Something has been bothering me about the Little League World Series for 22 years, and I’m going to get in off my chest right now.
No, it’s not that 11- and 12-year-olds are having their Little League games broadcast around the world in prime time on ESPN, although that is a little disturbing. My sportswriting colleague Jeff (also one of my most dependable readers) has a huge issue with this, and he’s not wrong. Here’s the way I see this: if you really want to watch kids this age on TV playing baseball, and you don’t know them or, at least, they’re not representing a place you call home, I have to question your choice of sports programming.
Yeah, I know, I know: “These kids are playing for the love of the game, with youthful innocence and enthusiasm and blah, blah, blah…” Almost all baseball players play the game that way. A few major-leaguers do not. Minor-leaguers do. Go watch them. Watching little kids play is creepy.
The flip side: if the kids are competing for a world championship, and they’re from your hometown, or at least a town close enough that you can feel a connection, you’d be crazy NOT to watch.
The Little Leaguers representing my hometown, Fairfield, Conn., just lost in their bid to reach a second consecutive Little League World Series. They dropped a one-run contest in the New England regional semifinals last night to the team from Cumberland, R.I. I was very proud to see that the town where I grew up and played Little League has gone so far in this competition two straight years.
What annoys me, however, is the way the TV coverage strips away that hometown identity. Yesterday’s game was on the New England Sports Network, the same network that shows Red Sox and Bruins games. I don’t get NESN here in Pennsylvania, so I don’t know how the score bug looked on the NESN broadcast. If the game were on ESPN, however, the teams would have been called “Connecticut” and “Rhode Island.” That’s how they would have appeared on the graphic, and that’s what the announcers would have called them 95 percent of the time.
But Connecticut and Rhode Island did not play. They don’t even have teams. The teams were Fairfield and Cumberland. I didn’t start following this regional online because Connecticut was in it. Connecticut is in it every year, and if the team is from New London or Kent or Manchester, I couldn’t care less. Those places are nowhere near where I grew up. Connecticut is a small state, but it’s not that friggin’ small. I started following to see how Fairfield was doing.
The reason this rant of mine goes back 22 years is it brings us to 1989, the year Trumbull, with Chris Drury, won the World Series. I was, like everyone I knew back then, fascinated that a team so close – Fairfield and Trumbull are less than a mile apart over near Sacred Heart University – was winning a world championship.
What left me scratching my head, however, is why the word “Trumbull” was absent from the team’s jerseys, replaced with the word “East.” Teams in the LLWS trade in their hometown uniforms for one representing their region.
But these teams are not representing their region. I can assure you, I will glean no regional pride later this month if Cumberland, or Andover, Mass., wins the Little League World Series, just, I’m sure, nobody in Pennsylvania in 1989 cared that a team from the “East” won it. I would have taken great pride had Fairfield won it.
Alas, ESPN and Little League would have done all they could to rob me of this. Fairfield would have worn “New England” jerseys and Mike Patrick would have referred to the team as “Connecticut.”
I’m sure that Little League wants to make sure all the teams have nice uniforms to wear – and that they look good on TV. I don’t mind that. But I guarantee, some uniform company can produce new uniforms in a few days that read “Fairfield” or “Cumberland” – or, for that matter, “Keystone,” the Clinton County, Pa., Little League team playing this weekend for the Mid-Atlantic’s berth in the LLWS.
But, like everything else, let’s just reduce everyone to their lowest common denominator. The hell with the folks from Cumberland, who might enjoy seeing that town’s name on TV on the jersey of the kids they know, competing for a world championship.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Jeter Commits Errors of Omission
Derek Jeter has never done anything during his professional career to bring shame upon himself or the New York Yankees.
But twice, what he hasn’t done has shown that Jeter, as admirable a sports star as almost any of his generation, is not perfect. Twice now he has shown he is not in touch with the rest of us.
The first was his failure to show up last year at Bob Sheppard’s funeral. The second, actually, hasn’t happened yet, but it will happen tonight, when Jeter will fail to appear at the All-Star Game in Arizona.
Jeter’s sterling reputation has been built upon his incredible baseball accomplishments, especially in those moments when the spotlight shone most brightly, and upon his reverence for the traditions of the Yankees and of baseball. Jeter – and every other Yankee player and coach – showed a complete disconnect with Yankee tradition a year ago by not appearing at Bob Sheppard’s funeral. Sheppard’s voice was Yankee tradition. Jeter has to know this. He is the captain and the face of the team. His absence at Sheppard’s funeral showed a disregard for the tradition he has always claimed to revere.
His absence tonight will do the same thing. Jeter accomplished something Saturday only 27 other players have accomplished when he collected his 3,000th hit. Twenty-eight men. That’s two players for every decade of Major League Baseball’s existence. When you do something only two people every 10 years can do, the rest of baseball would like to celebrate it.
Jeter will not give baseball that opportunity. That’s not right. All the dog-and-pony shows in sports have gotten so nauseating; these scripted stage performances when a team wins a championship or someone breaks a record. But since there’s already one going on tonight – which is pretty much all that is left of the All-Star Game – the show should honor one of its own taking his place in baseball history only 72 hours ago.
But Jeter won’t let it happen. His reason – that he is physically and emotionally worn out from the chase for 3,000 hits – is completely legitimate. It also is not good enough. Jeter has given so much to the game, but the game has given as much to him, if not more. He owes baseball this opportunity to celebrate his place in its history. He doesn’t have to play. He is coming off an injury.
But he has to make the trip. It’s the least he can do.
But twice, what he hasn’t done has shown that Jeter, as admirable a sports star as almost any of his generation, is not perfect. Twice now he has shown he is not in touch with the rest of us.
The first was his failure to show up last year at Bob Sheppard’s funeral. The second, actually, hasn’t happened yet, but it will happen tonight, when Jeter will fail to appear at the All-Star Game in Arizona.
Jeter’s sterling reputation has been built upon his incredible baseball accomplishments, especially in those moments when the spotlight shone most brightly, and upon his reverence for the traditions of the Yankees and of baseball. Jeter – and every other Yankee player and coach – showed a complete disconnect with Yankee tradition a year ago by not appearing at Bob Sheppard’s funeral. Sheppard’s voice was Yankee tradition. Jeter has to know this. He is the captain and the face of the team. His absence at Sheppard’s funeral showed a disregard for the tradition he has always claimed to revere.
His absence tonight will do the same thing. Jeter accomplished something Saturday only 27 other players have accomplished when he collected his 3,000th hit. Twenty-eight men. That’s two players for every decade of Major League Baseball’s existence. When you do something only two people every 10 years can do, the rest of baseball would like to celebrate it.
Jeter will not give baseball that opportunity. That’s not right. All the dog-and-pony shows in sports have gotten so nauseating; these scripted stage performances when a team wins a championship or someone breaks a record. But since there’s already one going on tonight – which is pretty much all that is left of the All-Star Game – the show should honor one of its own taking his place in baseball history only 72 hours ago.
But Jeter won’t let it happen. His reason – that he is physically and emotionally worn out from the chase for 3,000 hits – is completely legitimate. It also is not good enough. Jeter has given so much to the game, but the game has given as much to him, if not more. He owes baseball this opportunity to celebrate his place in its history. He doesn’t have to play. He is coming off an injury.
But he has to make the trip. It’s the least he can do.
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