Every year when the Little League World Series rolls around, we get earnest columns about how pure and good it is and how major league players should strive to recapture the fun and joy they found from the game when they were 11 and 12.
This isn’t one of those columns.
Playing baseball is fun when you’re 12, sure. But is it more fun than being paid millions of dollars as an adult to play baseball? Is it more fun than getting to stay at the best hotels and eat at the best restaurants without your mom or dad telling you when to go to bed? Is it better than having people give you massages and free shoes and lay out your work clothes every day for you and wash them when you’re done? It is not.
The Little League World Series doesn’t entertain us every August because it’s more fun than Major League Baseball; it entertains us because it’s more weird than Major League Baseball. It’s nothing but the kind of unique baseball action that lights up social media whenever it happens in the majors.
Remember four weeks ago when Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores cried during a game because he thought he was being traded? That one incident was so popular that signed photos of Flores crying went for $90 ... and sold out. In Little League baseball, players cry almost every game.
Or what about bat flips? The league might be little, but the bat flips are big and plentiful.
bat flip SWAGGER: https://t.co/Bbb5wbeuZ8
— OHB (@ohholybutt) August 22, 2015
In the majors, we celebrate every time a pitcher gets a hit, from amusing flails by Bartolo Colon that find a hole to deep blasts by Madison Bumgarner. In Little League, the best hitters on most teams are the pitchers.
While the majors give us a few comically sized players like Prince Fielder and Jose Altuve, every LLWS team has a batch of giant players and an equal amount of players who barely measure half an Altuve. Team pictures look like before-and-after PED photos.
At the major league level, teams run out to home plate to mob their teammate after walk-off hits only. At the LLWS, it’s after most every run, no matter the inning.
Imagine a single MLB game featuring crying, bat flips, a pitcher blasting titanic home runs, home plate celebrations, enormous players and tiny players — and some screaming parents in the crowd, as well. You wouldn’t be able to take your eyes off the screen. Books and oral histories would be written about it. At the Little League World Series, all that happens in every game. It’s like the entire sport at that level was created to go viral.
Major League Baseball doesn’t need to get more fun or more pure. It’s fun already and, as declining home run totals show, it’s plenty pure. It needs to get weirder. Much weirder. It needs to cause us to make this face when we watch.
Mekhi Garrard with a reminder of what Little League should be all about: kids having fun http://t.co/s6JRdqhmyV http://t.co/FaHXUJ0pa0
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) August 23, 2015
Quote of the Week
I think a lot of guys use it. It’s kind of accepted unless it’s just blatantly obvious that somebody’s doing it. I had no idea during the game; nobody said anything to us.
Don Mattingly, Dodgers manager, on suggestions that Astros pitcher Mike Fiers had pine tar on his glove while no-hitting Mattingly’s team on Friday.
Mattingly’s estimation of “a lot of guys” might actually be conservative. Here’s former major league catcher John Baker, who played for the Marlins, Padres and Cubs between 2008 and 2014, on how many pitchers he caught who liked to put stuff on the ball:
— John Baker (@manbearwolf) August 20, 2015
So let’s stop pretending to be outraged when we see a pitcher with a substance on his glove. Especially if it’s after your favorite team has been shut down. It’s sour grapes. By the way, putting sour grape juice on the ball could be worth trying.
Stat of the Week
129
ESPN Stats/Info: 14.1 percent of the pitches Matt Carpenter has taken out of the zone have been called strikes, highest rate in the majors.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) August 23, 2015
ESPN Stats/Info: Overall this season, Matt Carpenter has had 129 pitches out of the zone called for a strike, also most in the majors.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) August 23, 2015
Next time you want to yell at or boo an umpire, remember this stat, which suggests even umpires are apparently sick of the Cardinals and want them to lose. Umpires: they’re just like us.
This Week’s Horrible Fantasy Team That Crushed Your Team
Lonnie Chisenhall, 3B, Indians - 8-for-16, HR, 5 RBI
Nick Castellanos, 3B, Tigers - 9-for-19, 2 HR, 9 RBI
Melvin Upton, Jr., OF, Padres - 6-for-13, 2 HR, 5 RBI, SB
Mark Canha, OF, A’s - 11-for-24, 2 HR, 4 RBI
Joe Blanton, P, Pirates - 6.1 innings, 7 strikeouts, 1 win, 0.00 ERA
Rubby De La Rosa, P, Diamondbacks - 14 innings, 9 strikeouts, 1 win, 1.93 ERA
Reader Twitter Question of the Week
@DJGalloEtc How many years away are we from abolishing the Wild Card play-in game?
— Ty Fisher (@tfish29) August 23, 2015
My guess is that the wildcard round will be replaced by a three-game series in the few years. If new commissioner Rob Manfred dumped Bud Selig’s dumbest ideas – the play-in games and the World Series homefield hinging on the All-Star Game’s outcome – on day one, it would have seemed disrespectful to his elder and to the man who recommended him for the job. But by 2018, I predict we’ll have to find other baseball things to complain about. Can I interest you in some pitchers using pine tar?
Phillies-ness of the Week
The Phillies traded the face of the franchise to the Dodgers this week and then Chase Utley and his new teammates were promptly no-hitted by Mike Fiers. In fact, the Dodgers haven’t won a game since adding Utley. But that is not the best case of the Phillies Disease spreading to other teams in baseball. That honor belongs to the Washington Nationals and Jonathan Papelbon. When the Phillies traded Papelbon to the Nationals on July 28, Washington was 52-46 and a game up in the NL East. Since then, they’ve gone 10-15 and are now give games back in the division. That the Phillies managed to send the widely-loated Papelbon from the team with the worst record in baseball to the team that is considered the biggest failure in baseball is an accomplishment deserving of a banner at Citizens Bank Park. “2015: Crushed Jonathan Papelbon’s Hopes And Dreams.”
Cubs World Series Odds: Holding Steady
The Cubs have the best record in baseball in August. It’s no fluke. They’ve been over .500 every month of the season. This team is not going anywhere. They’re going to make the postseason. They’re going to swim in your pool.
A-Rod-ness of the Week
A-Rod ended his month-long slump this week with two home runs and 6 RBI. Yankees manager Joe Girardi then decided to give him two days of rest, sitting him out of the lineup on Saturday and Sunday. We covered this last column, but A-Rod got plenty of rest when he wasn’t hitting. He stood up four times a night, walked to the plate, missed a few pitches, and then sat back down. He was only out of his seat a few minutes a night. There is no one in baseball who needs rest less than a DH who isn’t hitting. A-Rod surely doesn’t need more rest already after taking the first half of the month off. I’m starting to think Girardi doesn’t even read this column. How rude.
Ten Things To Think Of Thinking When You Think
1. Straight Outta Compton continues its run atop the box office, but the movie contains a glaring anachronism. In a scene set in 1986, the actor playing Eazy-E is wearing the black-and-white White Sox hat not introduced until 1991. Impossible. It’s more likely that the members of NWA dressed back then in the style of the 1976 White Sox, complete with shorts, wide collars and high, striped socks. That’s a look that would get a rap group remembered.
2. The 1986 White Sox team supposedly referenced in the movie had Ozzie Guillen on the roster. Guillen once told an umpire: “You’re not even a pimple on your daddy’s ass.” He once said of sportswriter Jay Mariotti: “He’s a garbage. He’s always been a garbage. He will die a garbage.” He once said of himself: “I’m the Charlie Sheen of baseball minus the drugs and prostitutes.” Put those words to a beat and Guillen is the greatest rapper of his generation without even trying, no offense to fine men in NWA or Snow.
3. The White Sox will actually wear their 1976 uniforms in a home game against the White Sox this Thursday. Unfortunately, they are not wearing the shorts. Disappointing. To paraphrase Ozzie Guillen, whoever made the decision to wear pants instead of shorts is a garbage.
4. This is interesting: the teams with the three worst batting averages in baseball — the Mets, Astros and Cubs — are all currently in playoff position. And the teams with the three best bullpen ERAs — the Cardinals, the Royals and the Pirates — have the three best records in baseball. This means teams should acquire as many dominant relievers as possible, up to the point of even having relievers fill their lineup. Or this means that baseball has too many stats and you can always find some that will make you feel a stupid argument is intelligent.
5. Baseball’s code is unwritten. So not being old enough to read is not an excuse for this little kid to not know it.
This Vine is all kinds of epic. #Dingers #BatFlip (via @Nick_pants) https://t.co/j97epiFDx1
— Covers (@Covers) August 23, 2015
6. Rockies shortstop Jose Reyes, who was traded from Toronto before the deadline, said he wants to be dealt to a contender: “I’m at the point in my career that I want to win.” So to be clear: when Reyes signed a 6-year, $102 million contract four years ago with the Miami Marlins, who were coming off a very Marlins-esque 72-90 season, he was not at the point in his career that he wanted to win.
7. The release of the Apple Watch has been a disaster, but sales could soon be on the uptick. Royals manager Ned Yost was warned by MLB this week that he may not used his Apple Watch to access data during games. But Yost insisted he wasn’t in violation of baseball’s ban on smartphones and similar technology in the dugout. “When you’re away from your phone, all it is is a watch,” Yost told Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star. That’s the Apple Watch, worn by 60-year old men named Ned who just want a watch. Let’s stop pretending Apple isn’t still the brand for the young and hip.
8. Everyone is praising this A’s ball boy for making a diving stop that prevented a ball from taking out Oakland’s bullpen.
Vine: Ballboy in Oakland makes exceptional catch during Oakland A's - Tampa Bay Rays game - https://t.co/tzsPjckBFd #breaking-news
— Pete Santilli (@PTSantilli) August 23, 2015
But Oakland’s bullpen has the second-worst ERA in all of baseball. That ball was on a righteous mission to destroy it and that boy ruined it. He should be fired.
9. Another fan got drilled by a baseball on Sunday, this time a woman at Wrigley Field, and was removed on a stretcher. As Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander said on Friday, baseball needs to take steps to protect fans before someone is killed. Looking at the field through netting isn’t ideal, but it’s better than being dead. (Hot take?) Yet baseball will probably wait for a tragedy to occur, then the nation will be outraged, the sport will be forced to act long after they should have, and more nets will go up. And in doing so, in waiting too long to address an obvious and growing problem, baseball will reaffirm its status as a quintessentially American institution.
10. Mike Trout and Bryce Harper are actually much closer in age to the players at the Little League World Series than they are to fellow major leaguer Alex Rodriguez. I mention this for two reasons. One, it’s nice to remember how young Trout and Harper are that we’ll get to enjoy watching them for many more years. And two, if the US wants to win the title game, faces can be shaved and birth certificates forged. It would only be fair considering all the years the US Little League champion had to go up against international teams full of kids close to the age and size of A-Rod.
