No that's not it. Soccer is pushed in elementary school because it's cheap, all you need is the ball and some room to play and something to mark where the goals are, I remember once we used chairs as goal posts because the traffic cones had gone missing. Baseball is expensive, you need bats and at least 9 gloves to go with that ball, and you need the diamond. In elementary school they never let kids play tackle so that means you need flags, more equipment. Elementary school PE is all about cheap, and soccer is the single cheapest sport you can have a class of 30 kids play for 40 minutes.
Which is exactly why soccer enjoys such a worldwide popularity. Even the poorest neighborhood in the poorest country can afford it. (All you need is the head of the captain of the last losing team.)
Explain why all those poor latin countries are so good as bsseball...