Little League
The Little League World Series is taking place now in Williamsport, Pennsylvania as kids from all over the world battle for the world title. There's some regional interest here because a team from Lafayette, La. is in the final eight teams in the U.S. bracket. The winner of the U.S. bracket will play the survivor of the international bracket for the title.
I love watching the Little League World Series. It's an avenue back to my own youth, where eating, sleeping, and playing ball were the only important things. It's easy to feel the emotion that these kids go through, because it's displayed so prominently on their faces. The dismay of an error gives way to the joy of a base hit, just moments later. If you’re accustomed to watching the skill of MLB players, as I am, then there’s something oddly alluring to seeing a game where every hit ball is an adventure. As Brian Murphy says, it’s a “fascination with the fallible.”
It burns on my home TV, all morning, all day. NFL exhibitions can't touch it. Neither can big-league ball, a World Golf Championships event or NASCAR. My wife wonders about my sanity, questioning the need for daylong viewing.
"But," I protest, "it's the Little League World Series!"
She rolls her eyes, and heads to the exercise bike. I sink deeper into the couch, shouting at the kids to hit the cutoff man, be more selective at the plate and ignore the coach who thinks he's Walter Alston with a wireless mike. I wipe onion dip off my T-shirt. I am in sports heaven, in the heaven of an American late summer.
After all, it's the Little League World Series!Why the obsession? I know my people at The Cooler understand where I'm coming from. It's a longing for my own past, and redemption for those eight straight walks I gave up to lose the Mill Valley (Calif.) Little League City Championship in 1979. It's the fascination with the fallible, where a shortstop and third baseman from Maine can gather underneath a can o' corn pop-up, then let it drop.
