KEPP THE LITTLE LEAGUES LITTLE!!!!

With my two ladies of the house out for a while early last night, I decided to get my ESPN "Sportscenter" fix and sit back and relax and get caught up and on the sports news of the day. When I tuned into ESPN, they were in the middle of another Little League baseball tournament game. I figured I'd watch a little of that. The more I watched, the more disturbed I got. Here I was watching 10, 11 and 12-year old children....CHILDREN!!......being analyzed with respect to their hitting with runners on base (or lack thereof); there repertoire of pitches and their hitting statistics for the year and the tournament. I'll repeat - I was watching 10, 11 and 12-year old CHILDREN play baseball. Two of the plays in the game were referred by announcers as "ESPN highlight reels" plays. These are kids, guys!!! Why must we make adults out of these kids so early in their short athletic careers (for most of them!)? Two of the pitchers were throwing fastballs, curves, sliders and spilt-fingered fastballs. Heck, at that age, my friends and I threw two pitches..fast and slow. No wonder pitchers arms are shot early in most careers!!! This didn't look like the GAME I remembered. Now there are national sponsors and every tournament game is televised. Can we not let these kids have some fun playing the GAME of baseball. Yes, competition is good but what business does ESPN have of televising every tournament game. I remember when the final game of the Little League World Series was televised and that was it. Now, it rivals ESPN's Major League Baseball coverage. And you know what I noticed most? None of these kids ever smiled. This DIDN'T look at all like fun to them. It's already a business to these kids. The game? The game is for the adults - even these! I doubt if there is anything we can do to stop it but, maybe, just maybe, if enough of us let our kids start being kids every once in a while, we can see associations like the Little League become "little" again.