WriterDom
Good to the last drop
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- Jun 25, 2000
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I thought you might appreciate a Bush update. World affairs will have to take a back seat to the Little League World Series this week. Sad to see that the Brits aren't crossing the pond. The Russians will be there. But I imagine it will come down to the US and Japan.
Little League Awaits Giant Boost From Bush
By David Morgan
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (Reuters) - For some time now, baseball has been struggling to maintain its reputation as America's national pastime.
Attendance at Major League games is down. So is television viewership. And worse still, American kids, who represent the game's future, no longer spend their springs and summers eating, breathing and sleeping baseball.
But Little League Baseball President Stephen Keener has good reason to smile: For the first time in history, a sitting U.S. president is coming to watch the championship game of the Little League World Series.
``We've been inviting every president to the Little League World Series for at least the past 30 years. But let's face it, a president has lots of important things to do,'' Keener said in his office at Little League headquarters, nestled in the Allegheny Mountains of central Pennsylvania.
Up to now, the only time an American president came close to visiting the Little League championship series was in 1960, when President Dwight Eisenhower planned to drop by. Those plans had to change, however, when the Soviet Union shot down Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane and triggered one of the great diplomatic crises of the Cold War.
On Sunday, President Bush (news - web sites), a former owner of the Texas Rangers, is due to take a seat at the Little League's Howard J. Lamade Stadium. And chances of him pulling out are small, White House officials say, because Bush believes the spirit of teamwork and sportsmanship conveyed by baseball is central to America's social well-being.
For the same reason, the White House asked the Little League to organize Tee Ball games on the South Lawn.
``The president thinks it's important to reach kids early, to help spur interest in baseball, because he thinks kids who grow up learning about teamwork, playing by the rules and fairness become better neighbors and better citizens,'' said White House spokesman Jim Wilkinson.
``And some become pro baseball players,'' he added.
This week's Little League World Series 2001, which ends Sunday, includes 16 teams of 11- and 12-year-olds from the United States and eight other countries, among them Russia, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
``It's so appropriate that the first sitting president to attend the Little League World Series is actually the first Little League graduate to be elected president of the United States,'' Keener said.
But Bush is not the only influential former Little Leaguer who is about to give the organization a giant public relations boost. Best-selling novelist John Grisham is working on only the second Little League movie in history, a film called ''Mickey,'' which is expected to be released next year.
In fact, the Little League can lay claim to a pantheon of celebrities, from NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and rock star Bruce Springsteen to columnists Dave Barry and George Will.
The old-fashioned, slow-moving sport of baseball has long been held up by advocates as a medium for teaching American kids important life lessons about how to compete without losing sight of fair play.
John McCarthy, a former Baltimore Orioles minor leaguer, uses the game's unwritten rules of civility and fairness to get kids at his Homerun Baseball Camp in Washington to think not so much about winning but about making their best effort.
``A coach can teach the unwritten rules of baseball and then encourage youngsters to extend them to their everyday lives. Telling a runner from the other team that he doesn't have to slide is the same as letting someone through the door before you,'' he said.
``There's a sense that we're all in this together, that we can compete and have fun and have a good-spirited ballgame but there has to be a sense of fair play between us. We can compete but that doesn't mean we have malice for each other.''
The Little League bills itself as the world's largest youth sports organization, with 3 million kids playing worldwide.
It was founded in 1939 by Williamsport oil company clerk Carl Stotz, who came up with the idea of turning backyard play into a miniaturized version of major league baseball after his nephews came to him dejected over not being allowed to play with a group of older boys.
Kids back then shared a Depression Era passion for baseball that would last for more than a generation in the United States before starting to wane.
``I played Little League in the late '60s, and we pretty much had baseball on our minds all our waking hours,'' Keener recalled. But these days, the number of young baseball aficionados is down. Even the venerable Little League grudgingly acknowledges a small drop-off in participation.
``It's not part of the day-to-day fabric of American kids' lives anymore. Now they show up to play a Little League game, then go home and play soccer,'' said Richard Lowery, American studies professor at the College of William and Mary.
``One of the big reasons is that baseball doesn't have a clock, and modern American families have clocks.''
Vacant lots that were once magnets for sandlot games have all but disappeared in the sizzling U.S. real estate market. So have streets without traffic and the stable, rooted communities that once produced hordes of players.
In a country where poor kids once braved street traffic to play baseball with broom handles and pieces of rolled up tape, regulation-size diamonds are known to stand empty on hot summer days in the suburbs.
Lowry and others say baseball has lost out to a host of newer, faster games like soccer, inline hockey and lacrosse, arguably more suitable for feeding the hero fantasies of the modern youngsters.
Then there is television's modern fascination with sports highlights. ``The pleasure of baseball is whether you run on a 2-and-1 count. That's not going to come across in highlights,'' Lowry said.
But baseball has an advantage that its rivals don't -- a growing number of influential Baby Boomers who played Little League in the 1950s and 1960s and now want to pass the same joys along to new generations.
Bush, who will be enshrined into the Little League Hall of Excellence this week, played in Texas for the Midland Central Little League as a catcher for a team called the Cubs.
``He was a good catcher, and you could always rely on him to be there for every game and every practice. He was very dependable,'' his former coach Frank Ittner once said.
More than 40 years later, the Cubs catcher is president and using Little League baseball's accepted virtues to promote a better society.
Grisham, another Baby Boomer, could wind up doing even more for the game by writing and directing his own film about a star Little League pitcher named Mickey.
``Watching 12-year-old all-stars is special baseball,'' Grisham, who played Little League in Mississippi and Arkansas, recently told an interviewer while filming on location in Williamsport. ``I'd rather watch that than the finals of the Yankees vs. the Mets. I love this World Series.''
Little League Awaits Giant Boost From Bush
By David Morgan
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (Reuters) - For some time now, baseball has been struggling to maintain its reputation as America's national pastime.
Attendance at Major League games is down. So is television viewership. And worse still, American kids, who represent the game's future, no longer spend their springs and summers eating, breathing and sleeping baseball.
But Little League Baseball President Stephen Keener has good reason to smile: For the first time in history, a sitting U.S. president is coming to watch the championship game of the Little League World Series.
``We've been inviting every president to the Little League World Series for at least the past 30 years. But let's face it, a president has lots of important things to do,'' Keener said in his office at Little League headquarters, nestled in the Allegheny Mountains of central Pennsylvania.
Up to now, the only time an American president came close to visiting the Little League championship series was in 1960, when President Dwight Eisenhower planned to drop by. Those plans had to change, however, when the Soviet Union shot down Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane and triggered one of the great diplomatic crises of the Cold War.
On Sunday, President Bush (news - web sites), a former owner of the Texas Rangers, is due to take a seat at the Little League's Howard J. Lamade Stadium. And chances of him pulling out are small, White House officials say, because Bush believes the spirit of teamwork and sportsmanship conveyed by baseball is central to America's social well-being.
For the same reason, the White House asked the Little League to organize Tee Ball games on the South Lawn.
``The president thinks it's important to reach kids early, to help spur interest in baseball, because he thinks kids who grow up learning about teamwork, playing by the rules and fairness become better neighbors and better citizens,'' said White House spokesman Jim Wilkinson.
``And some become pro baseball players,'' he added.
This week's Little League World Series 2001, which ends Sunday, includes 16 teams of 11- and 12-year-olds from the United States and eight other countries, among them Russia, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
``It's so appropriate that the first sitting president to attend the Little League World Series is actually the first Little League graduate to be elected president of the United States,'' Keener said.
But Bush is not the only influential former Little Leaguer who is about to give the organization a giant public relations boost. Best-selling novelist John Grisham is working on only the second Little League movie in history, a film called ''Mickey,'' which is expected to be released next year.
In fact, the Little League can lay claim to a pantheon of celebrities, from NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and rock star Bruce Springsteen to columnists Dave Barry and George Will.
The old-fashioned, slow-moving sport of baseball has long been held up by advocates as a medium for teaching American kids important life lessons about how to compete without losing sight of fair play.
John McCarthy, a former Baltimore Orioles minor leaguer, uses the game's unwritten rules of civility and fairness to get kids at his Homerun Baseball Camp in Washington to think not so much about winning but about making their best effort.
``A coach can teach the unwritten rules of baseball and then encourage youngsters to extend them to their everyday lives. Telling a runner from the other team that he doesn't have to slide is the same as letting someone through the door before you,'' he said.
``There's a sense that we're all in this together, that we can compete and have fun and have a good-spirited ballgame but there has to be a sense of fair play between us. We can compete but that doesn't mean we have malice for each other.''
The Little League bills itself as the world's largest youth sports organization, with 3 million kids playing worldwide.
It was founded in 1939 by Williamsport oil company clerk Carl Stotz, who came up with the idea of turning backyard play into a miniaturized version of major league baseball after his nephews came to him dejected over not being allowed to play with a group of older boys.
Kids back then shared a Depression Era passion for baseball that would last for more than a generation in the United States before starting to wane.
``I played Little League in the late '60s, and we pretty much had baseball on our minds all our waking hours,'' Keener recalled. But these days, the number of young baseball aficionados is down. Even the venerable Little League grudgingly acknowledges a small drop-off in participation.
``It's not part of the day-to-day fabric of American kids' lives anymore. Now they show up to play a Little League game, then go home and play soccer,'' said Richard Lowery, American studies professor at the College of William and Mary.
``One of the big reasons is that baseball doesn't have a clock, and modern American families have clocks.''
Vacant lots that were once magnets for sandlot games have all but disappeared in the sizzling U.S. real estate market. So have streets without traffic and the stable, rooted communities that once produced hordes of players.
In a country where poor kids once braved street traffic to play baseball with broom handles and pieces of rolled up tape, regulation-size diamonds are known to stand empty on hot summer days in the suburbs.
Lowry and others say baseball has lost out to a host of newer, faster games like soccer, inline hockey and lacrosse, arguably more suitable for feeding the hero fantasies of the modern youngsters.
Then there is television's modern fascination with sports highlights. ``The pleasure of baseball is whether you run on a 2-and-1 count. That's not going to come across in highlights,'' Lowry said.
But baseball has an advantage that its rivals don't -- a growing number of influential Baby Boomers who played Little League in the 1950s and 1960s and now want to pass the same joys along to new generations.
Bush, who will be enshrined into the Little League Hall of Excellence this week, played in Texas for the Midland Central Little League as a catcher for a team called the Cubs.
``He was a good catcher, and you could always rely on him to be there for every game and every practice. He was very dependable,'' his former coach Frank Ittner once said.
More than 40 years later, the Cubs catcher is president and using Little League baseball's accepted virtues to promote a better society.
Grisham, another Baby Boomer, could wind up doing even more for the game by writing and directing his own film about a star Little League pitcher named Mickey.
``Watching 12-year-old all-stars is special baseball,'' Grisham, who played Little League in Mississippi and Arkansas, recently told an interviewer while filming on location in Williamsport. ``I'd rather watch that than the finals of the Yankees vs. the Mets. I love this World Series.''
