Big Lessons for Little Leaguers
March 13, 2015
The only thing worse than adults corrupting kids for their own glory and gratification is politicians trying to excuse those adults so the kids learn nothing positive and much that’s negative from the situation.
So, things went from bad to worse when the mayor of Chicago tried to pressure Little League Baseball to restore the victories and championships that the Jackie Robinson West All-Stars baseball team claimed during the 2014 Little League World Series while some of its players were in violation of the organization’s residency rules.
So far, the kids have learned that it’s not right to cheat. The mayor would have them learn that you can avoid the consequences of cheating if you know people in the right places.
Little League is a victim of its own success. The more hype it has brought to what once was a healthy local game for 9-12 year olds of modest skills – the more it has become a spectacle for all-stars who, really, are merely those children who have matured the most – the more it has raised the stakes, the more Little League Baseball has invited excesses and even corruption.
This trend will only get worse; and it will get worse much faster if the politicians try to overpower those Little League officials who are still trying to hold things in check. Those so-called “stubborn” leaders offer Little League its biggest and best legacy.
Urgency
November 8, 2011
I still have in my files and in my mind Joe Klein’s Newsweek editorial of Sept. 21, 1992, that took Bill Clinton to task for his “small themes” during the closing months of his campaign for the U.S. presidency.
Never one to be shy in his bully pulpit at Newsweek (or in his then anonymously published novel Primary Colors based on the 1992 Democratic presidential primary), Klein wrote that Clinton’s late campaign efforts were “rhetorically flaccid, intellectually unadventurous, morally undemanding.”
In response, Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, resorted to a sports metaphor: “The way to the goal line is to keep running off tackle. Four yards and a cloud of dust.”
This “take no chances, do no harm, run out the clock” spirit and strategy that so infuriated Klein will not be seen at the MHSAA. Expectations and efforts will be in continuous crescendo no matter how close the goal line gets. In fact, as it is with any good football team in the “red zone,” the closer the goal line looms, the greater the sense of urgency there will be.
There is no greater proof at this moment to our most inner circle of constituents – high school athletics directors – than the MHSAA’s work with ArbiterSports to become the first state high school association in America to develop, and to deliver at least initially at no cost to all member high schools, a comprehensive suite of electronic tools for athletic department administration. This is a responsibility, and risk, that could have been left to others; but we’re being motivated by undertaking the task here and now – first in the nation – so that the product is tailor-made for high school sports, Michigan’s way.