Sports in America

by James A. Michener

  1. The tribunal should, where possible, seek the help and guidance of a lawyer.

  5. The chairman of the tribunal should provide for the preparation of a reasonably complete and accurate hearing transcript.

  12. Provisions should be made to allow parties to request a rehearing in appropriate circumstances.

  When I asked why such legalistic precautions were necessary to govern a game played by eight-year-olds, I was told by a parent, ‘It ain’t the eight-year-olds we’re worried about. It’s the boys ready to move into big-time stuff in high school. Their rights got to be protected.’

  The official Junior League huddle prayer, ‘to be said with boys on one knee, helmet in hand, prior to the start of any game,’ was composed by a Catholic priest, a rabbi and a Protestant clergyman, the last being Norman Vincent Peale. It reads:

  Grant us the strength, Dear Lord, to play

  This game with all our might,

  And while we’re doing it we pray

  You’ll keep us in Your sight;

  That we may never say or do

  A thing that gives offense to You.

  Under Joe Tomlin’s severe and conservative guidance, Junior League football has escaped the cynical attention poured on Little League baseball in recent years. The baseball league, through a series of unfortunate actions on the field and decisions in the front office, has garnered much unfavorable publicity, most of it deserved. Three differences exist between young people’s baseball and football: baseball is played in the summer, with maximum attendance by parents who all too often give vivid examples of foolish deportment; although football is now more popular than baseball, the latter is still considered the national game around which loyalties still cling—only Little League baseball operates under a federal charter granted by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964; and everyone from the President to the Cardinal to the head of Rotary has for the past half-century assured us that in baseball young Americans learn the finest of the American virtues. When baseball turns sour, or when it displays unsportsmanlike conduct, the very foundations of our society are endangered, at least in the minds of moralists who like to write about such things.

  But as I did with Junior League football, I should like to present Little League baseball in its most favorable light, and there is no better way to do this than to recommend to any parent with young children a remarkable book by Al Rosen, who set numerous batting records while playing third base for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1956. One point to remember is that Rosen was a tough competitor, a real take-charge guy, and that he writes from a background of the sternest competition.

  The book is Baseball and Your Boy. (If Rosen were writing it now he would call it “Baseball and Your Girl and Boy,” for he proves himself to be a sensible man, able to adjust to new situations.) It presents the best arguments I have ever read for youthful athletics, and it does so with a perception that is refreshing. If all Little League teams were coached the way Al Rosen coached his, there would be no complaints. You will catch his philosophy from a series of quotes:

  … In teaching all phases of fielding to the beginner, one factor should be kept in mind. The objective is not that the boys be taught to make plays like major leaguers. The manager wants them to make plays like Little Leaguers.

  … I cannot think of a single legitimate excuse for having a Little League pitcher throwing curve balls. The kindest explanation would be to blame managerial ignorance. Certainly, it would be a more damning charge to accuse him of wanting to win so badly he would risk serious injury to a youngster’s arm. Youngsters should not throw curve balls until the growth centers of their arms are fused. This does not occur until age fourteen or fifteen.

  … On occasion the manager has the right to seek out a father and lodge a strong protest. For example, one father whose boy was pitching kept shouting the instruction, ‘Stick it in his ear!’ baseball’s traditional challenge to hit the batter in the head. This sort of thing is inexcusable in a boys’ league. A manager is ducking his responsibility if tie does not tell the father so.… There is satisfaction in knowing you have pushed yourself to the limits of your ability, even if the rewards are modest … I will not be remembered as one of the great third base-men, but I am happy with what is listed in the record book under my name. I am satisfied that I did what I could with what was given me.

  Rosen’s book is short but sagacious. It is also tough. He makes a profound point about sports when he tells parents:

  The youngster will get his lessons in democracy-in-action from other sources. Organized sports are not democratic nor should they be. They teach respect for authority, discipline, and the individual’s role in a group activity. The manager’s job is to make the decisions and he does not poll an electorate.

  Rosen’s overall view of Little League, in which he coached his own sons for several seasons, is that it is a child’s activity supervised by adults, and that the best results are obtained when understanding and supportive parents hand their boys into the charge of an enthusiastic and self-disciplined manager who knows what he’s doing. The tension that must normally exist between the father and the coach is never far from Rosen’s mind, and he usually sides with the father if the father can control himself and allow his son to progress at his own speed.

  The goal of the game is to have fun within a structured activity, at a level of performance appropriate to the age of the participants, and if this goal were honored in the conduct of Little League baseball, there could be no objection. But the reality of Little League competition has been so perverted that Al Rosen’s idealism makes him seem naïve. Any manager in the leagues I know who conducted himself the way Rosen recommends would be out on his ear within two weeks. The aim of the game is to win, and if in order to win your pitcher has got to throw curves three days a week, let him throw curves, and when his arm is ruined, find yourself a new pitcher.

  It is with a sense of sadness that I recommend Rosen’s book, for I realize that in doing so I must seem as naïve as he. He speaks of the sport as I have known it; he is the kind of sportsman I have sought out and enjoyed.

  The reality of Little League is told in one of the basic books recommended in Chapter I. Martin Ralbovsky’s Destiny’s Darlings tells the story of the Schenectady Little League team that won the world’s championship in 1954. The author had grown up in the city and worked there as a sportswriter before moving on to The New York Times. Twenty years after the glory days, he travels about America to interview nine of the boy champions, asking them to assess what winning the championship had meant to them. He closes his book with a perceptive interrogation of Mike Maietta, the manager whose iron will and stern control led the boys to their memorable victory.

  And it was memorable. Ralbovsky begins his book with a list of eleven flamboyant consequences of the championship. This group of twelve-year-old boys rode in convertibles at the head of a parade through the city; they received keys to the city; they attended fifteen banquets at which they were given bicycles, radios, watches and clothing; they attended a World Series game in New York; one of their members threw out the first ball to open the Series, and was described on nationwide radio as doing so; one of the players made a series of tapes for national radio; the team appeared on the Dave Garroway Today television show; one of the players appeared on the Perry Como show; the team rode in convertibles through a manufacturing plant, waving to workers; the players were photographed in color for Collier’s; and they were the subject of a long article in Sports Illustrated.

  They were given, in short, the all-American build-up, with motorcycle cops screaming ahead of them wherever they went and banquet speakers exuding heroic images. ‘You are destiny’s darlings,’ they were told, and as I read the hyperbole thrust upon them, I am surprised at the dignity with which they handled the inflated nonsense.

  Twenty years later Ralbovsky is visiting them, seeing them as men who will soon be entering middle age, and he listens as they r
eminisce about the days of their grandeur. They return again and again to certain incidents, so that the reader observes the old days from various angles and becomes familiar with the men’s memories. They are repetitious, like chatter in a barbershop, and the shocking message they convey is that this early taste of glory was mostly ashes:

  Pete Fennicks, the only black player: ‘My life didn’t change a bit. My mother, she still worked all the time, and my father, he still worked all the time, and we still didn’t have nothin’ … You know, I got the key to the city from the mayor at city hall; you know how many doors that key opened in twenty years? None. Not a single stinkin’ door.’

  Jimmy Barbieri, the team captain and star center fielder, who threw out the first ball in the real World Series: ‘The kids in the American Division were saying they would cream us … I can remember right then and there acquiring this killer instinct: we’re gonna go out there and destroy them; not beat them, destroy them. We did; it was twenty-three to nothing. The rest of that summer I had this killer instinct, that I didn’t want to win, I wanted to destroy. I remember going into those games with this feeling of kill, kill, kill.’

  Bill Masucci, the winning pitcher: ‘I pitched that whole series with an elbow that hurt so bad I could hardly stand it.’ I asked Bill Masucci if that sore arm stayed with him awhile, or did it disappear in the hysteria over a world championship? Bill Masucci glanced over at a window, which was covered by a white lace curtain. ‘I can’t throw a baseball from here to the street now.’

  Johnny Palmer, the left fielder: ‘But what happened after that, winning the world championship and all, I have mixed feelings about that experience. I don’t know if it was good or bad. Sure, we won and that was good; but we were used, we were exploited, we didn’t even win the championship on our own—Mike Maietta won it for us. It would mean a lot more to me today if I knew that we kids had won it on our own, but we didn’t. I sometimes feel that Mike could have taken any fourteen kids from that league and done the same thing; he was the general, and we were a bunch of privates.’

  Mike Maietta, the demon manager: ‘So we’re playing this team from Montreal, and the manager has obviously told his team to wipe us out; they’re running into my first baseman and taking out my second baseman, and barreling over my catcher; their pitcher is throwing at my kids’ heads. It was the first time that any of my kids had seen the bad side of baseball. They thought you won games by outplaying the other teams; they didn’t know you could win games by scaring the other teams half to death. If you’re gonna win in Little League tournaments, you gotta have tough kids, kids who would give it right back and not be scared off.’

  Captain Jimmy Barbieri again: ‘I think back on it now, and I’d have to say that Mike wanted to win the world championship for himself, for his own glory, and not for any experience that it might have given to us. We were pawns on the chessboard, and he made all the moves.’

  Coach Maietta, reflecting on the poor material he has to work with in 1974 as contrasted with his great team of 1954: ‘My heart goes out to these kids. I carry a lot of them who are lousy ballplayers, kids I would have gotten rid of right away in the old days. But if I had fourteen kids who were half as good as those kids I had in ’54, I’d have a fighting chance. I’d play the game for them, and they’d do all right.’

  I’ll say this. If Al Rosen, the Most Valuable Player in 1953, were to take his Little League team to Schenectady to play one coached by tough old Mike Maietta, whose players might not be so good but who would know how to cut for the jugular, Al Rosen would get clobbered.

  The scandals that overtook Little League baseball were twofold. Parents with ordinary common sense began looking with a critical eye at what was happening to their sons. They started going to games and saw the paranoia, the coaches screaming at twelve-year-olds, fathers belting their sons for striking out, little bovs ruining their arms trying to pitch like big leaguers before their bone ends hardened. They saw mothers behaving insanely, and boys falling into despair because of an error for which their parents abused them.

  And they began to write articles in newspapers and magazines, questioning the philosophy that underlay such performances. Little League was attacked because of its danger to health, its damage to a boy’s psychiatric base, and its encouragement of preposterous behavior on the part of parents and coaches. I became aware of the criticism very early, perhaps ten years ago, and have collected the attacks, some of which I thought were as hysterical as the abuses they were condemning. But when these were laid aside, there remained a body of substantial criticism.

  Representative of the best is a detailed study conducted by Dr. Jonathan Brower, assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Fullerton. He spent ten months following 28 different teams in playground leagues, getting to know managers, parents and 350 players while taking notes at 70 games. During a visit I made to his home, he told me some of his findings:

  Laws exist to protect children at work and school, but their ‘play’ as governed by adults goes unchecked. Playground ball is a pressure-packed thing for boys. For good athletes it may be fun. At least they can tolerate it, but for boys who are not good athletes and who try to please their managers and parents, it’s a matter of tension.

  Parents get too caught up in the win ethic. One father proudly told a friend, ‘My kid doesn’t care about sportsmanship. He says winning is what’s important.’ This thirst for victory and its accompanying competitiveness was far stronger among managers and coaches than players. The kids would offer help to other teams. Adult leaders frowned on this interteam cooperation because they did not want assistance given to those whom they might later be fighting for the league championship.

  To compound matters, there was no opportunity for boys to voice complaints of any kind to the grownups who controlled the team. Kids who wanted to play knew that they had to listen and follow orders issued by managers and coaches who often assumed a Vince Lombardian authoritarian manner. Hot summer days left players parched, but folklore and the suffer ethic encouraged most managers and coaches to caution, Don’t drink during games! Just rinse your mouth out! Several managers felt this advice was ridiculous and told their colleagues so, but to no avail. The majority of the men had been conditioned to swallow the old myth that the intake of fluids during physical exercise is harmful.

  One of the most poignant moments during my study took place at the awards’ night ceremony. Only one manager spoke of the fun that his team had, and this only as a parenthetical aside. All the other managers’ comments focused on their won-lost records and their chances of improvement for the coming year.

  Dr. Brower did concede that during his long summer he did meet a few coaches who seemed almost ideal. They were gentle, understanding, empathetic, and invariably they were good sports. ‘They were truly nice guys. But unfortunately, they always finished last.’

  Dr. Brower concluded with one important value judgment: he doubted that athletics build character. The boys he watched going through the summer program were no better off than the ones who didn’t, and some were worse off. His final conclusion was that the units of fun provided by playground baseball were fewer than the negative units of tension it produced.

  On one point I have been persuaded by the testimony of professional athletes. More than a score have told me that they would not permit their sons to enter Little League competition until rather advanced ages. They said there was a strong likelihood that rigorous competition so early would destroy a boy’s enthusiasm for sports in general and certainly would kill any interest he might have in baseball.

  It is important to understand what these knowledgeable men are saying and what they are not saying. They are not against competition; in their day some were fierce competitors. They are not against rugged games for boys; they want their sons to engage in the rough-and-tumble of childhood sports. But they are against highly structured leagues run by hypertensive adults, urged on by overenthusiastic fathers and mother
s.

  Joey Jay, the first Little Leaguer to make it to the majors—pitcher for the Braves, Reds, Phils—recalls, ‘Our team went all the way to the 1948 Little League World Series and our shortstop had his picture in Life magazine. By the time that boy entered high school, he had lost all interest in baseball. Parents interfere too much with Little League players. Even those who don’t interfere find it difficult to conceal their disappointment when their sons have a bad day.’

  Robin Roberts, the Philadelphia pitcher who compiled a pretty fair record, is even stronger in his criticism:

  I have four sons and when my wife asked me about Little League, I told her, ‘No way in the world.’ And most professional athletes feel that way about kids under fourteen. If you try to make it serious before they’re physically able to handle what they’re doing, you run into all sorts of problems.

  Generally in the Little League you’re up against a good pitcher who throws like hell. What does the coach say? Get a walk. Isn’t that a beautiful way to learn how to hit? For four years you stand up there looking for a walk.

  Baseball at that age should be a softball thrown overhand where a boy can hit fifteen times a game, with no walks and strike-outs. They should be running and sliding into bases. The score should be 42–38. That’s what sports should be for kids that age.

  I certainly would never let my boys enter a league where they’d be throwing curves at eight or nine years old. And I wouldn’t want them all steamed up, heading for a pennant play-off at eleven, or a World Series at twelve. My father encouraged me to take it easy, and at eighteen I had an arm prepared for the strain of real pitching.

  Mike Marshall, workhorse of the Dodger pitching staff, has his B.A. and M.A. from Michigan State and is close to his Ph.D. in kinesiology, the study of human anatomical movement. He is opposed to youngsters’ taking baseball too seriously and recommends radical alterations in current procedures. 1) Two outs to constitute an inning. 2) All players to switch positions every inning. 3) No boy or girl below the age of fifteen to pitch more than two innings a week. 4) Plus any additional steps to minimize the emotionalism involved in the overemphasis on winning.