More Little League ridiculousness

The mockery is courtesy runners, replacements, forcing coaches to play everybody for at least 3 outs and an AB.

 

Not 22. 36 with two kids. I don't work at a small daily or weekly, though. You got me there. I have no problem with youth sports ... when it's for the kids. I do have a problem with blowing them out of proportion. Good job by Little League, though, buy being able to get so many people to buy into their thing. I just don't get it.

 

It's funny, I was wondering about that myself a little while ago, why the 11-12 division is the one that's the big deal while the older age groups are not.
I will say this, however: 11-12-year-olds on the small diamond are a lot more watchable than 13-year-olds on the big diamond.
THOSE games are pure agony.

 

It's utterly ridiculous.

I have no answer for you, except for the threadbare "we've always done it that way"

 

Breaking news...

Comcast Sports Net has just signed a five-year deal with Chicago's Southside Catholic League to televise all sports, starting with football and basketball in the first year, and adding other sports in subsequent years. Comcast spokespersons said deals with other elementary leagues were in the works. "We want to cement our identity as the place for local sports in Chicago -- from kindergarten on up," the network said in a prepared statement. Comcast Sports Net, as it does for Cubs and White Sox broadcasts, will use CLTV -- the Chicago Tribune-owned local news network -- as Comcast Sports Net 2 when events conflict. "CLTV told us they're pretty sure fourth-grade volleyball would get a higher rating than anything its own network does," according to Comcast Sports Net's prepared statement.

 

You know what sport would be great on TV? Four-square! Especially double-hit four-square!

 

Eight-square, played on the painted parking spaces out in the parking lot, was better.

Four-square was for sissies.

 

Alas, we had only the corners of the gym floor and half-court line to use.

 

I spent a good hunk of this summer covering "Prep" baseball, or 13-year-olds, on the big field for the first time. It's not so bad. You have to watch it from an amusing point of view,  because these kids were studs on the LL field. Took  'em 3 seconds to get from home to 1st or 2nd to home. Now it takes a day and a half to run out a grounder. Pitchers could blaze 70 mph fastballs and dominate in LL, but on the big field a 70 mph fastball slows to 52 by the time it reaches the plate. Infielders could gun the ball all around, but now it takes every last ounce of power to throw the ball from deep in the 6-hole to 1st base.

It's the formative year of baseball for these kids. The more you watch it the more you can appreciate the patience these kids are displaying. It's just like going from elementary school to junior high. Everything is bigger and uncomfortable. It takes a full year to adjust. Everything's easier the next year.

I enjoyed this summer, and the 13-year-olds had a lot to do with that.

 

Thanks Songbird for bringing back the memories. I was one of those LL studs who was a two-time All-Star who then struggled to hit the ball out of the infield, run the bases and make those throws. I was already smallish and then the big field and little growth? Hard reality.

Took another 12 years before I grew enough to recover.

 

Yeah, I didn't even mention the hitting. It's funny talking to these kids after a game and they say how one of their crushes would've been a triple in LL -- said "crushes" barely flare to the 2nd baseman or shortstop. Stolen bases are kinda funny, too. There was a kid this summer, bless his soul, who was the slowest 13-year-old I've ever seen. The harder he ran the slower he got. Imagine watching this as he broke out of the batter's box and *raced* to 1st base. Funniest thing I've ever seen. His teammates razzed him, but he had a great sense of humor about it.

 

I suppose Prep-13 baseball can be enjoyable if you look at it that way, but don't drink a Big Gulp before you watch it.
In one district tournament game that I covered a team was up 15 runs heading into the bottom of the fifth, three outs from winning by slaughter rule. But the starting pitcher was used in the first game of the tournament and had used up all of his innings. Three pitchers who couldn't find the plate if you gave them a map and a compass later, the team got out of the inning leading by three runs.
While the intent of the pitching limits rules are to protect the pitchers, they also have the unitended consequence of making turning one-sided games into more competitive games.
By the way, I read that Little League may put pitch counts into its rules.