You Damn Kids: A Final LLWS Reflection

You didn’t really care about the Little League World Series.

Sure, I mean, you did, guy-with-summer-cold-who-stayed-home-from-work-for-two-days-and-kind-of-got-sucked-into-it.  And maybe you did, too, kid-who-hopes-to-play-in-said-LLWS-someday-but-whose-parents-know-you-just-don’t-have-the-bat- speed.  There’s obviously a few of the slimmer demographics with the time, inclination, and patience to stick out the entire ordeal.

But now its over, with Japan slaying Hawaii 4-1, and your shreds passion for the game in its purist form–kids playing for the love of the game–have all evaporated.  Any reason your lonely co-workers or friends of your kids could have given you to tune in for more than a fleeting moment between professional sporting events or DVR’d “Mad Men,” (Don is really spiraling toward hellfire of late) mean truly nothing at this point.

So, if you can summon the fake enthusiasm, allow me to drag that Little League World Series carcass back out the swamp and give it a few more solid kicks.

We’ve had our share of critiques and celebrations of the LLWS on this site alone.  People either have family or friends involved directly in the event, and they care, or they have jobs, and they don’t.  But when you look at the LLWS as more than a standalone contest held firmly in the wildly metropolitan landscape of Williamsport, PA, and as a breeding ground for tomorrow’s athletes, the actions of the kids at play are made more refreshing, or in some cases, irritating.

In his recent column Ryne Gery pointed a finger at the kids in the LLWS for having bad attitudes, for being too cocky, and for being the spawning point for the Manny’s, A-Rod’s, and Bradens of tomorrow:  Guys, with or without the talent to back it up, with zero interpersonal skills and negative likability.

Which is a solid theory.  Don’t act like there’s things you did in your childhood that didn’t shape who you became as an adult.  You still pick your nose.  You still have a drinking problem.  Maybe you’re blind.  Who knows?  The point is, maybe if you hadn’t been convinced that using “underneath the Corolla” as your “quiet place” was an okay thing to do, you’d still be able to grow your eyebrows.

So Ryne’s right in that kids who may indeed be infected with attitude at a young age are not being corrected when they behave like idiots, and will in turn carry these traits in some form into adulthood.

Manny Ramirez was at one point (and in many ways, still is) a child.  He absorbed things like a sponge, and slowly, as we all did, he developed mentally into the guy who just yesterday used his last at bat in Los Angeles to take a single pitch and decide to get thrown out of the game.

But I don’t care, and neither do you.  It’s not like we could try to use the LLWS as a petri dish to build baseball players without human flaws.  And why would you not want guys with attitudes in MLB?  They light things up, whether you like them or not, and even if you don’t, beating them becomes all the sweeter.  Think the Padres didn’t smile with glee as they steamrolled over the Giants following Jonathan Sanchez’s prediction of a sweep in the opposite direction?  It is part of the game.

Sooner or later, though, we are going to have to decide how many parts this game has.

During the final game of the LLWS, one of Japan’s runner was “caught” blatantly stealing signs from Hawaii’s catcher.  Waving his arms in the direction the ball was not the best way to cheat in plain sight, but he wasn’t even very good at it because the batter struck out.  To me, it was a little jarring to see a kid think to steal signs, and then do it so unabashedly.  Its considered a jerk move on the pro level–though begrudgingly accepted–and that’s when they’re doing it with some degree of stealth (or at least trying to).

A few days before, Blake Hicks, a catcher for the Columbus, OH team, was doing the same thing against the West Side all-stars.  So clearly its not an isolated bit of “huh?”

It was weird to see.  Like if you turned to your right during rush hour and saw an infant at the wheel of a pick up truck.  If it is truly a “part” of major league baseball, why limit the use in the minors?  And college? And high school?  Well, they don’t.  That shit happens all the time on all those levels, and on each one it is defended by those caught doing it and lambasted by those who caught it.

I live in Philly, where we were under the crosshairs on this very topic earlier in 2010.  Everybody got their licks in, even though it was claimed that everyone did it.  The general quote from other teams seemed to be, “I think its despicable and wrong, and that’s probably why the Phillies have such success over the years, buteveryonedoesitsowhateveryouknowitscool.”

So if the end result is that children are learning to “cheat” as well as the pros, who are put under the microscope for doing the same thing, why is this not disgusting?

I just think its a cheap strategy, and those doing it “well” aren’t detected, so the only way to stop it is to make the punishment large enough that the risk isn’t worth it.  This kid from Japan was not good at it.  The question is, will he try to get better, or will he give up?

It’s hard to find an informed answer, or even just a response, on the matter, since opinion in this area is based so heavily on perspective.

Kids are always changing.  I’m no old dude, but I’m already sensing a shift in what it means to be a kid, let alone a child athlete.  They rely on not just their own training, but what they see their heroes doing on TV (The only question the guys answer when introducing themselves during the opening lineups is “Who is your favorite player?”).  Each case of sign stealing in the LLWS is a reflection of what is accepted in MLB.  If we had a cleaner definition of what is cheating instead of just using “frowned upon” as a governing rule, then it could take away unclean imagery of kids performing poorly received actions in pro ball at the Little League level.

Maybe kids with an interest in baseball early on should be prohibited from watching pro baseball until they’re older.

And somebody’s got to tell Bryce he’s doing it wrong.  This shit isn’t funny anymore.

(You can stay current on all the Call to the Pen content and news by following us onTwitter,Facebook, or by way of our RSS feed)

Image courtesy of The Big Lead.