. A 2021 KTVU FOX 2 news report noted that in the ’80s and ’90s, the Oakland Babe Ruth League had 1,200 players, and 92% were Black. Nowadays, there are about 250 children, and 40% are Black.

Major League Baseball acknowledges the problem and has committed millions to providing access to higher-level scouts and coaching to Black children. Likewise, Perfect Game has a foundation to provide access to its elite events to underserved communities. Both programs are admirable. But they fail to provide the free-to-play community-based baseball that engages kids who don’t aspire to the Big Leagues.

Private equity can help. For example, the baseball side of Unrivaled, a holding company for youth sports businesses purchased by investors Josh Harris and David Blitzer, has hosted community-based championships for free.

Still, that’s a small part of what’s necessary to make up for the shift to pay-to-play sports. What Unrivaled gets right — the need for community-based baseball and other sports — will ultimately require funding commitments from traditional sources. Think of schools, parks and recreation departments and other levels of government that see value in health and active communities.

Pay-to-play has a role in youth sports, but it’s an unforced error to let it become the dominant player.

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale.”

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If you’ve sensed that your allergies are getting worse each year, it’s not your imagination: Allergy season in the U.S. is getting longer and more intense. You can thank climate change for your misery. And yet we’re not doing enough — to slow down climate change, of course, but to recognize and respond to its very clear health effects.

These weigh on the economy, too. Estimates for direct costs, for things like antihistamines and inhalers, and indirect ones, for office absences or lower productivity, range in the billions of dollars. And while much of the research stems from an era when better allergy meds were just being introduced, one more recent study out of Sweden found that was costing the country of 9.5 million people upwards of 1.3 billion euros per year.

Allergies are a prime example of a common condition getting worse because of a warmer world. “When you turn up the temperatures on plants, especially in a controlled setting like a greenhouse, or you increase carbon dioxide concentrations, plants put out quite a bit more pollen,” explains William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the University of Utah.

Anderegg conducted an oft-cited study of pollen trends that found seasons now start 20 days earlier than they did in 1990, and last about eight days longer. Meanwhile, there’s about 20% more pollen filling the air. Much of that shift is due to climate change.

“Pollen is a really clear example of how climate change is with us here and now, in our backyards and already affecting our health,” he says.

That could have real ramifications for the quarter of adults and nearly 20% of children in the U.S. with seasonal allergies. They will be wheezier and sneezier for more of the year. And they might be caught unprepared when allergens appear earlier than expected (to be most effective, allergy medicine should be taken before exposure).

When the lungs are aggravated by pollen, it can make people more vulnerable to certain illnesses, like the common cold and sinus infections. And it’s downright dangerous for people with asthma: An analysis of asthma patients Maryland found that very early-onset spring led to a 17% increase in hospitalizations.

As the climate worsens, so too could pollen’s health effects. A 2019 study found that tree and grass pollen combined were responsible for some 35,000 to 60,000 emergency room visits each year, many of those cases in children. The researchers predicted climate change could push those numbers up by 14% by 2090, with grass pollen becoming a bigger problem, particularly in the Northeast, Midwest and Southern Great Plains regions.

Many more people could eventually be living in allergy misery. Each of us has an individual pollen threshold, above which the immune system is triggered and allergy symptoms appear, explains Kenneth Mendez, CEO and President of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. A more intense pollen season will make someone with a lower threshold feel worse, and could tip people with higher thresholds into the ranks of allergy sufferers.

People with seasonal allergies should stay on top of their symptoms by starting their meds at the first signs of spring — even if those occur in February. Antihistamines need to be taken regularly for about two weeks before pollen season starts to be effective, Mendez says. If over-the-counter medicines seem to have lost their punch, see a specialist, who might recommend allergy shots.

Allergy sufferers should also lean into tried-and-true methods of lessening pollen exposure, like keeping windows shut and showering before bed, and getting a good home air purifier.

But it can’t just be on individuals to cope. Workplaces could ensure that indoor air quality, an issue that got attention during the peak pandemic years, continues to be a priority. And local and federal governments should be doing more to blunt the impact of longer allergy seasons.

A good starting place would be to do a better job of tracking pollen counts. Large swaths of the country, including some major cities and several states, don’t even have a pollen station, which are run and funded by volunteers in coordination with the National Allergy Bureau. Anderegg notes that only one exists for his entire home state of Utah. That lack of coverage makes it harder for people like him to effectively study long-term allergen patterns, as well as warn the public about signs of changes that could make them sicker. Cities or states could throw a few dollars at expanding this network.

City planners should also be taking pollen into account as they design vegetation to mitigate the effects of climate change. Increasing tree cover is a vital way to cool down urban heat islands. But tree pollen also is the primary driver of spring allergy woes (grass is typically the main culprit in the summer, and ragweed and mold in the fall), which means urban planners need to make smart planting choices. For decades, cities tended to plant male rather than female trees, as they don’t bear fruit that litters the ground. But male trees make much more pollen, meaning allergy sufferers pay a price for that botanical bias.

“There is a huge potential for trees to cool down cities and help us adapt to heat waves,” Anderegg says. “We just want to plant the right species in the right places for the right reasons.”

A bad allergy season not only results in human suffering, but in high costs for treatments, doctors’ visits and hospitalizations. People miss work due to hay fever and asthma. More often, they head into the office with symptoms and are less productive because of it. Without action, the toll on both our sinuses and the economy will only get worse.

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.

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Florian Chmielewski, famed for his polka prowess and longtime service in state government, died Tuesday at age 97. According to an obituary shared by his family, Chmielewski had been experiencing congestive heart failure and “passed away peacefully” at his home in Sturgeon Lake, Minn.

As a longtime member of the Chmielewski Funtime Band, the musician helped preserve and celebrate a musical tradition with deep roots in the state’s European settler communities. His band toured widely, recorded extensively and became television’s Partridge Family of polka.

“It’s just like a piece of history is missing,” said the artist’s daughter, Patty Chmielewski, reflecting on the end of her father’s life. “He never stopped. He had two settings: full speed and sleep.”

Florian Chmielewski also served in the Minnesota Senate from 1971-1997, representing the districts encompassing Sturgeon Lake, and served as president of that body during a special session in 1987. As listed by the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, his special areas of concern were employment, health care, housing and veterans affairs.

The inheritor and steward of family traditions in music, agriculture and public service, Chmielewski was beloved by audiences — representing, to many, the cheerful face of a longstanding community tradition of “old-time” music and social dance.

“Polka music is happy music,” Florian Chmielewski told the Cloquet Pine Journal in 2014. “There’s no sadness in it.” Chmielewski played well into his 90s, saying he would consider retiring when he reached 100.

One of 15 siblings, Florian Chmielewski was born in 1927 on his family farm in Sturgeon Lake. The family’s musical tradition stretched back to Chmielewski’s grandfather, a fiddler originally from Poland. “My dad only spoke Polish until the fifth grade,” said Patty Chmielewski.

Florian Chmielewski began playing accordion in his teens, forming a band with his brothers. After serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, Chmielewski brought his talents to the airwaves, performing in radio and television programs. The “Chmielewski Funtime” TV show, airing in syndication in markets across the United States and Canada, would turn the accordionist and his family members into national polka celebrities.

Duluth is “where it all began” for the family’s multimedia fame, said Patty Chmielewski. “My dad started on radio at WKLK.” Florian Chmielewski’s first television show, “The Polish TV Party,” launched in 1955 on Duluth’s WDSM-TV.

At the peak of the family’s television success, Patty Chmielewski remembered, “We were like the Beatles … girls would be jumping in the windows, trying to get hold of my brothers. It was crazy. Who would ever think? But that was back in the ’70s, and it’s a tribute to Duluth.”

Florian Chmielewski’s musical success helped elevate a political career that led to the state Senate. “He said he couldn’t be a senator, he (didn’t) believe, without the accordion,” said Patty Chmielewski.

In St. Paul, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislator embraced his identity as “the Swinging Senator” (the title of one of his many record albums, featuring a cover photo of Chmielewski standing outside the Capitol) and even used his music to build bridges across party lines.

At one point, said Patty Chmielewski, referencing her father’s memoir “0 to 90,” Florian Chmielewski pulled out his accordion during a Senate impasse; the frustrated politicians improvised lyrics to a song about being stuck.

“It just changed the whole demeanor of everything,” said Patty Chmielewski. “They went back in and voted, and it was done.”

Although Florian Chmielewski worked at the Capitol alongside former Gov. Rudy Perpich, the pair’s best-remembered intersection came at the 1978 launch of the Chmielewski International Polkafest in Pine City. A runner appeared with a torch, evoking the Olympics, and attempted a ceremonial handoff to the governor.

“Oil was dripping from the torch,” remembered Patty Chmielewski, and as the prop was passed to the governor, “Boop! Rudy goes up in flames. He had this polyester suit on, and it just melted.”

The fire was extinguished without serious harm to the governor, and the festival went on to become a multi-decade tradition. In a 2015 News Tribune interview, Florian Chmielewski recounted the incident and said that Perpich quipped to him afterward: “Eleven attorneys called me. Since you’re a good friend, I told nine to get lost.”

While in office Chmielewski focused on bringing concrete results — state funding and projects — to his district. Though highly popular and “considered unbeatable” as an incumbent up to that point, the Duluth News Tribune reported in 1996, Chmielewski’s legislative career ended that year when he lost a primary challenge after admitting he had allowed relatives to place long-distance phone calls at taxpayer expense.

After leaving office, Chmielewski continued to entertain for the remaining three decades of his life. He was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame and was recognized in the Pioneer Division of the International Polka Association Hall of Fame.

As just one example of their statewide stardom, in 1989, Chmielewski family members performed alongside stars like the Jets at the Minnesota Music Awards in Minneapolis — and took home more prizes than Prince.

Chmielewski’s familiar face and reliable good humor earned warm receptions at concerts and events, as his family band encompassed members of fourth, fifth and sixth generations.

“There wasn’t anything he didn’t tackle without a positive attitude,” said Patty Chmielewski. “Everybody says, ‘What a kind, what a gentle man.’”

Pat Chmielewski, the artist’s wife of 47 years, died in 2003. The Chmielewski Funtime Band continues on, now led by Patty Chmielewski.

Florian Chmielewski’s shows always stoked an atmosphere of “togetherness,” said Patty Chmielewski. “No matter where my dad was, he could create it. If you didn’t know how to dance, he could talk you into dancing, and then you’d be happy that you did it.”

A funeral for Florian Chmielewski will be held May 7 at St. Isidore’s Catholic Church in Sturgeon Lake. For funeral and visitation details, see hhkfuneralhome.com.

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After trading up to select Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy with the No. 10 pick, the Vikings remained aggressive in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft on Thursday night, trading up once again, this time select Alabama edge rusher Dallas Turner with the No. 17 pick.

It was a rather hefty price tag to make the deal, as the Vikings flipped the No. 23 pick and the No. 167 pick in this year’s draft  to the Jacksonville Jaguars, as well as a third-round pick and a fourth-round pick in next year’s draft.

It’s safe to assume defensive coordinator Brian Flores was very happy with the selection of Turner. He’s a prospect many prognosticators had going much higher in the first round after a standout career at Alabama.

After losing star edge rusher Danielle Hunter in free agency, the Vikings initially filled the void by signing edge rushers Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel. The addition of Turner helps further solidify that position group.

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