Little League Should Avoid Emulating the New National Pastime
The Care and Feeding Column in Slate recently addressed a common issue: overzealous coaching in a league of nine- and 10-year-old boys. A league of Little Leaguers. Playing the new national pastime.
One of the boys’ mother’s voiced a common concern. I could imagine a husky male voice screaming obscenities at children as they stepped into a batter’s box or scrambled from first to second base to get into scoring position. Or even a pitcher whose proclivity is a yen for more than the occasional base on balls. Any coach’s exhortations to his players are designed to point his players in the general direction of winning games. As if winning really matters to a 10-year-old.
Of course, winning matters at some level to all participants, but what should matter most in Little League is sportsmanship. Exercise. Friendship. Teamwork. All the essential attributes children will need once they become adults.
This parent, called Or [Should I] Just Sit Back and Enjoy the Game in the Slate article, complained, What I’m concerned about is the really intense coaching from the sidelines by the coaches. Though most of it is positive and constructive, I’m also hearing things like “Keep it simple, stupid” and “Move your asses.” All at top volume, and throughout the entire game!
The Old National Pastime
As I read this woman’s complaints, I couldn’t help but think of baseball’s origins on the Elysium Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, in the 1840s.
Local bands playing music. A festive atmosphere. Fans on picnic blankets. Others reclining in horse-drawn buggies enjoying the competitive spectacle.
Those early games were about everything except winning. They were about the thrill of scrimmaging on a grassy knoll. The way a player treated his opponents. Sunshine. Sportsmanship. A beautiful day on the banks of a river as two sides tussled to the thrill of competition.
This was the national pastime referred to so famously in the New York sports pages in the 1850s. The national pastime that captivated the nation. Not the new national pastime played today.
But, as the national pastime grew, as more people competed and the first amateur leagues formed, money and winning began to corrupt the original ideals of the game. And with it, the national pastime took a backseat to integrity, and kowtowed to money like a rookie facing his idol for the first time.
The Care and Feeding Column …
… recommended that Little League baseball should be fun. Should be about personal growth and the satisfaction of kids playing the game the right way. Kids learning new social skills. Kids treating each other fairly. Making new memories. Not kids being pressured to win at all costs and berated as they try.
The advice continues, We’re Here to Have Fun, It’s Just a Game, Billy Martin, etc. Orange slices for all!
But it’s not just a game; hasn’t been just a game for a century.
Now There’s a New National Pastime
In America today, winning matters. It defines us as not losers, rather than as competitors on the same field challenging each other to be better players. Maybe even better people.
Civility be damned. Win at all costs. Even when there’s no prize for winning, other than some gold-plated trophy or the conceit and braggadocio that accompanies retelling the victory. And winning is always the best story to retell.
Supposedly.
Certainly on major league baseball fields where winning is tied to money and power, winning matters. Where careers are at stake, winning matters. Where million dollar salaries are fought over, winning matters. That’s the new national pastime.
But that’s the major leagues, not Little League. Little League should not resemble the new national pastime, it should mirror the old, traditional baseball values that made baseball so admirable in the first place.
But, winning has become so important it has even changed the way little kids play baseball. Because nothing proves worth like a win.
And that’s too bad.
Even, Or [Should I] Just Sit Back and Enjoy the Game, understands that.
