Josh Levin thinks Little League is a sham. Why?
Every year, the big kids beat the ever-loving crap out of the little ones.
A tour of the Little League record books shows that, for an American team, success is found by riding on the coattails of a hypertrophic hulk-child.
When the next hulk-child comes along, a Little League official needs to stand up, on a chair if necessary, look him in the eye, and tell him to go play somewhere else. By knuckling under to a few dominant players, Little League implants a lasting lesson in the heads of the millions of youngsters that play in its leagues worldwide: The big kids always get their way. It’s only fair that, for a year or two, normal-sized kids should get a chance to feel big. That is, before they get cut from the high-school team.
Well, gee whiz. Isn’t that pretty much how sports works? The most gifted athlete dominating the competition seems to be the essence of sports. At any level of football, for example, the biggest, strongest, fastest guys have a huge edge over those not blessed with those attributes.
Indeed, this is the nature of life, period. Is it fair that only kids with high IQs and quantitative abilities can grow up to be physicists?
