My 12-year-old son's four-year Little League Baseball journey came to an end last month with an extra-innings loss on a misty field with no lights and darkness approaching. Tyler's team was declared the local league's year-end tournament runner-up. I was the team's official scorekeeper, and Tyler and I both agree that game (despite the loss) was probably the most fun we've had together in Little League.
Multiply that amount of fun by 10, or maybe even 100, and I imagine that's what it must be like for players, coaches, parents and fans at the Little League Baseball World Series, which began Thursday in South Williamsport, Pa., and runs through Aug. 26. Between Friday and Sunday, Tyler and I watched nine televised games, either in part or in their entirety, and when the final out came in one game, we were ready for the first pitch in the next. We saw plenty of action (27 combined hits in Canada's 13-9 victory over Mexico, a six-inning game that lasted longer than three hours) and a pitching duel (the nine-inning marathon in which Chinese Taipei and Japan combined for 30 strikeouts before a walk-off two-run homer gave Japan the 2-0 win).
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My 12-year-old son's four-year Little League Baseball journey came to an end last month with an extra-innings loss on a misty field with no lights and darkness approaching. Tyler's team was declared the local league's year-end tournament runner-up. I was the team's official scorekeeper, and Tyler and I both agree that game (despite the loss) was probably the most fun we've had together in Little League.
Multiply that amount of fun by 10, or maybe even 100, and I imagine that's what it must be like for players, coaches, parents and fans at the Little League Baseball World Series, which began Thursday in South Williamsport, Pa., and runs through Aug. 26. Between Friday and Sunday, Tyler and I watched nine televised games, either in part or in their entirety, and when the final out came in one game, we were ready for the first pitch in the next. We saw plenty of action (27 combined hits in Canada's 13-9 victory over Mexico, a six-inning game that lasted longer than three hours) and a pitching duel (the nine-inning marathon in which Chinese Taipei and Japan combined for 30 strikeouts before a walk-off two-run homer gave Japan the 2-0 win).
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Batters consistently run out ground balls to first, and they don't make everybody wait 30 seconds between pitches while they adjust their batting gloves. At least one coach, New Castle, Ind.'s Bret Mann, fist-bumped a player from the Gresham, Ore., team after robbing Mann's own batter of a base hit with an exceptional catch, and Panama pitcher Julio Goff trotted over to first base and shook the hand of Ronald Olaa - the Uganda batter he had just beaned. As one of ESPN2's announcers facetiously remarked, "You see that a lot in the majors."
More riveting than the games are some of the stories behind the teams and individual players. Uganda traveled 7,200 miles and 22 hours to be the first African team to participate in the Little League Baseball World Series in the event's 66-year history, and even though the team - whose members come from extreme poverty, include several orphans and usually play barefoot on unkempt fields - lost their first two games, thousands of fans in the stands chanted "U-gan-da! U-gan-da!" And the team from Mexico, which beat Uganda 12-0 on Saturday with the mercy rule, stood and applauded the Africans after the game, embracing the boys and posing for group photos. The image of Uganda coach Henry Odong carrying Mexico's tiny Joel Turrubiates in his arms while shaking hands with the rest of the Mexican team said more about the spirit of Little League Baseball and the universality of the game than any pundit could.
Want more emotion? Danny Smekens coached New Castle, Ind.'s team from when the players were eight years old until the day he died from colon cancer on March 13, 2011 - his dream of taking the team to the LLWS unfulfilled. Before his death, he asked his best friend and assistant coach Bret Mann to finish the job, and Danny's son, Cayden, was the starting pitcher in New Castle's 4-0 shutout of Gresham on Friday night. Earlier this year, the family of another player on the team, Bryce Pinkard, lost everything in a house fire. Yet, what LLWS team has organized a clothing drive for the Ugandan players and their friends back in Africa? New Castle.
Sure, it's hard not to feel bad for teams like Germany, which committed six errors against Curacao in a 14-2 loss, or Kearney, Neb., which got slammed by a combined score of 24-1 in its first two games. But the Little League Baseball World Series still has to be considered one of the best feel-good events in all of sports, especially now that the Olympics are over.
So consider tuning out Major League Baseball's pennant races this week and instead watch motivated groups of 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds from around the world teach the rest of us a thing or two about sportsmanship, perseverance and dreams.
