Don't believe the hype

Little League World Series shouldn't be bigger than life

Oh, for the days when the Little League World Series was a quaint segment on ABC's Wide World of Sports, featuring a team of mustachioed "kids" from Taiwan invariably stomping the U.S. entrant. That has all changed thanks to ESPN, which is trying to transform the tournament into a sort of prepubescent August Madness. This month, the network and its sister, ESPN2, will air more than two dozen games, starting with the regionals and continuing through the finals in Williamsport, Pa.

These broadcasts confirm two truths. One, the commercialization and commodification of even the most sacrosanct institutions has become a new national pastime. Second, our collective appetite for sports spectating is officially insatiable. Air it and we will watch. Notwithstanding family and close friends -- and they're presumably in the stands, not home on the couch -- exactly who in the name of Cody Webster is tuning in to watch, say, Waipio, Hawaii, play Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in the Northwest Regional?

Perhaps the telecasts wouldn't be quite so distasteful if the network would lighten up and acknowledged that the subjects are a few outs away from toting Trapper Keepers and memorizing locker combinations. Instead, we get irony-deprived announcers spewing statistics, critiquing managerial strategy, turning every infield fly into a referendum on character. "A lot of times kids practice and they're just tossing the ball back and forth," former major leaguer Tom Candiotti, an ESPN talking seamhead, told viewers. "But when you're on the field, you have to go 100 percent." Later in the broadcast, when a Hawaii player dropped a crucial popup, announcer Dave Ryan, employing the faux gravitas usually reserved for Middle East terrorism updates, informed us: "One miscue can be absolutely crucial." After an Idaho player grounded out to shortstop, Ryan noted, "That's 6-3, if you're scoring at home." (If you're scoring a Little League game at home, please, for the love of God, get help.)

In addition to the broadcast tenor, the production value is strictly major league, replete with a range of angles and replay speeds, an umpire's cam, pitch-count graphics and splashy pregame intros. Players are even packaged as obligatory human-interest stories. In a recent game, Jack Edwards told us of a pitcher who severed the tendons in his throwing hand when he fell through a window. "Now here he is," Edwards said, pausing dramatically, "at the pinnacle of youth sports."

After being feted like big leaguers, the kids, being kids, react in kind. Mirth and youthful exuberance are seldom in evidence. But preening abounds. No doubt aware that they are on national television, players flick bats after hitting home runs, spit prodigious loogies and finger their jewelry. One pocket prima donna -- no joke -- even lamented the vexing presence of autograph hounds.

Perhaps above all, there's something vaguely sinister and unsettling about tickling a preteen with the feather of fame. True, the Little League World Series might launch a big league career; though Bronx pitcher Danny Almonte was the disgrace of last year's event, he is already a household name at age ... well, whatever it is. Likewise, Candiotti remarked that Hawaii pitcher Travis Jones had a major league breaking ball. But the reality is that for a majority of the players, their Warholian 15 minutes are coming before the onset of puberty. Throughout the telecasts, announcers continually reassure us that the competition and its outsized hype made for "a great experience" for these Mini-Me competitors. Still, watching these boys of summer, it's hard to get the lyrics from Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days out of your head.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

 

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