My everyday perusal of these here fine internets take me across a number of "traditional" news sources (newspapers, etc.), music sites, sports sites and various forms of social commentary. It's not surprising when all of these sites converge on a single topic. It is surprising how banal that topic can be to me. No, I'm not talking about the political conventions that will dominate the airwaves for the next few weeks or the celebrity worship that has become bigger business than even religion or reality TV. No, I am talking about the further degradation of American culture, what that great thinker of our time, George Carlin, often refered to as "The Pussification of America". This Pussification is going to lead us all into a full blown Idiocracy 1.
By now, I'm sure that everyone is familiar with the story of Jericho Scott who was banned from his little league team of 9 and 10 year olds because he "throws too hard." You read that right, because this 9 year old throws 40 miles per hour, it has been deemed that he throws too hard to compete with other 9 and 10 year olds. This story is problematic and serves as a microcosm of the curent path of America on many levels. First, Jericho is 9 years old, thus in the age range allowable for this league. He's not only has no size advantage over his peers, but is actually smaller than most if not average. He's broken no rules that appear in any rule book, but he has broken the new unspoken rule of America at large: he's better than his peers. Jericho daring to be better than his peers has sparked outrage and not the type that I thought it would when I first started hearing about this story. No one is innocent here, and no one is a victim.
Jericho became a story when a competing team forfeited a game because they were aware of his fastball and other teams in his league threatened to do the same. Pussification. Hypocritical Pussification at that. I'm going to play the devils advocate here and say that Jericho was being singled out and ostracized by these teams and parents that called for his ouster. Only, the media at large and the "Moral Conscious" of America were attacking a little boy. This story immediately reminded me of another that occurred 2 years ago also involving little league baseball.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/rick_reilly/08/07/reilly0814/index.html
The cliffs notes, if you are not so inclined to click the link, are that a coach in a Pony League game in Utah, ahead by one run in the bottom of the last inning with a man on base, walks the opposing teams best hitter to pitch to a weaker batter, a boy named Romney. The coach claimed at the time that he did not know that Romney had cancer, just that the kid was not a very good hitter. He honestly stated afterwards that if he had know the kid was a cancer patient, he would have still opted to walk the good hitter and pitch to the cancer patient. At the time, this coach was lambasted by the media for being callous and uncaring. The boy's mother claimed that her son had been singled out and punished because of his sickness, that he was picked on by the opposing team. This is one of the greater displays of Pussification on record in recent memory.
First and foremost, this is a league that feels it necessary to keep score and have play-offs and championships. This means, to me, that it is the job of the coaches and players to win at any cost (while still being safe and playing within the rules of the game). While I take personal issue with the intentional walk strategy, it is within the rules of baseball and a widely used strategy. Barry Bonds, the all-time home run king, also has more intentional walks than anyone in history. If Romney's parents wanted him to be free of that intentional walk strategy, they surely could have placed him in a league for kids with cancer, or a league that does not keep score (further Pussification!). They placed him in a score keeping league with able bodied kids, thus he should be held to the same rules and standards to which those kids are held.
Second, let’s think about the decisions that got us to this point. His parents let him play in the competitive league. The league and coaches let him play, too. Not only that, but the coaches of the opposing team set up a situation that just BEGS for this sort of response. In PONY leagues at that age, every player bats. So why would you put your worst hitter, a kid that Reilly claims can barely swing a bat, behind your best hitter? That, in most situations, is an invitation to put the hitter on base. Unless, of course, you wanted to guilt-trip coaches into pitching to your star slugger. Why else would you put your best batter immediately ahead of your worst? The rules of this league state that every player on the roster must get an at-bat and must play the field for an inning. Could they have not played Romney in right field and batted him lead off all in the first inning to avoid a situation like this. Surely they could, they only would not unless they wanted to provide some sort of insurance for their big hitter.
Third, the team got into the championship game with the kid on the team. They obviously are either good enough that he doesn’t drag them down or he’s not bad enough to create major problems. This story got a lot of life in the Op-Ed media. Would that be the case if the kid made the game-winning hit? Hell, he’d probably be at the Espy’s next year and Disney would have optioned his story for a movie. He’d be a hero. Heroes aren’t made on the back of safety, they’re borne of risk and sacrifice. Romneys' coaches took a risk and lost. Welcome to real life.
So, with this as our standard, where is the outrage for Jericho? He's been singled out, people have said not nice things about him. But wait, Jericho is not weak. He does not deserve our sympathy. No one should feel badly for him, he's able bodied. Because he has worked at a skill, and excelled, there are no considerations for his feelings. Just lawyers. It's unfair that he's better than people in his age group, so it's okay for them to quit. Worse, it's okay for them to not try. That's the message that is being taught to the kids here. What can you expect from adults, when they have been told from the time that they were 9 and 10 that they don't have to compete if it is possible that they can lose? While I know that little league baseball is not the end all be all of life, sports can and do teach invaluable and indelible lessons. What faith can we have that the parents of these kids allow them to not do other things if they are to hard? Why were these parents trying so hard to insulate their kids from the potential for failure? Isn't that an integral part of life? I guess not in a society that gives A's for effort, tells everyone that they are special and even bothers to have leagues that does not keep score. Let's say that the the good hitter hits a single then Romney strikes out, does anyone care? Someone had to lose the game right? What about the other kids on the team? Do they deserve to lose a game because their coach would not employ a strategy? What about Jericho's teammates? Why should they be punished? Where are their moral champions?
I said earlier that no one is innocent here. By doing just a little bit of research, I discovered that Jericho's parents actually moved him up an age bracket so that he could compete with kids that were older but closer to his talent level. Jericho did not overpower that completion so his parents thought it better that he compete with kids his own age.
Pussification is running rampant I tell you.
1This movie was God-Awful. Great Idea, one I agree with. TERRIBLE Execution. If you find that you've rented it, or just wasted time watching it. It's not my fault. You've been warned.