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?

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

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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