Parents living vicariously through their progeny are a part of my profession I’ve come to accept.

I’m not giving my approval, mind you. Only my tolerance. Hey, my son is smarter, better looking and well on his way to being bigger and stronger than I. So I get it.

What I don’t understand is where the good folks of Central and Western Maine choose to invest their time and treasure in pushing those kids to would-be greatness. My eyes and ears tell me they’ve missed the boat.

At any checkpoint on the calendar, I’m certain to hear about an AAU basketball tournament in Florida or an U14 hockey hootenanny or soccer shebang in Michigan. A cheerleading camp in Texas or a football combine in Timbuktu.

Lacrosse all-star games. Junior Olympic ski and snowboard showcases. Track and field summits featuring athletes from 99 different nations.

Great activities, all. But buried a dozen rungs down the ladder: Baseball, and that’s a peculiar trend. Because of all the pastimes pursued by young adults here in Southern Canada, baseball is the one that affords the most realistic chance of actually getting paid to play it one day.

Not only isn’t that declaration up for debate, but I would challenge you come up with a sport that is even a close second in the category.

It doesn’t make any sense on the surface, because in the age of more electronic devices than fingers to count them, no game has taken a harder hit from the inevitable drop in participation than baseball.

Baseball already was hampered by lack of immediate gratification and appeal to those with attention deficits. Then stir in lacrosse, a centuries-old game that took a foothold here in the 1990s and started stomping on the national pastime’s chest at every opportunity.

Finally, consider Maine’s mostly atrocious spring weather. Short of a calculus exam at 7:30 a.m., there are few scholastic activities more painful than standing in right field during the sixth inning of a scrimmage on the first Saturday in April.

Even Class A teams struggle to find 12 or 13 varsity-level players. Smaller schools suspend their JV programs due to lack of interest.

It takes a toll on the overall product, which falls between awful and watchable. But a funny thing has happened: The ceiling of individual talent actually has gone up.

As of the second Saturday in June, there are currently three active Mainers in Major League Baseball. If not for injury, there would be four.

The Pittsburgh Pirates recently summoned relief pitcher Ryan Reid to the parent club. Reid, a product of Deering High School in Portland, had been lights-out in spring training and through two months of Triple-A. He promptly retired the four men he faced in his debut.

Reid became the 74th Maine-born player to reach the promised land. He joins former high school teammate Ryan Flaherty, who with the exception of a brief reassignment a month ago has spent the past two seasons with the Baltimore Orioles.

Surprised? We shouldn’t be. Flaherty and Reid won a national championship with Nova Seafood in American Legion ball. Each enjoyed a stellar collegiate career — Flaherty at Vanderbilt, Reid at James Madison.

Equally entrenched in the majors is South Portland’s Charlie Furbush. He has found his niche out of the bullpen with the Seattle Mariners, sharing in a combined no-hitter in 2012.

And let’s not forget Mark Rogers, the Milwaukee Brewers’ first-round pick in 2004 from Orrs Island. It has been an injury-riddled journey for the tall right-hander who once drew more than 7,000 spectators to Mt. Ararat’s state title game against Flaherty and Reid’s Rams. When healthy, however, Rogers has been outstanding. He was 3-1 in his rookie voyage of 2012.

Not since Auburn’s Bert Roberge, Bill Swift, Bob Stanley and Pete Ladd were on the hill in the mid-1980s has Maine simultaneously enjoyed such representation in the big leagues. But growing up in snowbound Maine, or even in relatively remote Androscoggin, Oxford or Franklin counties, has never been an impediment to possibly earning a paycheck on the diamond.

In the past 15 years alone, Bryan Lambert (Edward Little), Garrett Olson and Eric Cavers (Oxford Hills), Jeremy Shorey (Lisbon), Tip Fairchild (Monmouth) and Edwin Thompson (Jay) all got a taste of the minors. And am I forgetting someone? Probably.

Sure, we’ve had the occasional Greg Moore in hockey, Troy Barnies in basketball, Roger Levesque in Major League Soccer, Ricky Craven and Joe Bessey in NASCAR and of course Seth Wescott and Julia Clukey in the Winter Olympics.

That doesn’t obscure the fact that the number of pro baseball players from Maine during my career outnumbers the total of pro athletes in all other sports combined. Or that every summer I have the privilege of interviewing one or two old-timers upon their induction to the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame, and invariably each of them sipped his cup of coffee in the minors.

The lesson here: Teach your children well. Buy ’em a bat and a glove.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.