Kids younger than a certain age (8, give or take) are terrible at self evaluation. You can convince a younger child that they had a great game even though they may have struck out every time. There is nothing wrong with participation trophies up to this age. When a child 'ages up', they 'know better'. At that point meaningless trophies are exactly that to the kids receiving them. I might add that baseball at age 5 is ridiculous for all but a few. Playing to win at that age would just be stupid. If you are giving out game balls, plan it so that every child will eventually receive one.