It’s a weird time of year. If you like watching sports, there’s a bit of a lull on the pro and college side, so there’s not much on TV to kill a few hours over the weekend and take a snooze.
The last major tournament for golf (PGA) is over. Football season hasn’t kicked in.
Though I’m not a junkie on really any of these, I do like to relax with the tube on and veg out. So I’ve found myself rediscovering a love of baseball by watching the Little League World Series.
Every couple of years, I find myself surfing in mid- to late-August through the ESPN channels and up pops the little guys from all over the world playing in Williamsport, PA for the international championship of 9-12-year-old kids. Many participants are tiny. Some are tall. Once in awhile you see a mustache. Occasionally someone is HUGE and MUSCLED.
You get a mix of sizes, shapes, colors and nationalities. For the most part, the players are talented, well-coached and well-mannered. The fans cheer, the parents and coaches supportive. The setting is idyllic. It makes you want to be there. It’s now on my bucket list.
What drove me to add it? Something struck me this year, something I haven’t thought of in the past.
This year, the camera went deeper into the teams (perhaps this is true every year, but that I just haven’t seen those segments), how they interact with each other and get to share things from their countries. What a joy to see this purity of exchanges in our frequently bitter and media-saturated world. These kids care about participating, excited to meet the players from other countries, and if you watch the on-field action closely, they reach out to other teams in a pure and unbounded joyous way.
What more can you ask of a sporting event? Play your best. Have some fun. Get to know people from another town, state, country. Respect your opponent. If you lose, know you lost giving it your best and you walked away richer for having had the experience.
One of the segments showed two teams playing ping pong between games. How innocuous. You wouldn’t think something so simple would hit the viewer with a deeper point.
I watched that ping pong exchange between kids from two teams (the teams don’t matter) and their interaction with each other – laughing, giggling, goofing around, trying different shots. I couldn’t help but be struck with how this event can teach everyone so much about how to get along with others who we’ve never met before, and how something as simple as a ping pong game enriches a life.
No, it’s not always that simple. Still, the Little League World Series experience for these kids and their families helps each of them fashion a better understanding of the world in a positive way. Get to know others and seek understating. Do that, and we’ll all enjoy the life game more.
Sports can be such an enormously positive part of a girl’s or boy’s development. We seem to forget too frequently what it should be all about – those moments the kids should WANT to remember when they are older because it was so much fun being in the moment. The Little League World Series helps that happen.
The last major tournament for golf (PGA) is over. Football season hasn’t kicked in.
Though I’m not a junkie on really any of these, I do like to relax with the tube on and veg out. So I’ve found myself rediscovering a love of baseball by watching the Little League World Series.
Every couple of years, I find myself surfing in mid- to late-August through the ESPN channels and up pops the little guys from all over the world playing in Williamsport, PA for the international championship of 9-12-year-old kids. Many participants are tiny. Some are tall. Once in awhile you see a mustache. Occasionally someone is HUGE and MUSCLED.
You get a mix of sizes, shapes, colors and nationalities. For the most part, the players are talented, well-coached and well-mannered. The fans cheer, the parents and coaches supportive. The setting is idyllic. It makes you want to be there. It’s now on my bucket list.
What drove me to add it? Something struck me this year, something I haven’t thought of in the past.
This year, the camera went deeper into the teams (perhaps this is true every year, but that I just haven’t seen those segments), how they interact with each other and get to share things from their countries. What a joy to see this purity of exchanges in our frequently bitter and media-saturated world. These kids care about participating, excited to meet the players from other countries, and if you watch the on-field action closely, they reach out to other teams in a pure and unbounded joyous way.
What more can you ask of a sporting event? Play your best. Have some fun. Get to know people from another town, state, country. Respect your opponent. If you lose, know you lost giving it your best and you walked away richer for having had the experience.
One of the segments showed two teams playing ping pong between games. How innocuous. You wouldn’t think something so simple would hit the viewer with a deeper point.
I watched that ping pong exchange between kids from two teams (the teams don’t matter) and their interaction with each other – laughing, giggling, goofing around, trying different shots. I couldn’t help but be struck with how this event can teach everyone so much about how to get along with others who we’ve never met before, and how something as simple as a ping pong game enriches a life.
No, it’s not always that simple. Still, the Little League World Series experience for these kids and their families helps each of them fashion a better understanding of the world in a positive way. Get to know others and seek understating. Do that, and we’ll all enjoy the life game more.
Sports can be such an enormously positive part of a girl’s or boy’s development. We seem to forget too frequently what it should be all about – those moments the kids should WANT to remember when they are older because it was so much fun being in the moment. The Little League World Series helps that happen.