Re: Why I Hate the Little League World Series
Antonio Veranos
[Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:44:39 -0700 (PDT)]
: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2011/08/17/why-i-hate-the-little-league-world-series/
:
: On Aug. 18 is the beginning of the Little League World Series, a 10-
: day event devoted to spotlighting baseball pure as the driven snow,
: where 11- and 12-year-olds around the world show all of us what the
: spirit of competition and fair play for their own sake really mean.
: The games are shown are ESPN, and I?ll be watching only in the event
: that I accidentally swallowed rat poison, and need to induce vomiting.
:
: The cover of the Little League media guide has a young ballplayer
: superimposed with such terms as ?courage,? ?loyalty? and ?character,?
: but missing the term ?exploitation.? Little League makes about one-
: quarter of its annual $20 million budget from ESPN?s coverage of the
: World Series, and regional tournaments. It ? and the environs of
: Williamsport, Pa. ? are not unique in relying on the good will of
: parents, children and sports to make a lot of money. But Little League
: is the most obvious about trying to pretend it?s all about athletic
: purity, and that?s why my stomach begins rumbling when its World
: Series starts.
:
: Travel and elite leagues are their own brand of exploitative evil, but
: to their, er, credit, they are openly craven about their intentions.
: Basically, Little League (and ESPN) is asking us to buy an adult-
: organized, adult-run international tournament for tweens as some sort
: of moral equivalent of kids gathering at the park for their own game.
: I found, in the Los Angeles Times, this appropriate quote from author
: James Michener, originally made in his book ?Sports in America,?
: released in 1976 ? the same year of the Little League satire ?The Bad
: News Bears.?
:
: ?The evil always begins with adults who desperately want to win
: championships that were denied them when they were young boys. They
: use children, often not their own, to achieve this dream, and in doing
: so pervert the normal experiences of youth.?
:
: That?s a line I don?t think you?ll hear on ESPN. Not with attitudes
: like this, as quoted by MSNBC.com:
:
: ?If a kid makes an error in right field and is out there crying at
: a Little League game, seeing his face is a big part of the story,?
: said Phil Orlins, ESPN 3D?s coordinating producer.
:
: Yes, nothing is healthier for an 11- or 12-year-old than a close-up of
: crying after screwing up on national TV! It?s the purity of the game!
:
: I get that there are children playing who will immensely enjoy the
: experience, and find it a touchstone of their lives, as spelled out in
: one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite movies,
: ?Hoosiers.?
:
: Myra Fleener: You know, a basketball hero around here is treated
: like a god. How can he ever find out what he can really do? I don?t
: want this to be the high point of his life. I?ve seen them, the real
: sad ones. They sit around the rest of their lives talking about the
: glory days when they were 17 years old. Coach Norman Dale: You know,
: most people would kill? to be treated like a god, just for a few
: moments.
:
: However, that doesn?t mean I need to watch it. I don?t want to see
: Little League pretending that it?s somehow above the worst aspects of
: professionalized youth sports, while at the same time treating pre-
: pubescent kids as human drama and advertising opportunities, all in
: the name of courage, character and loyalty. Plus, it would be a little
: creepy of me, as a grown man, to watch other people?s young children
: play sports. Barf.
Forwarded from another group... mostly a good read.
--
Antonio Veranos
<insert witty comment here>
unklbob
> [TMC, tmc1...@gmail.com]
> [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:44:39 -0700 (PDT)]
>
> :
Dude sounds pretty bitter.
Antonio Veranos
[Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
: Dude sounds pretty bitter.
Justifiably so, it seems.
What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
J.C. Watts Enslin
wrote:
> [unklbob, mcgrisw...@aol.com]
> [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
>
> : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
>
> Justifiably so, it seems.
>
> What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
I am not a real big fan of Little League, as I have stated here
before. And I have dealt with the parent factor way too much.
But honestly, the organized, travelling sports does these kids way
more good than it does harm.
unklbob
wrote:
Agreed. My oldest could pick a lot worse activities than playing
softball over the weekend.
unklbob
wrote:
> [unklbob, mcgrisw...@aol.com]
I don't know how long you've been out of the country, but its odd that
someone who has little or no contact with something arrives at the
conclusion that its "sickening". I have had my ups and downs with
Little League, but being one game away from the LLWS is something my
kid will remember forever, and the boys, aside from the
disappointment, had a great time. The guys from ESPN were great, and
treated the kids well.
Antonio Veranos
[Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:46:40 -0700 (PDT)]
: On Aug 19, 11:14ï¿œam, Antonio Veranos <nos...@thanksverymuch.com>
: wrote:
: > [unklbob, mcgrisw...@aol.com]
: > [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
: >
: > : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
: >
: >
: > What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
: I don't know how long you've been out of the country, but its odd that
: someone who has little or no contact with something arrives at the
: conclusion that its "sickening".
I didn't write that Little League itself is sickening; try again.
Or better yet, don't. All indications from your posts on this subject
demonstrate that you are a helicopter parent yourself, therefore your
opinion on what you and your elk have done to something which used to be
innocent and pure is really of very little interest to me.
unklbob
> [unklbob, mcgrisw...@aol.com]
>
>
> : > [unklbob, mcgrisw...@aol.com]
> : > [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
> : >
> : > : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
> : >
> : > Justifiably so, it seems.
> : > What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
>
> : I don't know how long you've been out of the country, but its odd that
> : someone who has little or no contact with something arrives at the
> : conclusion that its "sickening".
>
> I didn't write that Little League itself is sickening; try again.
>
> Or better yet, don't. All indications from your posts on this subject
> demonstrate that you are a helicopter parent yourself, therefore your
> opinion on what you and your elk have done to something which used to be
> innocent and pure is really of very little interest to me.
>
> --
> Antonio Veranos
>
> <insert witty comment here>
Dodge noted.
That Don Guy
>[TMC, tmc...@gmail.com]
>[Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:44:39 -0700 (PDT)]
>
>
>: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2011/08/17/why-i-hate-the-little-league-world-series/
>:
>: On Aug. 18 is the beginning of the Little League World Series, a 10-
>: day event devoted to spotlighting baseball pure as the driven snow,
>: where 11- and 12-year-olds around the world show all of us what the
>: spirit of competition and fair play for their own sake really mean.
>: The games are shown are ESPN, and I?ll be watching only in the event
>: that I accidentally swallowed rat poison, and need to induce vomiting.
>:
>: The cover of the Little League media guide has a young ballplayer
>: superimposed with such terms as ?courage,? ?loyalty? and ?character,?
>: but missing the term ?exploitation.? Little League makes about one-
>: quarter of its annual $20 million budget from ESPN?s coverage of the
>: World Series, and regional tournaments. It ? and the environs of
>: Williamsport, Pa. ? are not unique in relying on the good will of
>: parents, children and sports to make a lot of money. But Little League
>: is the most obvious about trying to pretend it?s all about athletic
>: purity, and that?s why my stomach begins rumbling when its World
>: Series starts.
Little League could probably make a lot more money if it charged
admission at any level of the tournament...
>: Travel and elite leagues are their own brand of exploitative evil, but
>: to their, er, credit, they are openly craven about their intentions.
>: Basically, Little League (and ESPN) is asking us to buy an adult-
>: organized, adult-run international tournament for tweens as some sort
>: of moral equivalent of kids gathering at the park for their own game.
>: I found, in the Los Angeles Times, this appropriate quote from author
>: James Michener, originally made in his book ?Sports in America,?
>: released in 1976 ? the same year of the Little League satire ?The Bad
>: News Bears.?
Don't forget about the South Park "treatment" of Little League (where
teams tried to lose so they wouldn't "waste their entire summer"
playing baseball).
The main problem now is, the tournament has gotten too big for its own
good. "In my day," the tournament lasted seven weeks, and in the
first three of those weeks, games were played locally.
>: ?The evil always begins with adults who desperately want to win
>: championships that were denied them when they were young boys. They
>: use children, often not their own, to achieve this dream, and in doing
>: so pervert the normal experiences of youth.?
At the same time, don't assume that none of the kids on those teams
want to be there, or wouldn't give pretty much everything they had for
the privilege. Back in 1975 or so, Little League actually cancelled
the World Series and replaced it with a USA-only "Championship
Series"; there were so many complaints that "we want to be able to
play the foreign teams" that Little League changed its mind a year
later - and don't tell me that the only people who were calling for
this were coaches and parents.
>: ?If a kid makes an error in right field and is out there crying at
>: a Little League game, seeing his face is a big part of the story,?
>: said Phil Orlins, ESPN 3D?s coordinating producer.
>:
>: Yes, nothing is healthier for an 11- or 12-year-old than a close-up of
>: crying after screwing up on national TV! It?s the purity of the game!
Making an error is one thing. Making an error that costs your team
the World Series, and being branded by everybody in your town as GOAT
for the rest of your life, is quite another.
-- Don
Ike
> [unklbob, mcgri...@aol.com]
> [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
>
> : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
>
> Justifiably so, it seems.
>
> What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
>
But what does that *really* have to do with the ESPN coverage of the
series? Hell, we had those type of parents when *we* were playing.
Nothing new here.
If the alternative to making the ESPN bucks is no Little League or a
reduced opportunity for kids to play organized ball, then I guess we
have to take the bad with the good.
--
WE ARE!!
That Don Guy
> Antonio Veranos wrote:
>> unklbob wrote:
>>
>> : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
>>
>> Justifiably so, it seems.
>>
>> What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
>>
>
>But what does that *really* have to do with the ESPN coverage of the
>series? Hell, we had those type of parents when *we* were playing.
>Nothing new here.
Also, ABC's coverage of the final predates ESPN.
If it was just about the parents, nobody besides the parents of the
teams involved would watch anything except the finals.
(And there's already a shock this year; the European winner ISN'T a
team of kids of USAF employees from some base in Germany.)
>If the alternative to making the ESPN bucks is no Little League or a
>reduced opportunity for kids to play organized ball, then I guess we
>have to take the bad with the good.
Was a single-elimination tournament THAT bad of an idea? (Before
anyone says, "Well, the Kirkland, Washington team that was the first
to beat Taiwa-ER, UH, 'Chinese Taipei' lost a game along the way,"
actually that game was against a team that had already lost once, so
it would not have had to play it in a full single-elimination
tournament.) Okay, you ran the risk of throwing your #2 guy against
another team's #1, but since most levels have single-elimination
semi-finals and finals anyway, you're going to need at least two
decent pitchers to get anywhere.
Also, if these kids are the best 14 players in their leagues, why do
you need a "must-play" rule in the tournament, at least at the higher
levels? The rule exists to make sure "win at all cost" coaches don't
sit their local team's bad players, but there aren't any really bad
players at this level.
-- Don
Antonio Veranos
[Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:38:08 -0400]
: On 19-Aug-11 11:14, Antonio Veranos wrote:
: > [unklbob, mcgri...@aol.com]
: > [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
: >
: > : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
: >
: > Justifiably so, it seems.
: >
: > What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
: >
:
: But what does that *really* have to do with the ESPN coverage of the
: series? Hell, we had those type of parents when *we* were playing.
: Nothing new here.
We had them, sure, but the reward for people who live vicariously
through their childrens' sporting activities wasn't as palpable. I
played Little League for years, among other sports, and there just
weren't as many nightmare parents then as there seem to be now.
: If the alternative to making the ESPN bucks is no Little League or a
: reduced opportunity for kids to play organized ball, then I guess we
: have to take the bad with the good.
I agree with you here, if we can put a stop to those who ruin it for the
kids... but how?
unklbob
> [Ike, I...@SHAEF.NET]
> [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:38:08 -0400]
>
> : On 19-Aug-11 11:14, Antonio Veranos wrote:
> : > [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
> : >
> : > : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
> : >
> : > Justifiably so, it seems.
> : >
> : > What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
> : >
> :
> : But what does that *really* have to do with the ESPN coverage of the
> : series? Hell, we had those type of parents when *we* were playing.
> : Nothing new here.
>
> We had them, sure, but the reward for people who live vicariously
> through their childrens' sporting activities wasn't as palpable. I
> played Little League for years, among other sports, and there just
> weren't as many nightmare parents then as there seem to be now.
>
> : If the alternative to making the ESPN bucks is no Little League or a
> : reduced opportunity for kids to play organized ball, then I guess we
> : have to take the bad with the good.
>
> I agree with you here, if we can put a stop to those who ruin it for the
> kids... but how?
>
> --
> Antonio Veranos
>
> <insert witty comment here>
You're so full of shit.
J.C. Watts Enslin
> [Ike, I...@SHAEF.NET]
> [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:38:08 -0400]
>
> : On 19-Aug-11 11:14, Antonio Veranos wrote:
> : > [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
> : >
> : > : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
> : >
> : > Justifiably so, it seems.
> : >
> : > What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
> : >
> :
> : But what does that *really* have to do with the ESPN coverage of the
> : series? Hell, we had those type of parents when *we* were playing.
> : Nothing new here.
>
> We had them, sure, but the reward for people who live vicariously
> through their childrens' sporting activities wasn't as palpable. I
> played Little League for years, among other sports, and there just
> weren't as many nightmare parents then as there seem to be now.
>
> : If the alternative to making the ESPN bucks is no Little League or a
> : reduced opportunity for kids to play organized ball, then I guess we
> : have to take the bad with the good.
>
> I agree with you here, if we can put a stop to those who ruin it for the
> kids... but how?
The percentage of parents who "ruin it for the kids" is very, very
small.
Antonio Veranos
[Sat, 20 Aug 2011 05:11:27 -0700 (PDT)]
: > : If the alternative to making the ESPN bucks is no Little League or a
: > : reduced opportunity for kids to play organized ball, then I guess we
: > : have to take the bad with the good.
: >
: > I agree with you here, if we can put a stop to those who ruin it for the
: > kids... but how?
:
:
: The percentage of parents who "ruin it for the kids" is very, very
: small.
Ruining it for the kids is not restricted to being a blowhard at the
game. Even here, there are plenty of idiots living vicariously through
their kids and putting undue pressure on them to excel, win, etc.
J.C. Watts Enslin
> [J.C. Watts Enslin, jonens...@charter.net]
> [Sat, 20 Aug 2011 05:11:27 -0700 (PDT)]
>
> : > : If the alternative to making the ESPN bucks is no Little League or a
> : > : reduced opportunity for kids to play organized ball, then I guess we
> : > : have to take the bad with the good.
> : >
> : > I agree with you here, if we can put a stop to those who ruin it for the
> : > kids... but how?
> :
> :
> : The percentage of parents who "ruin it for the kids" is very, very
> : small.
>
> Ruining it for the kids is not restricted to being a blowhard at the
> game. Even here, there are plenty of idiots living vicariously through
> their kids and putting undue pressure on them to excel, win, etc.
I don't see any evidence of anyone on here "ruining it for their
kids." Unklbob may seem over the top for you, but I seriously doubt
his children are harmed in any way.
Antonio Veranos
[Sat, 20 Aug 2011 08:25:25 -0700 (PDT)]
: > : The percentage of parents who "ruin it for the kids" is very, very
: > : small.
: >
: > Ruining it for the kids is not restricted to being a blowhard at the
: > game. Even here, there are plenty of idiots living vicariously through
: > their kids and putting undue pressure on them to excel, win, etc.
: I don't see any evidence of anyone on here "ruining it for their
: kids." Unklbob may seem over the top for you, but I seriously doubt
: his children are harmed in any way.
"here" above refers to the United Kingdom, Jon.
J.C. Watts Enslin
>
> : > : The percentage of parents who "ruin it for the kids" is very, very
> : > : small.
> : >
> : > Ruining it for the kids is not restricted to being a blowhard at the
> : > game. Even here, there are plenty of idiots living vicariously through
> : > their kids and putting undue pressure on them to excel, win, etc.
>
> : I don't see any evidence of anyone on here "ruining it for their
> : kids." Unklbob may seem over the top for you, but I seriously doubt
> : his children are harmed in any way.
>
> "here" above refers to the United Kingdom, Jon.
Ah...OK...I thought you meant rsfc...
Starcade
> [unklbob, mcgrisw...@aol.com]
> [Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:19 -0700 (PDT)]
>
> : Dude sounds pretty bitter.
>
> Justifiably so, it seems.
>
> What helicopter parents have done to Little League is sickening.
Basically what Little League _was_ and what it _is_ are two different
things.
If the LLWS were to have celebrated what Little League was, I don't
think there'd be too many arguments.
But it's clear that you get these teams constructed from the start of
the season to compete for the right to play in the LLWS -- and THAT is
the problem.
Mike