Little League making big change
That umpire’s command is heard every spring at the start of each game of a new season at baseball parks from the Major Leagues and semi-pros to colleges and youth Little League and T-ball.
The rules of the game have endured through the years no matter what the level of play. That’s part of what makes baseball wonderful at all levels. Just play and let the best team win.
The start of the 2017 Little League season, though, will be different. The first bellow of an umpire’s instruction won’t be heard until after a new rule is implemented. This year’s Little League season across the country, across the world, will begin with an important change, one that will not impact how the game is played but is nonetheless surprising, bewildering and head-scratching in fact to some, yet understandable and necessary to those who enjoy and support youth baseball and the kids who play it.
The change: Little League now requires officials to conduct nationwide background checks of sex offender registries and other criminal offenses of coaches and others involved in running teams. “No local league shall permit any person to participate in any manner whose background check reveals a conviction, guilty please, no contest plea, or admission to any crime involving or against a minor or minors,” Little League said in a statement.
The rule change isn’t about protecting the integrity of the game. It’s far more important than that. It’s about protecting those who play the game, the often vulnerable and easily impressed youths whose athletic abilities may exceed their age, or not, and helps assure the parents and guardians of those who play youth baseball that their kids need only be concerned about balls and strikes, hits and errors. That is, what happens between the chalk lines of a baseball field, not what might happen off the field. The focus of the players, rightfully, is playing the game.
Such a mandate was improbable during my playing days at Bailey Park in Uniontown. Or while in Pony League. Or college ball. The 1960s and 70s were a different time, though. Sexual child abuse was rarely discussed or admitted, perhaps even rarely reason for criminal conviction. And while coaching briefly a coed youth team in Milwaukee, parents and team sponsors were thankful that someone volunteered to coach the kids. Sure, background checks of coaches were done, but mostly through word-of-mouth and personal relationships. Parents who knew a coach, through work, family or neighborhood residence were asked to vouch for the coach. That’s how coaching vetting worked then.
The parents and guardians of Little League players and the league itself these days demand more, and with good reason. Just as physical safety of youth baseball players has taken more prominence and required more precautions — better helmets and the barring of aluminum bats in some leagues, for example — so, too is the safety of players when they are off the baseball field. The new rule is intended to do just that. No kid playing Little League baseball should be worried, intimidated, coerced or abused by an adult coach. And their parents and guardians should not have to worry what happens when their kids put on a baseball uniform.
At the same time, it’s justifiable, even worthy, for an adult coach to be concerned about and even intervene if a player’s safety or day-to-day life off the field is compromised and becomes known. But it’s wrong for a coach to put a player, a youth whose cognitive ability may not match their age or athletic ability, in any such compromising situation.
Little League baseball is important for more than encouraging physical activity and developing athletic abilities. It’s also about teaching the value of team play over individualism. About teaching fair play. About teaching respect for people of different skin color, ethnicity, religion and physical ability. Watch the Little League World Series each year, played in Williamsport, Pa., an idyllic small town in the central part of the state, where Little League teams from countries across the globe gather and play the game for their ultimate championship. Yes theirs, unlike other leagues, be it professional, collegiate or otherwise, is truly a World Series.
After each game, players of both teams, the winners and losers, meet in the infield and stand in line to shake hands, fist-bump or touch baseball gloves in recognition of a well played game. That’s teaching sportsmanship on the field.
Kudos to the International Little League for now enhancing the integrity of youth baseball outside the chalk lines and helping protect the kids who play the game.
A resident of Uniontown, Richard Ringer can be reached by email at ringer.mwgroup@gmail.com.