Little League teaches tough lessons of life

Sporting competition can enhance skills and build teamwork. It can both express and encourage our fondest fantasies. Sports, however, can also be an occasion for destructive and demeaning aggression. The health of a sport is determined not only by the integrity of the contestants and its officials but also by the larger context in which the sport plays out. American sports fans still seldom acknowledge that college and professional sports – themselves increasingly indistinguishable -now too often mirror the corruption and injustices of the larger society. Thus it is not surprising that when even a Little League star and his parents lied about the child’s age, fans reacted with shock and outrage.

The lessons in the Almonte affair may be something more than the usual tale of cheaters caught and chastised. Sport may never be as pure as it purports to be. Impurity is likely to become deeper and more pervasive if we close our eyes to the broader social exploitation and inequality that too often provide the context for sports.

We may gain some perspective on Danny Almonte by watching Major League games. Many of baseball’s superstars were born in the Caribbean. Commentators regularly remind us that baseball is their ticket out of poverty. We are told that these players are more aggressive at the plate because “no one ever walked off the island.” Whether serious analysis would confirm that players from Caribbean nations draw fewer walks than those from other backgrounds, it is clear that hitting or throwing a baseball is the only ticket off the island for many.

Though the United States has quite properly welcomed with open arms refugees from the repressive Castro regime, it has been far more repressive toward those who flee right-wing Caribbean dictatorships. In addition, it has turned a blind eye toward the role of its own economic policies in the immiseration that drives emigration.

Not only do many immigrants face the continual threat of deportation, their economic opportunities here are severely limited. Unprincipled employers exploit them; their children often must attend inferior schools; and even minimal health care is often unobtainable.

When a New York Times editorial faulted Danny Almonte’s father for keeping him out of school and voiding “all the other opportunities children should be eligible to encounter as they grow up,” it showed a shocking naivete about the lives of many New York City immigrants. Baseball may provide an escape for very few, but it is easy to understand its lure in a climate that offers so few other opportunities.

Media pundits who dwell on Danny Almonte’s deceit about his age also miss another important aspect of the story. Almonte is not the first foreign-born player to lie about his age. Sporting careers are notoriously short and become even shorter when some baseball executives make preemptory decisions about a player’s prospects by looking at his age. If Roger Clemens could be prematurely shuffled out of Boston in “the twilight of his career,” lesser players have even more reasons for concern. Commentators joke that the Yankees don’t really know Cuban-born pitcher Orlando Hernandez’s age, but Hernandez surely would have ample reason and incentive to fudge a little. Certainly these lessons in evasion are not lost on many young foreign players and their families.

If Little League baseball plays itself out in a crucible of race and poverty, it is also not immune to the pressures, dreams, and anxieties of white middle class life. When Almonte’s deception was revealed, Little League Baseball president Stephen Keener pontificated that “adults have used Danny Almonte and his teammates in a most contemptible and despicable way.” Yet if Keener’s point was to suggest that importing adult priorities into the game is a highly unusual occurrence in Little League, he hasn’t been to many games. There are many devoted and hard-working coaches who put the welfare of the child first. Nonetheless, too many parent fans bring all of the worst aspects of adult culture into the game.

Stories abound about fights among parents at Little League games in New York and New Jersey suburban communities. Even in small coastal Maine towns, I have seen parents and coaches bait umpires, pressure coaches to play particular children, and manipulate all-star team selections.

Perhaps in any culture, the dreams of sporting glory die hard; and adults too easily hope to realize those dreams through their children. Yet when one adds the example and lure of televised sports, the growing pressures of middle-class life, and the vast injustices of race and poverty, the wonder is that any of the values of the game survive. Giving all our youth a chance to develop athletic skills, learn teamwork and practice sportsmanship is a valuable legacy of sports, but one that is ever more easily threatened and compromised.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers wishing to contact him may e-mail messages to jbuell@acadia.net.