Little League World Series

Earlier, yours truly tuned into a LLWS game between some team from California and another from Connecticut. Having no loyalty to either, who should one root for? The way I saw it, it had to be the boys from Connecticut. After all, the state of California has a whole lot of things going on, not the least being sports teams coming out of their ears. If you count up the big-time colleges, and add all the "big 4" pro sports teams that reside in California -- I don't know what the final number is. But it's a lot.

On the other hand, Connecticut doesn't have a single pro team -- in any major sport. It would seem their biggest claim to fame is Geno Auriemma's Lady Husky hoopsters at UConn. Well OK, they've got Yale, but "ivies" only count on job resumes or if you want to be President someday. In the sports world -- they pretty well suck.

So I was rooting for the Connecticut boys. On with the game.

Unlike the major leagues, little league games are only 6 innings long. Typically, a game will be played in well under 2 hours. But not this one. It dragged on, and on, and on. Yes, it eventually went into "extra innings", but that wasn't the cause of the game being so ridiculously long. It was the coaches.

By the time I tuned it out, the California coach had stopped play 7-8 times while huddling up with his players on the pitcher's mound. When he wasn't doing that, he was appealing plays long after they were over for reasons that didn't appear to exist. This guy LOVED his camera time. Not to be out-done -- finally the Connecticut coach got in on the action for some of his own photo-ops. And the game dragged on some more.

What is it with these guys? It's a bunch of 12 year olds. Maybe they win, maybe they lose. This is something they're going to have to get used to later in life. (For that matter, all but one team will eventually lose.) The coaches seem to forget this isn't about how much air time they can get while prolonging the game. It's a chance for kids to do something special. It's about THEM. They know what to do. Chances are, all those barely pre-teens have been playing the game since they were 4-5 years old. They wouldn't be in the Little League World Series if they already weren't really good. So get out of the way and let them play. Is that asking too much?

We wouldn't see this much drama in a Game 7 of a Major League World Series that was tied 14-14 heading into the 9th inning. Pitchers pitch. Hitters try to hit. Fielders field. Somebody's going to win, and somebody's going to lose. It's not that difficult a concept.

Tears may be shed, but it's not the end of the world.

Somebody needs to tell the little-league coaches that.

Win or lose, those kids will be just fine -- if the coaches stop messing with their heads and just let them play.

And in the end, isn't that what kids are supposed to do? There will come a time when life's trials and tribulations rear their ugly heads, and they'll have to deal with it -- but for now, just let them play and have fun.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems simple enough to me.