MLB

The Time I Was Barred From My Little League All-Star Game: A Tale Of Woe

The 2010 MLB All-Star Game is tonight in Anaheim, and in order to celebrate (or mourn) it, I’d like to tell you about the time my entire little league team was barred from playing in our All-Star Game. What follows is a tale of grievance and corruption the likes of which will make your head spin.

Back in the glorious spring of 2000 I was on a very good baseball team that had been playing together for a while. We had gelled over the years, slowly building ourselves into a well-oiled machine (or a machine that could sometimes turn an ugly double play), and we had one more year of eligibility because of age restrictions. Very few of us would move on to play in a Babe Ruth league, so this was sort of our last hurrah when it came to competitive baseball. Heavy stuff.

Anyway, we made it all the way to the league semifinals, with our rivals (the Brewers, those assholes) waiting for us in the championship game. Games usually last 7 innings in little league, and in the bottom of the 6th we found ourselves down by two runs and up to bat. Surely, this would be our inning, as the part of our order studded with the kids who shaved was coming up. This was our destiny, what we had been waiting years for.

That’s when tragedy struck in the form of youth sports bureaucracy.

As we were getting up to bat the home-plate umpire, a stocky red-faced fellow, conferred with the score keeper or league assistant or something. They had a quick, hushed exchange, with the umpire checking his watch briefly. The ump nodded his head “yes,” walked towards home plate, waved his arms, and bellowed “Game’s over!”

What. The. Fuck.

In New York City, there are a limited number of baseball fields to play on, and tons of kids to accommodate. Because of this, games usually aren’t allowed to go on past a certain point and although the occurrence was rare, sometimes games were called early. Since we were losing daylight fast we needed to concede the field to the next two teams before our glorious comeback could be completed.

We begged. We cried. We threw shit (our parents, surprisingly, allowed us to do this). We bitched and moaned at the league official in every conceivable way. But his hands were tied, he said. The next two teams needed to play, and their parents, already antsy at the scene unfolding in front of them and unlikely to wait any longer for our game to finish, needed to be accommodated.

We were devastated. In world of unfair things that can happen to a thirteen year old kid, having your dreams of a little league dynasty shattered was right at the tippy top. We gathered under a tree near the field for one last team meeting, led by my dad, the coach.

He began by telling us how proud he was, how we fought back and there was no doubt in his mind that we would win our consolation game the next day (yes, like the World Cup, my little league had an extremely lame third place game). We were so frustrated, however, that we said there was no way we would play. If the league was going to screw us like this, their third place game could go fuck itself.

He, and the rest of our parents, agreed. Looking back on this, it’s the most surprising part of the story: that a group of pissed off middle schoolers were able to convince a group of level-headed 40-somethings that skipping their final little league game ever was a good idea.

The league official informed us that, if we were to do this, the four kids picked to play in our end-of-season All Star game (myself included) wouldn’t be allowed in. But we were steadfast in our bitterness. We refused to play the next game and were banned from our version of the midsummer classic.

Being the vain little kid that I was, not being able to play in this game was a tremendous blow. Still, I regret nothing, and at least now you have some insight into my vendetta against all-star exhibitions. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go play piano in my catacomb and mourn over a lost chance at destiny.

>>> UPDATE: My dad sent me an email after seeing this article. He explains his actions, and also points out that I forgot a key aspect of the story: that he had been ejected from the game.

The thing was (if you remember) I was thrown out of the game because we had that one player (whose name escapes me) who blew up on 2 occasions during the game.  Because we only had 9 players, rather than kick him out of the game and thus penalize all the players I was warned after his 1st outburst, that I would be tossed.  So I’m with the other parents watching the game.  It allowed me to not get caught up in the game but it also allowed me to see how you guys (including the coaches) were in to it.  When you guys decided not to play it is all the players and the assistant coaches that decide not to play.  When the opposing coach is telling me this is wrong, I’m telling him I know he’s right but I’m still sticking with it (because you guys were so united as a team…albeit, for the wrong reason).  The opposing coach wanted me to convince you guys to play the consolation game and I just wasn’t going to do it.

Wow, this game was such a clusterfuck that I forget my dad had gotten ejected. Anyway, the All-Star game is still evil. Enjoy!