Little League, I think, more than any other youth organization, plays the biggest part in the formation of American kids.
Not Cub Scouts, not 4-H, not church youth group, but rather, good old-fashioned knee-scraping, grass-stained Little League. Nothing else even comes close.
The Little League World Series is going on right now, and I've been seeing clips and highlights on news and sports shows for a while now. And even though I'm not interested and I don't have a stock in any of the teams playing, it's great to see that Little League is still going strong. And it makes me glad because if I had to go through that experience, I'm comforted knowing that the younger generation has to go through it as well.
I'm not saying that Little League has the best impact on the youth of America, but I do think it has the greatest impact.
Little League teaches kids about baseball, yes, but it teaches so many more life lessons about the bigger picture and surviving socially in a hostile environment.
A key lesson learned in Little League is how to kill time. Baseball's great, but unless you are the pitcher, catcher or batter, you're just standing around in case something happens.
This is where killing time comes in, and both infielders and outfielders have different techniques of going about this.
The infielder kills time by kicking around the dust in the infield, creating little dust clouds that slowly blow away and dissipate. Infield dirt creates the coolest looking dust clouds, scientists have proven this. But of course, these scientists played Little League as children.
Outfielders, on the other hand, choose to kill time by playing with grass. Although the best position for playing with grass is sitting down, this is generally not a problem, seeing as your average 7-year-old rarely hits the ball past the pitcher's mound, much less mid-center field.
All Little Leaguers are masters of killing time; I'm certain that a former Little Leaguer invented computer solitaire.
One of the strangest things about Little League is the emphasis put on winning.
Adults always wanted us to go out there and win the game. Winning always seemed very important, but in actuality, it really wasn't.
Most people don't remember the scores of their Little League games, or even if they had a winning season, mainly because, as a player, your mind wasn't on those things.
One of the main things running around in most players minds' is trying not to look like an idiot on the field.
This may not sound like much, but in actuality, it is much more difficult than one would originally assume. Your average Little League player is an 8-year-old boy, who, due to natural biology, is missing several key teeth and is wearing a hat four sizes too big, a shirt with the name of some lame local business like Millbrook Florist plastered on the front and baseball pants that are two sizes too small even without the hard plastic cup that is slowly suffocating his groin shoved down the front.
All this makes for one goofy-looking shortstop. Even if he assists a double play, he still looks like a dork.
But one thing that every kid who played Little League understands but coaches always forget is that winning doesn't matter.
Losing doesn't matter.
The score of the game will never matter if everyone gets candy afterward. Who cares about a sacrifice fly during the game when there's a promise of Big League Chew after the game?
Little League games can be bitter, but Laffy Taffy is always sweet.
Write to Phil at pjmetz@bsu.edu
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