…

Postscript:

When the San Francisco Forty-Niners changed owners and converted themselves into the greatest, most successful sports organization ever (defining excellence), when they first changed and managed a comeback and win from being down 35-0 at halftime to the New Orleans Saints (the Saints shouted “Seventy points! Seventy points!” as they walked by the Niners' locker room at halftime), the next time highlights were played on Monday night, the Niners weren't featured at all(!). Walsh complained openly that there were many back East who thought they ran everything and the other teams were just chumps meant for the few elite teams to feed on during the regular season.

Howard Cosell, from back East, confronted Walsh angrily later — “Who do you think you are? Who the hell are you, anyway?” (The USA soon learned, for many years.)

In Texas many kids are held back in 7th grade because once a student is in 8th grade, they only have five schools years of eligibility. The same thing happens in Canda where the junior teams are dominated by kids born in January and February since the junior players have to be a certain age on January 1. The oldest kids benefit.

I also believe that travel teams convince many kids that they are not that good. Once that start playing other stacked teams, many kids realize they will never be fast enough or quick enough to compete.

True. My nephew's case, though, was pre-teen, and I suspect there are a number of similar cases.

(And I'm reminded by this age and maturity and ability note — does Texas still hold kids back a grade or more to make 'em into bigger, better football players? So the reputation goes…)

What usually turns young athletes off to sports is adolescence. Many kids look like great atheltes when they are 10-12 years old because they are just better than mamny kids due to early maturity, more practice, or playing on a stacked team. However, when the kids get older and everyone catches up many of the kids realize they are really not that talented, not the right size to play, or playing out of position.

(No beanballs!)

I don't believe commercialism will wreck Little League the way money has affected pro sports or the colleges (not only with the commercialized bowl game name changes that started this trend, but the vast corruption with college “students” who are farm club apprentice pros or hopeful pros).

What I'm happy about here is that there seems not to be too big an instance here of what is a common problem with not only Little League but other organized sports and children –

“managers who only are concerned with output, production, and success”

actually, the PARENTS, and how they wreck the sports experience from so many kids.

A typical anecdote: One of my nephews is now a great musician but used to be great at sports, a star from early age. We avoided the “stage parent” and “stage family” idiocy you see with children in entertainment and sports (the two remain somewhat distinct!), but what the boy experienced just indirectly was enough to turn him off to organized sports and sports in general.

I suspect this has affected a lot of people, the whole sports and entertainment scene with associated misbehavior of the participants (athletes with rap sheets that dwarf their score sheets, even).

Too bad.

It's still pleasant to watch and feel good for the kids, and here in Michigan I've seen people watching this on TV in various places when they easily could have been watching adults in action or other programming.

“joy and important lessons can just as eqasily be learned in a sand lot “

That's what we used to do, after school (at least until football season began, America's real pastime).

And the “secret sandlot, no parents” theme goes at least as far back as to a Flintstones episode.

Where I share with you the joy for the best game ever invented, I too would come down on the negative for televised little league baseball. One neither has to be seen nor adulated to learn the mysteries that this sport can teach, and the intensity of “World Series” competition is the very least important lesson to be gained. Do 12 year old really need a national screen on which to learn pressure?

Of all sports, baseball teaches the long view in life, batting averages, ERAs and winning percentages only have meaning over a large number of games. The frenetic pace of tournaments run exactly counter to that basic characteristic of the game. Tournaments are for “winning,” not playing, nor learning. Compound that fact with managers who only are concerned with output, production, and success according to his model.

Kids are not a commodity to make a buck. The joy and important lessons can just as eqasily be learned in a sand lot as a tv event.