Little League Baseball
This level of baseball is played by boys & girls between the ages of 10 & 12. It is
organized baseball sponsored by Little League Baseball Inc. I'm sure you've heard about the
LL World Series played in Williamsport Pennsylvania every year in August. But how do the teams get to Williamsport? They qualify by playing in All-Star tournaments all over the world.
Yes, there are foreign teams at the Series as well as U.S. teams. These tournaments are
started at the end of June, so that the local, district, area, state, etc. etc. can complete & crown
their champions in time for the August World Series.
Sounds simple enough doesn't it? What could possibly be wrong with the above
procedure? Well, let me tell you.
Let's form our own little league organization in our own home town. Let's say on
"sign up" day we have 60 children who express an interest in playing. This sounds easy enough,
doesn't it? That would be five teams with twelve children per team. Fantastic!! But wait a
minute; Do we want to have try-outs to insure that the players are split fairly according to
ability so they are as equal as possible? Some leagues do this, while others just randomly
select the teams. The important question to ask here is, "Will all the children get an equal
chance to learn & play?"
Our league will start in the middle of May & end at the middle of June. Why end
so early? Because remember, All Stars must start by the end of June for World Series Tourneys.
Now here is my main reason for the criticism of Little League; The league will
select 12-14 All Stars for the Tourneys. Remember, our league has 60 children. If my math
is correct, 46-48 of our kids are done playing about the middle of June because of All Stars.
July & August are beautiful months for baseball, but these kids don't have the chance to
develop their skills, because they are not the top players in the league.
Common sense tells us that there are many solutions to this problem. I'm not
going to make a list of them here. Circumstances may be different in parts of our country,
that could influence solutions to our problem.(ex. weather)
My main point is that our youth of today is being turned off baseball by methods of
organizations that don't give them the opportunity to learn the game properly, or give
them the time to play the game.
In conclusion, this article deals with only ONE of the problems with Little League
and/or other organizations involved in sponsoring sports activities for our youth. Dealing
with the other problems as I see them, I'll leave for another day.