Published: August 23, 2008 10:35 pm            

Little League World Series full of valuable lessons

College 301 column

Baseball has always been known as America’s past time. But every year, just before kids head back to school for the fall semester, a multitude of people from all over the world descend upon the town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania to watch the Little League World Series. For this brief period, the sport is not just America’s past time, but the world’s past time, broadcast in high-definition on ESPN. These 12 and 13-year-olds, still fresh faced and carefree, they become the center of attention as they vie for supremacy and hope that maybe, just maybe, they’ll do so well that some major league talent scout will take notice and follow them throughout high school, so that maybe, just maybe, they can get drafted and enter some team’s minor-league affiliate so that maybe, just maybe, they can make it to the show and play in the MLB.

But what makes the Little League World Series stand out, what makes it so different from kids playing pee-wee football or Little Dribblers basketball is that this — youth baseball — is the transitional event that turns kids into adults. We as a culture are so focused on “now you’re a man” type of situation, the look-inside-yourself journey that awakens the man (or woman) inside us all. For the Native Americans, it involved venturing off into the woods, maybe getting high on some PCP, and then surviving all by yourself, shouldering all the responsibilities you’ll have to endure throughout your lifetime. For us, it’s little league baseball.

Where else can kids learn so many valuable life lessons? They learn patience, standing in the outfield for six innings and getting to take part in maybe one play. At the same time, they learn the importance of capitalizing on opportunities and making them count, because they may only get to participate in one play during the course of the game, but if it’s a pop fly with two outs and the bases loaded in a one-run ball game, then that’s one heck of an opportunity. They learn about the frustrations and annoyances that come with having a boss. With the auditors (parents and TV audiences) around, they’re sweet as candy, tossing out the old “you did your best” and “go get ‘em Tiger” type of phrases. But when those people are gone, when it’s just boss and employee — coach and player — that boss becomes a commandeering lunatic hell-bent on winning. Maybe it’s not that bad, but come on parents, you know the coaches are harder on your kids when you aren’t around.

Most importantly, above all else, these kids learn that life is by no means fair. Some kids learn that life is not fair to others but friggin’ rocks to them, and others learn that life is not fair to them and them alone. Maybe a kid is as fundamentally sound a baseball player as you’ll ever meet, but he doesn’t start the game, he sits on the bench because the team just happens to have a boy who hit puberty as soon as he exited the womb, sporting a goatee and enough testosterone to put down a WWE wrestler. The team from Guam had a kid that was 6’2” and over 150 pounds. This dude was mammoth. And his brother had played a couple of years earlier, playing baseball at 13 years old and standing 6’8”. At 13. I’ll never even get to six feet probably. And these kids have to deal with this, these normal, 4”10” 12-year-olds, they gaze at these giants who just happen to be the same age as them and do everything to can to hold their own in a game.

The pitchers, the ones who have heard the mantra chanted over and over again that kids should not throw curveballs, they stick to fastballs and change-ups and get lit up by the opposing team, but when they come up to bat, they face hard breaking balls thrown by the other team’s pitcher, all while the ESPN announcers laud the kid’s talent, making no mention of the potential harm he’s doing his arm throwing those kinds of pitches.

But despite all of this, these kids still come out to play, and they love it. We still watch the games on TV, and we love it. Because you’re not just watching these contests to see what baseball fundamentals our youngsters are being taught, even though you’ll see some amazing young athletes, you’re watching them because you’re getting the chance to view a transformation, you’re watching these kids turn into men before your very eyes. They’re learning life lessons and everything that goes along with them.

The transition to adulthood is a universal theme, no matter the culture, and youth baseball is the modern day equivalent, our generation’s survival in the woods. For some it comes easy, because of an overbearing father teaching you the game when you turned three, or because of genetics, a predisposition to sprout a mustache and grow to six feet tall at your eight birthday party. For some it’s more difficult, a constant struggle to stay afloat and prove yourself in a sea of talent. But that’s what makes it real, and that’s why we relate. We’ve all been on one side or the other of that same situation, and we empathize with that transformation, because it’s taken place in all of us.

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Robert Rich is a junior journalism major at the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from Westwood High School in 2006. He can be reached via e-mail at robert.rich@mail.utexas.edu

        

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