Anyone who instinctively decides that Little League Baseball is not a professional sport must first define the word ‘professional.’
Granted, Little Leaguers do not get paid for their efforts, nor do they have agents, nor do they spend all of their lives training for their sport. In that sense, no, Little League Baseball is not a professional sport.
Watch the Little League World Series, though, and the definition of ‘professional’ changes.
These kids really behave like professionals should behave. Take note that I said they behave like professionals should, not play like them.
Everyone will make mistakes, and keep in mind that these 11 and 12-year-olds are still learning the game. But they behave like professionals.
Take, for instance, when Japan played Saudi Arabia in the Little League World Series just a little more than a week ago. A Saudi pitcher hit a Japanese batter with a pitch.
The batter took his base, but an unusual event occurred after that. The pitcher jogged over to first base, greeted the runner, shook his hand and apologized.
He apologized? For hitting a batter by a pitch? What kind of action is this?
This is unheard of! From what I’ve seen and learned from Major League Baseball, if a batter gets hit by a pitch, he’s supposed to stare down the pitcher, and if the pitcher has hit him before, then that’s a sign to charge the mound.
The pitcher definitely has some beef with the batter, and there’s no possible way that the hit-by-pitch was an accident.
He definitely meant to do it. And he probably has a grudge against the batter.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? These professional baseball players—these grown men—seem to act like immature children when they happen to get hit by pitches.
The Little Leaguers? Pure class acts. Doesn’t something seem to be wrong here? The ‘heroes’ aren’t acting as heroes at all.
Going back to the Little Leaguers. If you watched the LLWS, you also noticed that the winning teams shook hands with the losing teams after the games, rather than the winners celebrating within themselves.
The winners get congratulations from the losers, and the losers get encouragement and praise from the winners.
Watch a MLB game, and afterward you’ll see the winning team shake hands amongst themselves, and the losing team retreat into the locker room very quickly.
Who knows? Perhaps the two teams do get together afterward, letting each other know that they played a good game. But it certainly doesn’t get televised or publicized.
I applaud Little League Baseball for the publicized, unashamed displays of sportsmanship the players show.
It’s too often in professional sports today that athletes get caught up in the business portion of the sport, instead of focusing on the actual sport. The athletes get paid so much that they choose not to play until they are paid what they think they are worth.
Take Chicago Bears running back Cedric Benson, for example. He just recently ended a contract holdout with the Bears. He chose not to agree to the terms of the contract, for he believed he wasn’t getting paid enough, compared to other players in the league of his caliber.
The former University of Texas star didn’t practice with the Bears for all of the first few weeks of practice, and therefore, may have lost his starting position on the Bears’ depth chart.
Whatever happened to the fun in professional sports? The New York Times reported that, after being eliminated from the Little League World Series, the
teams from Florida and Venezuela chose to remain in Williamsport, Penn., and play each other.
There was nothing at stake; there were no gimmicks. The game was simply played in fun. Florida players, who didn’t get to play as much in the tournament, got some much-wanted playing time, and Venezuela considered the game as their championship, playing as hard as if they were vying for the Little League World Championship.
Even when athletes don’t think of money, they don’t even seem that winning is enough. Sure, winning is good, but embarrassing the opponent is much better.
Scoring more than the opposing team simply isn’t enough, and as Terrell Owens and other NFL superstars have advocated, dancing in the opponent’s face after beating them is a cool thing to do. How sad.
And when I speak of sportsmanship, or the lack thereof, in professional sports, I can’t help but think of the instantly classic Pistons-Pacers brawl in 2004, arguably the biggest televised fight in sports history.
An already struggling NBA completely lost its prestige due to this event, in my eyes anyway. Ron Artest’s display of anger, rage, and immaturity was a disgrace to the entire professional sports world.
What are professional athletes teaching our sports-loving children today?
Fighting is the best answer? Money is more important than fun? Winning is No. 1? Take steroids, they make you hit more homeruns? An eye for an eye and a punch for a punch? I rarely see the good side of professional sports publicized.
It seems to me that professional athletes should step back and learn a few lessons from their little idolizers. Sportsmanship is a virtue, and healthy competition is greater than simply winning.