Bad News for Jackie Robinson West

What's the world coming to when Little League baseball gets rocked by a "scandal" of this magnitude? The Rev. Jesse Jackson has to step in to try to reverse a decision to strip Jackie Robinson West, representing the Great Lakes Region, of its national title? It's enough to break your heart.

Of course, President Obama gets dragged into it too, as last year he honored his hometown team at the White House. He still stands behind the kids, although questions the adults who apparently recruited players outside the prescribed boundaries of the community.

Jackie Robinson West is not the first Little League team to have its title stripped. The LL has very explicit rules when it comes to a team's boundaries, not just the age limit. The state of Illinois had questioned the residency of some of the team's players last year, but the latest complaint was lodged by the Las Vegas chapter of the Little League, whose team, Mountain Ridge, is now the US champion by default.

A South Korean team beat JRW in the World series title game. Mountain Ridge lost to a Japanese team in the consolation game. The games are bracketed so that world teams play each other in one bracket, while American teams play each other in another bracket. Seems kind of unfair, but the Little League is an American invention so I guess it can set its own rules.

I remember Bad News Bears from the 70s, which made a mockery of the game. In the third installment, Tony Curtis takes over for Walter Matthau, flying the team to Japan to play the reigning world champs. The last episode was so bad it got a zero rating in Rotten Tomatoes. The Bears were recast in 2005 with Billy Bob Thornton as the irascible coach, Morris Buttermaker.

However, this is serious business, and the League doesn't take infractions lightly. Not even the President of the United States has the confidence to intercede on the behalf of his hometown team, so the Rev. Jesse Jackson is stepping into the breech. As the reverend pointed out, this need to verify residency at a time many states are calling voter rolls into question is not very good timing, but the League doesn't seem overly worried about public relations. It is the sanctity of the "community-based" game they are trying to protect. What would Jackie Robinson have to say about this?

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud. -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!

TripplerFebruary 18, 2015 at 6:28 PM
Something like this happened to a youth baseball team from the Bronx about 13 years ago where a pitcher who was 13 years old played on a 12 year old team. Because of this the team's victory was erased and the kids on the team were highly embarrassed ( I read somewhere but don't know if it is true that only one kid played ball after that - the rest were just too ashamed of ever paying again).

So sad that kids get exploited that way.

Dispatches from Vilnius

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