That California team was one of the better hitting little league teams we've seen in the past 10 years.

Congratulations to every kid that had a chance to participate over the past few weeks. Just being able to make the trip is one hell of an accomplishment.

1966--20TH LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES

For the 1st time since 1950 a Texas Little League team won the World Series as the Houston Little Leaguers rode roughshod over the Little Leaguers of West New York, N.J., 8-2 before some 21,000 excited fans.

As an alternate for the WNY team, I'd just like to say.

Boy...does it suck losing.

It seemed like every game I saw was a homerfest. Not sure if that's how it always is, but it brought out the grumbly "make 'em use wood bats" curmudgeon in me.

Those kids were huge.

So when I grew up, one thing was always absolutely certain about late summer: a team from Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei) would always be in the LLWS final and they would always just crush whatever team happened to advance from the US division. Chris Drury leading Trumbull to the title in '89 remains one of the most stunning sports events I have ever watched. Sometime in the mid 90's this all began to change: this was the first year since 1996 that a team from Taiwan made it to the final, and most of the finals for the past decade have been close, entertaining contests, with the US holding a slight advantage.

So what happened? How did the US (and basically the rest of the world) "catch up" with Taiwan at this youth sport?

Taiwan got busted for massive cheating.

So when I grew up, one thing was always absolutely certain about late summer: a team from Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei) would always be in the LLWS final and they would always just crush whatever team happened to advance from the US division. Chris Drury leading Trumbull to the title in '89 remains one of the most stunning sports events I have ever watched. Sometime in the mid 90's this all began to change: this was the first year since 1996 that a team from Taiwan made it to the final, and most of the finals for the past decade have been close, entertaining contests, with the US holding a slight advantage.

So what happened? How did the US (and basically the rest of the world) "catch up" with Taiwan at this youth sport?

Because those early Taiwan teams were serious age gate and /or national all star teams (then again, the country has a population of 23 mill, so the national all star team is basically the equivalent of the New York city metro area all star team)

it gradually got better, and obviously the end results reflect that. but not too surprisngly, none of those early 70s-80s kids that completely dominated LLWS made it to the majors (and only a few made it to the NPB ) but the not so dominating versions of the post 90 kids produced several solid major leaguers and a good amount of players playing in the minor leagues. today the league is basically up to and even better than the US in some respect in protecting kids (though there's still far too few usable little league field.. or any usable baseball field really)



There were some serious jokes in the 70s early 80s on Taiwan being pressured by the US to stop the age gate problem that they went to extreme measures of banning all kids who had pubic hairs from participating.

What changed is that the Taiwanese leagues started abiding by LL rules regarding size and population base for leagues, after spending a few years out of the system. In the times you were talking about, they were drawing their all-star teams from larger population areas than the US leagues.

Those kids were huge.

They were. And even though they didn't have quite the giants that the Chula Vista team had, the Taiwanese team had some pretty big kids, too - 5'9'', 5'7" and so on, including the kid who blasted the HR to the upper part of the hill.

If I were running the P.R. department for the Padres, I'd arrange for a night to celebrate the Chula Vista team - and as part of it, I'd have them all come out to take batting practice on the major league field, just to see how far some of the big boys could hit one.

If I were running the P.R. department for the Padres, I'd arrange for a night to celebrate the Chula Vista team - and as part of it, I'd have them all come out to take batting practice on the major league field, just to see how far some of the big boys could hit one.
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I'm pretty sure there would be far more people wanting to see that than actually wanting to watch a Padres game.

Is this Kiko Garcia related to the one that played for the Orioles?

Every team always seems to have "the big kid", remember growing up one year my LL team had about 10 HRs the entire year. 4 of them were inside-the-parkers (this wasn't All-Star team level, so fielding was.... interesting), 1 of them was hit by a kid who basically got fed the juiciest pitch ever, and the other 5 were hit by this one big kid who probably could've eaten me for lunch (which, given the fact that my main claim to fame was being able to bunt really, really well, would have not made much impact on the team).

AND there was an actual female ballplayer on BOTH the canadian and "saudi-arabian" teams

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLSSSSSSS

playing baseball!!!!

they'd best enjoy it while they can before their muscles get all weak from the ronggg roids

So while women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, they're allowed to play baseball in Burkas!

oh wait.

I'm pretty sure there would be far more people wanting to see that [the Chula Vista team] than actually wanting to watch a Padres game.

When the Cardinals were in San Diego last week, the crowd seem more interested in the Little League results than the game on the field.

Attention parents in Southern California – if you want your children to live out your failed athletic fantasies, you might want to watch the Little League World Series 2009 Chula Vista team. One of the participants for the Little League World Series this year will be the Chula Vista Park View All Stars. Chula Vista is a suburb of San Diego, and the team from said suburban community is pretty good, and is heading to Pennsylvania to compete in the Little League World Series, which features 8 international teams and 8 American teams. So if you desire Little League World Series 2009 Chula Vista victory, you can get a personal loan to go see the game – or watch it on ESPN.

If that firstbaseman from Chula Vista was his published age, I'm an astronaut. Or else he's on pace to be 11 feet tall and 500 pounds.

Then again, that kid that hit the first home run for Taiwan looked pretty fishy too.

Ehh, some kids grow big early, it's not exactly something new. on the other hand, just because you don't LOOK big doesn't mean your not overaged.

The Taiwan teams for the last couple of decades have been playing fair. and in some cases go out of their ways to protect their kids .

The team is from a industrialized region of the island and have a ton of immigrants though . and not surprisingly the team is loaded with kids from aborignal decents (these guys tend to be better raw atheletes than rest of us.. by a LOT. they're a lot like latin american in that sense)

Little League baseball these days is so overhyped and overcommercialized at the top levels, I'd be positively astonished if at some point in the not too distant future some winning U.S. team isn't exposed as having been put together from a far larger geographical area than is allowed by the rules. Or at the very least, we'd discover that the parents of the best 9 and 10 year olds were being recruited and moved to the areas with the strongest LL programs, staying within the letter of the rules while clearly violating their spirit.

That may be a far fetched scenario, but when you look at the unbelievable amount of emotional investment that countless numbers of supposed adults put into the ephemeral accomplishments of a group of 12 year olds, it's pretty obvious that the motivation to bend the rules is certainly out there in full force. I wonder what Carl Stotz might have thought about all this.

and not surprisingly the team is loaded with kids from aborignal decents (these guys tend to be better raw atheletes than rest of us.. by a LOT. they're a lot like latin american in that sense

I have no idea what this means.

and not surprisingly the team is loaded with kids from aborignal decents (these guys tend to be better raw atheletes than rest of us.. by a LOT. they're a lot like latin american in that sense

I have no idea what this means.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigines
Taiwan before the 17th century was inhabited almost entirely by these aboriginal people. who are of a similar race to Philipinos / Indonisian / Hawaiians etc...

Then came the Chinese colonist. whom today make up of the vast majority of Taiwan's population (offical estimate is about 98%, though probably 5% or a bit more of the population is at least half aboriginal and many more have at least a partial trace)

These guys are a lot like Latin Americans / Black Atheletes (Think Manny Paquiao). certainly that they often grow up in less urban areas than the rest of us helps them a ton too.

Of the 6 Taiwanese to play in the majors so far. 2 of them are of clear aboriginal decend . (Chen Chin Feng, Chin Hui Tsao.) looking at this year's LLWS team from Taiwan, their best player ( Song Wen Hua ) and the lefty starter today ( Ou Jin) are both aboriginals.

Of the 6 Taiwanese to play in the majors so far. 2 of them are of clear aboriginal decend . (Chen Chin Feng, Chin Hui Tsao.) looking at this year's LLWS team from Taiwan, their best player ( Song Wen Hua ) and the lefty starter today ( Ou Jin) are both aboriginals.

Are you Taiwanese? I grew up in a place with a heavy Filipino population and they didn't strike me as more or less athletic than anyone else. I guess my confusion is that I don't know what perspective you're speaking from.

Not all black guys are Michael Jordan either. you can look at the boxers from the Phillipines and you get an idea. they might not be big and tall, but they're REALLY damn fast and explosive.

I'm from Taiwan yeah. the Aboriginal decends make up of a huge portion of the high end competitve baseball in all levels here (and the military's petty officers)

If that firstbaseman from Chula Vista was his published age, I'm an astronaut. Or else he's on pace to be 11 feet tall and 500 pounds.

Well, by this logic, the kid who was doing the TV spots for ESPNABC, who's about 4'8" must really be about 10 years old, instead of almost 16, as he claims. Some kids just develop early. I have no idea whether it has anything to do with being hispanic, but where I grew up, there were about three leagues in our District that were primarily caucasian (Temple City American, Temple City National, and South Pasadena). We routinely got killed by the El Monte leagues once all-stars rolled around. They all seemed bigger than us.

Then again, when you get down to the best eight teams in the country (give or take), they're likely to have children of anomalous size.

I'd be positively astonished if at some point in the not too distant future some winning U.S. team isn't exposed as having been put together from a far larger geographical area than is allowed by the rules. Or at the very least, we'd discover that the parents of the best 9 and 10 year olds were being recruited and moved to the areas with the strongest LL programs, staying within the letter of the rules while clearly violating their spirit.

I can only speak to District 18 in Southern California, but I can attest to the fact that parents and district staff spend countless hours going over the documentation to make sure the leagues in that district aren't cheating. My dad has been on the district staff for over 20 years, and it seemed like the entire last two weeks of June were always spent at meetings for this purpose.

But all it takes is one league to cheat, I guess. I heard someone this weekend mention that in some places, the kids play travel ball all year, then drop the travel team once little league season starts, and pick it up again right after. I guess if you planned it right, you could put together an all-star team of kids that have played together for years.

Personally, I'm glad we didn't have travel ball when I was a kid. I was much happier playing baseball from February through June, and soccer August through November. I don't know that I would have liked focusing on one sport for my entire childhood.

Personally, I'm glad we didn't have travel ball when I was a kid. I was much happier playing baseball from February through June, and soccer August through November. I don't know that I would have liked focusing on one sport for my entire childhood.

Agreed. My 7-year-old son is a baseball-soccer player, and a pretty good athlete at this point in time. When I was talking casually to the referee before his first soccer game yesterday, he mentioned how it will become necessary to get the good players (not necessarily my boy) on elite travel teams at some point, and I could only shiver at the notion of its necessity.

That may be a far fetched scenario, but when you look at the unbelievable amount of emotional investment that countless numbers of supposed adults put into the ephemeral accomplishments of a group of 12 year olds, it's pretty obvious that the motivation to bend the rules is certainly out there in full force.

Yeah, but so is the unbelievable investment by their opponents--such a cheating league would be caught before Williamsport, either at state or region.

I heard someone this weekend mention that in some places, the kids play travel ball all year, then drop the travel team once little league season starts, and pick it up again right after.

That happens all the time and has been happening for years. Often travel ball is far more important than Little League. Many elite travel ballers don't even bother with Little League.

I can only speak to District 18 in Southern California, but I can attest to the fact that parents and district staff spend countless hours going over the documentation to make sure the leagues in that district aren't cheating. My dad has been on the district staff for over 20 years, and it seemed like the entire last two weeks of June were always spent at meetings for this purpose.

The documentation that's required nowadays (since the various LL age scandals) is pretty rigorous. The birth certificate we were issued shortly after our kid's birth wasn't good enough for LL; we had to go to the Department of Health to get a full size, embossed and sealed certificate. And provide three distinct pieces of identification (parent driver's license, utility bills, real estate tax bills, etc.) to prove his address. Then, we had to turn in a map locating our house within the boundaries of the Little League.

Little League has also become insistent on the number of teams a League can have feeding into summer All-Stars before the league has to split itself. And insistent that only kids participating in the spring league season can play summer All-Stars.

Not saying that, with all that, cheating can't be done, but they're sure working hard to make it difficult.

Many elite travel ballers don't even bother with Little League.

It's starting to happen with high school sports as well.

Yeah, but so is the unbelievable investment by their opponents--such a cheating league would be caught before Williamsport, either at state or region.

Danny Almonte says hi.

2004-2009 is 6 years. Was there no LLWS one year or is it 6-0 instead of 5-0?

the 15th post in this thread is either a hacked account, or an account to create spam. Somebody remove the link posted in that post.

The documentation that's required nowadays (since the various LL age scandals) is pretty rigorous. The birth certificate we were issued shortly after our kid's birth wasn't good enough for LL; we had to go to the Department of Health to get a full size, embossed and sealed certificate. And provide three distinct pieces of identification (parent driver's license, utility bills, real estate tax bills, etc.) to prove his address. Then, we had to turn in a map locating our house within the boundaries of the Little League.

Little League has also become insistent on the number of teams a League can have feeding into summer All-Stars before the league has to split itself. And insistent that only kids participating in the spring league season can play summer All-Stars.

I'm glad to know about all this, and hopefully they'll stay on top of it. But that said, it's absolutely crazy that a tournament involving twelve year olds is subject to so much commercial hype and international exposure. We're always complaining about the exaggerated sense of entitlement exhibited by so many professional athletes, but where do you think that this sort of attitude begins to develop?

BTW, Almonte now plays at D2 juco ball powerhouse Western Oklahoma St (after a brief career in indy ball - yes, that's legal). He hit .472/.522/.874 (granted, they play in a MONSTER hitter's park) and was 9-0 3.73 in 13 starts (55.2 ip, 49 h, 6 hr, 26 bb, 73 so). Don't know where he'll go next, D1's not an option and he didn't sign with an affiliated team (can still play college ball outside of D1, however).

12 year olds should not be on national television for playing games. High school football should not be covered as if it were a major college event. Period. End of story.

12 year olds should not be on national television for playing games. High school football should not be covered as if it were a major college event. Period. End of story.

Well dammit Sam, now I'm going to have to encourage you.

But we should get so angry about adults playing sports that we commit murder.

We don't commit murder when we're angry. We commit murder when we're bored or annoyed. Big diff. Let me rephrase my objection.

By turning younger and younger children into "sports stars" we consistently instill warped societal values into and upon those children. We remove basic childhood games and replace them with hyper-competitive organized sports-enterprise and reenforce those warped values by tying the child's parental approval/love to success at the enterprise. This leads to more, rather than less people with ###### up moral systems like Sam's.

I agree with Sam about the Little League.

High school football isn't quite as comparable, I've never seen it get the attention for GAMES (outside of recruiting) that the LLWS does. I mean, we all know that Texas is screwed up in that regard beyond all imagining, but high school football is only one facet to that insane asylum of a state.

ESPN covers a "premiere" high school football game pretty much every week these days. It's hardly limited to Texas. Showcasing football games between 16 and 17 year olds is no less offensive than showcasing baseball games between 12 and 13 year olds. Or spelling bees. Or "beauty pageants." Parents who let their children participate in these sorts of things should have their children taken away.

ESPN covers a "premiere" high school football game pretty much every week these days. It's hardly limited to Texas.

Nope, two Cincinnati teams will be playing a Sunday afternoon game this week due to ESPN considerations. Blecch.

And I'm fine with snatching any kid whose parents allow them to participate in beauty pageants, though I think it would be overdoing it to take away all Little League and Spelling Bee kids (even if those Spelling Bee kids can't hold a candle to Geographic Bee whiz kids).

By turning younger and younger children into "sports stars"

Hasn't that been going on for decades? The local athletic stud has always been elevated into a hero. Junior highs have had BMOC for as long as I can remember. A kid on one of these teams is stil going to be a "local hero" with or without ESPN.

>>>We remove basic childhood games<<<

What games would these be? Monopoly? Capture the Flag? Army man? Little League baseball has never been a basic childhood game. The original Bad News Bears wasn't produced from thin air -- the movie was just as much social commentary as it was a comedy.

>>>with hyper-competitive organized sports-enterprise reenforce those warped values by tying the child's parental approval/love to success at the enterprise.<<<<

Again, this is nothing new. Overzealous parents suck. However, the problem is these parents, not the fact that the games are televised. Overzealous parents have been going to Williamsport long before ESPN made the scene

A kid on one of these teams is stil going to be a "local hero" with or without ESPN.

I think that's going too far. How many people actually care about youth sports? (From a fan perspective.) Once you take away the players and the players' families, is anyone left? Even when I was in high school, I had no idea who were the best football or basketball players in the school - I wasn't on the team, so what did I care? A decade later, if you asked me to give you names of kids on those teams, I'd struggle to give you a half dozen. Today, I occasionally peruse local track and cross country results out of mild curiosity, but have absolutely no other knowledge of local youth sports. I can't imagine that anyone without a personal interest in one or more of the players would.

Understand that parents don't just choose to send their kids to Williamsport. You enroll your kid in the local Little League, where he gets placed on a team and plays a schedule of league games during the spring. If he's one of the 12 or so best kids in the league, or at least the 12 best who will be available all summer, he gets picked for the summer tournament team, which will have to keep winning through four or five rounds of district and section and regional tournaments before reaching the LLWS. The odds are long; when my son played, his team went 7-1, and the "1" knocked them out of further competition before they had even advanced past the first (district) round.

There really is nothing in Little League equivalent to the parent choosing to finagle a talented child into a high school football or basketball factory.

Again, this is nothing new.

The fact that a moral failing is not new does not mean it is not a moral failing. The fact that we've been sliding down this slope nigh unto forever does not mean we are not sliding ever faster down the slope, nor does it remove from morally sound individuals the requirement to attempt to arrest said slide.

Overzealous parents suck. However, the problem is these parents, not the fact that the games are televised. Overzealous parents have been going to Williamsport long before ESPN made the scene.

As with a hundred other morally abhorrent behaviors I could mention off the top of my head, turning the parental failure into a reality TV star incents rather than decents the behavior. Not televising the event would not remove bad parents from organized sports, it would simply not reward the parent for said abhorrent behavior. That should be enough.

I personally refuse to watch any televised sporting event where the participant is younger than 18. This includes tennis prodigies and youth chess leagues. I don't pretend that my little boycott is going to arrest or reverse the trend towards crappy parenting and fundamentally flawed societal values which we see nationally (and globally) but I can at least honestly say to myself that I was not a part of it.

The Spelling Bee might be the worst of all. What percentage of those kids get beat by their parents when they spend less then 6 hours per day studying? At least baseball is fun.

Understand that parents don't just choose to send their kids to Williamsport.

Yeah, they do. Kids don't go to Williamsport ONLY on the choice of the parents, but they certainly require the choice of the parent in order to go. Little League doesn't take the children away and not let them come home until the team has been eliminated.

If anyone wants to see overemphasis of Little League baseball in action, here's a simple test: Be the parent of one of the start players on the team, and then try to take that child on a Summer vacation with the family, forcing him to miss a good part of the schedule, and see the reaction.

Of course high school football and basketball stars have always been treated like little Gods to an extent, depending on the region of the country and the level of their achievement. Just as there've always been tennis dads and tennis moms. And there have long been batshit parents who bait referees and generally treat a Little League game like a Yankees-Red Sox LCS.

But the difference is that while these pestilences were with us way before ESPN, it's only been recently that the occasional SI piece about a high school phenom has been trumped by the routine televising of high school sporting events, and the systematic scouting and publicizing of pretty much any child in America who can potentially make some adult rich, from professional teams to sneaker companies to leeches like Scott Boras. There's little more to be said about it other than it's just one more example of what can happen when one perfectly good principle (in this case freedom of choice) is ruthlessly exploited to the exclusion of any other competing value (such as a sense of proportion). And the truth is that there ain't a damn thing that can realistically be done about it. This is simply the way we are as a 21st century people.

I think that's going too far. How many people actually care about youth sports? (From a fan perspective.) Once you take away the players and the players' families, is anyone left?

Within their own community, a great deal.

>>> Even when I was in high school, I had no idea who were the best football or basketball players in the school <<<

Are you saying the best football players and basketball players weren't popular at your high school? That sounds like a very abnormal high school.

The Spelling Bee might be the worst of all. What percentage of those kids get beat by their parents when they spend less then 6 hours per day studying? At least baseball is fun.

I can't speak for the Spelling Bee, but my son finished tied for 15th in the National Geographic Bee earlier this year (hence my dig at the Spelling Bee) and the reason he did that well is simply because he loves geography. He loves reading maps, atlases and studying foreign cultures, and his success was entirely the product of his devoting most of his free time to that pursuit. He had absolutely no pressure from mom and dad.

It's possible that many of the spelling bee participants really love words and their origins in the same way my boy (and from what I could tell at the national event, other boys as well) loves geography.

The fact that a moral failing is not new does not mean it is not a moral failing.

Agreed.

>>>The fact that we've been sliding down this slope nigh unto forever does not mean we are not sliding ever faster down the slope, nor does it remove from morally sound individuals the requirement to attempt to arrest said slide.<<<

Disagree, especillay in regards to Little League Baseball being televised.

>>>failure into a reality TV star <<<

Having one's game aired on TV doesn't make one a reality TV star.

>>> Not televising the event would not remove bad parents from organized sports, it would simply not reward the parent for said abhorrent behavior.<<<<

Again, the overzealous parent doesn't need televison to be "rewarded." Overzealous parents are going to behave poorly in terms of living vicariously through their children with or without TV. The only way to stop that would be to ban all parents from being spectators at their kids' sporting events, and that is punishing most parents because of the actions of the minority.

I think that's going too far. How many people actually care about youth sports? (From a fan perspective.) Once you take away the players and the players' families, is anyone left?

Within their own community, a great deal.

Undoubtedly, but without the accompanying nationalization of the lionization (ouch!), it's a lot easier for most kids and parents to keep their feet on the ground. It's truly a vicious circle, and of course at the root of it is the potential for megabucks.

And that gets back to what I said earlier: The problem is when one perfectly good principle (in this case freedom of choice) is ruthlessly exploited to the exclusion of any other competing value (such as a sense of proportion).

--------------------

Again, the overzealous parent doesn't need televison to be "rewarded." Overzealous parents are going to behave poorly in terms of living vicariously through their children with or without TV.

But the question is whether or not society chooses to encourage this sort of adult delinquency, and whether or not it wants to set the seeming rewards so high that it produces an entire subculture of adults whose entire existence is largely based on making their children's athletic talent the focus of their entire lives.

The only way to stop that would be to ban all parents from being spectators at their kids' sporting events, and that is punishing most parents because of the actions of the minority.

That might not be a bad idea---when I played in the D.C. version of Little League we were positively embarrassed when our parents showed up to watch, which was blessedly seldom or never---but realistically you're right. That particular horse escaped the barn many decades ago.

Undoubtedly, but without the accompanying nationalization of the lionization (ouch!), it's a lot easier for most kids and parents to keep their feet on the ground.

I am not so sure about that because of the big fish in the little pond syndrome. The basketball player for New Palestine High School in backwater Indiana is still going to draw the cheerleader bacause of his big game performance. A blowjob from the high school hottie is a very powerful motivator (substitute feeling up the cheerleader for the Jr. High stud). It is very easy to lose one's he--- never mind.

>>>It's truly a vicious circle, and of course at the root of it is the potential for megabucks.<<<

Well, the potential for megabucks certainly is certainly part of the cycle, but I don't know if it is "at the root." Take away the megabucks, and you still have the popular jock situation.

>>>But the question is whether or not society chooses to encourage this sort of adult delinquency<<<

I don't think society encourages the adult delinquency. First of all, most parents of athletes aren't like these delinquents. I don't think television has created more deliquent parents -- they have always been in the stands in Hometown, USA; they are just easier seen now. The commericalism is probably a different matter, but the deliquent parents' desire can only take their kids so far. Kids lacking in talent wash out pretty quick.

Secondly, the deliquent parent is pretty much ostracized even within the community, perhaps even moreso than thirty years ago.

>>>an entire subculture of adults whose entire existence is largely based on making their children's athletic talent the focus of their entire lives.<<

I think we both agree that this subculture has always existed. The question is how much has it expanded.

The basketball player for New Palestine High School in backwater Indiana is still going to draw the cheerleader bacause of his big game performance.

Are you a Hoosier bads, or did you just pick the New Pal Dragons at random?

I think we both agree that this subculture has always existed. The question is how much has it expanded.

I certainly think adding "and my baby boy will be on TEEVEE" to the already existing "my boy will whip that ##### Feldman's kid or he'll die trying" dynamic expands the problem, but even if we grant that it might not that is not an excuse for glorifying the objective marketing of children as sports-enterprise product. Whether or not the objectification contributes to parental delinquincy or not is tangential to the basic rule that we should not commodify our children.

Undoubtedly, but without the accompanying nationalization of the lionization (ouch!), it's a lot easier for most kids and parents to keep their feet on the ground.

I am not so sure about that because of the big fish in the little pond syndrome. The basketball player for New Palestine High School in backwater Indiana is still going to draw the cheerleader bacause of his big game performance. A blowjob from the high school hottie is a very powerful motivator (substitute feeling up the cheerleader for the Jr. High stud). It is very easy to lose one's he--- never mind.

It's truly a vicious circle, and of course at the root of it is the potential for megabucks.

Well, the potential for megabucks certainly is certainly part of the cycle, but I don't know if it is "at the root." Take away the megabucks, and you still have the popular jock situation.

Yes, but the popular jock situation has been part of American culture for at least the past 90 years, and almost certainly long before that. But underneath it all, those local jocks knew that their situation was likely temporary, and that the best they were going to gain out of their local celebrity in the long run was perhaps a car dealership or an insurance agency. They never had the exaggerated delusions of grandeur (and big bucks) that comes with so much of the territory these days, which extends way beyond the far more modest local level.

But the question is whether or not society chooses to encourage this sort of adult delinquency

I don't think society encourages the adult delinquency. First of all, most parents of athletes aren't like these delinquents. I don't think television has created more deliquent parents -- they have always been in the stands in Hometown, USA; they are just easier seen now. The commericalism is probably a different matter, but the deliquent parents' desire can only take their kids so far. Kids lacking in talent wash out pretty quick.

Secondly, the deliquent parent is pretty much ostracized even within the community, perhaps even more so than thirty years ago.

Well, the local community may not be all that thrilled with the baseball mom and the football dad, but those archetypes certainly get enough support from the national media to make up for what they may lack in local bar-b-q invitations. And on the level I'm talking about, that's what I mean by "society." If our culture weren't continuously dangling the prospect of unheard of riches and fame across the vision field of every two bit high school sports star, you wouldn't need all those grade school sneaker company bird dogs. You wouldn't have an entire subculture of marginally talented athletes who don't find out until it's too late that there's far more of a future in books than in basketball. We've always had kids who dream of becoming pro stars, but with the coming of ESPN and its accompanying ######## there are infinitely greater numbers of unfortunate kids who get suckered into chasing a mirage. And it's impossible to separate the sad results from the culture that enables them.

an entire subculture of adults whose entire existence is largely based on making their children's athletic talent the focus of their entire lives.

I think we both agree that this subculture has always existed. The question is how much has it expanded.

I think that not only has it expanded exponentially, but that it's gone beyond parents to an equally vile subculture of agents and posses, none of whom have the slightest interest in the athlete the second his dream of stardom evaporates. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the jocks of past generations got the reality of their true talent level rubbed into their noses at a far younger age. This may not have made it a better age for our particular brand of athletic parasites, but it was a far healthier one for the generic sub-professional athlete.

I think that not only has it expanded exponentially, but that it's gone beyond parents to an equally vile subculture of agents and posses

And specialty coaches and private lessons. Lots of $$ to be made off of unrealistically hopeful parents exploiting their kids.

I think that not only has it expanded exponentially, but that it's gone beyond parents to an equally vile subculture of agents and posses

And specialty coaches and private lessons. Lots of $$ to be made off of unrealistically hopeful parents exploiting their kids.

I should have added those as well. Part and parcel of the same thing.

12 year olds should not be on national television for playing games. High school football should not be covered as if it were a major college event. Period. End of story

ehhh, highschool baseball championship is the most watched sporting event in Japan by a MILE. it's a lot bigger than any pro sports. When peopl in Japan talk about Daisuke Matsuzaka, they'll meantion first that he was AWESOME in Kohsien.. THEN they talk about his MLB/NPB career