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Boy meets World (Series)

A cynic's takes on Little League

Danny Marzo celebrates with teammates after hitting a walk off home run at the Little League World Series. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)
Danny Marzo celebrates with teammates after hitting a walk off home run at the Little League World Series. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)Read more

To somebody from Philly, all the green on the drive to Williamsport can be pretty overwhelming. Even after driving on Interstate 80 for an hour, the landscape traversed by Route 15 is still striking, so much so that anything man-made feels strangely out of place.As you make your way into South Williamsport, Bald Eagle Mountain rises to the west; the Susquehanna River flows through the valley to the east. No, it's not the Rockies, but it's still pretty cool.

It was at this point of the drive that I felt compelled to do something I don't normally do: put the windows down and turn the iPod off, just to take everything in.

Like many good things, the feeling was fleeting, as two simultaneous developments quickly brought me right back to reality. First, traffic abruptly came to a halt; a line of cars stretched down the hill for what appeared to be more than a mile.

Second, above it all, a massive dark-blue blob appeared in the sky from above the tree line: The DIRECTV blimp.

Oh, boy, I thought. Here we go.

I had come to central Pennsylvania to see the Little League World Series, an annual rite of summer that is often portrayed as the epitome of everything good and pure and noble about sports.

We'll just see about that, I thought.

It was easy to understand why kids want to go to the Little League World Series. Like millions, I had dreamed of playing in Williamsport and hitting a walkoff homer in a big game. As one of the only chances to play on national television until you reach the big leagues (which, of course, you consider a certainty as a kid), the tournament is plenty enticing.

But my attitude toward the tournament had changed in recent years. As I got older - and the tournament became fodder for more and more coverage - the whole thing seemed a tad disingenuous. It became too difficult to reconcile the notions of the LLWS being both a world-championship and a party where both teams dance with the mascot.

There was also this: At its core, the event is a youth baseball tournament played on small fields in a small Pennsylvania town. On the other hand, there is massive exposure by a major media company, exposure that leads to substantial pressure on the participants. To me, a quaint slice of Americana and around-the-clock-coverage on ESPN made for a weird marriage.

That marriage led to the other reason my attitude changed: Coaches and parents turning the game into something bigger than it is. At the highest level of Little League, the competition, and the attendant scrutiny, can bring out the worst in adults, and the prospect of a 12-year-old kid booting an important grounder in the championship game seemed more significant than the joy from the kid who laces the winning hit.

Still, even after viewing the tournament on TV many times, I figured I couldn't pass judgment about it until I saw the thing for myself.

When I first approached the LLWS complex, I started to see signs that advertised parking. All kinds of places, commercial and residential alike, offering spots for the uniform price of $5. Considering the proximity of these places to Howard J. Lamade Stadium - the older and larger of the two stadiums used during the 10-day competition - the offer was tempting. And yet, in the spirit of getting the most authentic experience, I opted against settling on Route 15 and decided to try the stadium parking. If they charged me $10, at least my cynicism would be validated.

Entering the Little League complex involves making your way through a residential neighborhood, reminiscent of the ones you would find next to any township's baseball field. South Williamsport's complex may be the Holy Grail of Little League Baseball, but everything around it is perfectly normal.

Which brings me back to the parking. Parking at sporting events is usually a subject classified by communal misery, a bond shared among frustrated people who wait for long periods of time to pay for the ability to park their vehicles. But that wasn't my experience in Williamsport. To my surprise, parking was free.

The day I arrived in South Williamsport (where the stadiums are located; the Little League Baseball offices are located in Williamsport proper) the sky was overcast, and 90 minutes of steady rain came down during the day's second game between Texas and New Jersey.

It was at this point that I learned the first rule of Williamsport. The first rule of Williamsport, it turns out, is not that you don't talk about Williamsport. It's that you should be prepared with two objects, one to sit on - and another to cover yourself.

Predictably, I had neither, although I managed to turn a small piece of cardboard into a pseudo-Elmer Fudd cap, complete with cardboard ear-flaps. Shockingly, the makeshift hat wasn't very effective. Lesson learned.

Before Mother Nature did a number on me, Canada and Mexico played in the day's opening game. The number of people at the complex watching the games was surprising. I remembered watching international games like this one on television and subconsciously thinking that there was nobody in the bleachers. As I stood just inside the left field foul pole at Volunteer Stadium, though, I realized I remembered incorrectly.

While it might not have been as much as the announced crowd of 7,000 (when I heard that number, I immediately wondered if the Phillies were behind it, since there was no way 7,000 people were watching the game), there was still a healthy crowd on hand.

As expected for an international contest, most of the spectators were neutral. The small Canadian contingent reveled in their team's seven-run first inning, just as their Mexican counterparts did with a seven-run second of their own, chanting "Si se puede" after every run during their comeback. But besides those fans, nobody had any real rooting interest.

Even so, it was clear that the whole stadium was invested in the game, and that's when I hit upon the second rule of Williamsport: The fans here just want to watch baseball.

Scott Rolen once called St. Louis "baseball heaven" for the city's reputation of appreciating the game being played "the right way." Even though the term "the right way" is mostly a pretentious way of saying "hustle" and "fundamentals," the LLWS crowd tends to appreciate and reward such play more than any fans I've ever seen.

The fans' passion for the game's simpler aspects is noticeable from the moment you step into the complex, but it becomes increasingly more obvious after watching a couple of games. Indeed, I soon realized that the longtime fans don't want to see the great play; they want to see the right play.

It's been said that chicks dig the longball, but at the LLWS,they'd just as readily watch a shortstop look the runner back to third base before firing over to first for the out. It might not be very sexy, but defense in Williamsport sells. Or at least it brings people to the games.

Tom Wertman probably knows this better than anyone. The resident of nearby Muncy has been coming to the World Series for the last 13 years. "When you come up here and watch a bunch of games, it's always good to see baseball the way it's supposed to be played," Wertman said.

And at the games, baseball really does take precedence. ESPN is much less of a presence at the actual games than I expected. Cameras are stationed in right, left and centerfield, while another roams the stands; they are far from a major distraction.

To its credit, the network doesn't inject itself into the game experience either. Players are announced before an at-bat and their picture simply flashes on the screen. When you're there, you are blissfully unaware that Jordan Cardenas' nickname is "Hollywood" or that his favorite television show is "Two and a Half Men." All you know is that he led off the game by crushing an offspeed pitch on the outer part of the plate over the right field wall.

When asked what keeps him coming back, Wertman answers matter-of-factly. "It's funny, I can't stand baseball . . . this is the only baseball I can stand to watch. These kids know what the game is about. They play because they love the game."

The narrative is old and easy to write. Everyone has heard about the small town embracing its everyday hardworking values in sports. The difference is that in Williamsport, people come from all over and adopt the mindset. And even though I much prefer to watch professional baseball, embracing the Ryan Howard 400-foot moonshots and despising sacrifice bunts, it's pretty hard not to be impressed by the collective appreciation of such values. The fans' sincerity wins you over.

I should say here that I'm definitely not the target audience for the Little League World Series. The music played in between innings tells the whole story. With songs ranging from Glenn Frey's "The Heat Is On" to "The Cha Cha Slide," the event skews both old and younger. This is by design; the tournament caters to families with young kids.

Mary Wright is the type of person the Little League World Series attracts. Clad in a red shirt touting the Phillies' recent run of division championships, the converted baseball fanatic from Northeast Philadelphia has brought her grandson to South Williamsport the last two years along with her friends and their children.

"It's great for families," Wright said, holding a seat for her grandson before a game. "The kids love it. They're collecting all the pins, hats and signatures from the players."

Wright listed a few of the many activities that keep kids interested beyond the baseball, but she left out the one that literally stands above them all.

That hill.

For the uninitiated: The hill is the second rise that looms above the outfield at Lamade Stadium. During big games, it can hold upwards of 35,000 spectators. But during most other times, it serves a different purpose: entertainment, as kids on scraps of cardboard slide down it with reckless abandon.

The key to the whole thing, as Havertown resident Bruce McKeon would explain to me, is the cardboard. "We brought our own," he said as he sat on top of the hill with his two sons on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

"We came here the first time and it was like a bunch of scavengers, so I left work the other day and said, 'There's a box there,' and grabbed it."

I had seen it on television before, but watching the hill up close is a different experience altogether.

In fact, it's become such a part of the LLWS experience that sometimes focusing on the game can be difficult when you have the option of checking out what's happening on the hill. At least once every 30 seconds, a kid walking back up the hill is barreled into by another rider making their way down, often producing a spectacular collision.

"The hill cracks me up," said McKeon, who was sporting a Harry Kalas T-shirt. "When I first got here I was like, 'Really?' But the kids love it."

The hill tends to breed all sorts of creativity. Cardboard provides prospective riders the flexibility to create their preferred mode of transport. Some stand and surf down, others fashioned two separate skis. One group I saw took a huge piece and used it like a raft.

I decided to give it a shot. After a harder-than-expected journey to the top, there I was, looking down, with all of humanity seemingly beneath me. With a sad little piece of cardboard, I sat and tried to propel myself forward. After only a few feet, the cardboard slid out from underneath my bottom. I had gone exactly nowhere.

I soon found another, bigger piece of cardboard, one that had been abandoned on the middle of the slope. Maybe it was more about the horse than the jockey, I figured, and I soon found myself flying down the hill, recapturing my childhood, if only for a few brief seconds. Then, just as I was confident I had conquered the hill, the cardboard went out from under me once again.

For the duration of the Little League World Series, South Williamsport serves as a mini-United Nations, with the diplomats wearing gloves and swinging bats. Walking around the complex, you witness scenes like the Japanese team accepting high-fives from pretty much every person they encounter. You see teenage girls asking for a photo with Panamanian players.

This kumbaya ethos leads to a high demand for the apparel worn by the international teams. If red is the dominant theme of Phillies games, South Williamsport is a smattering of different colors, a moving Jackson Pollock painting.

And yet, there clearly was a favorite. Around the complex, one shirt was the most popular - by a good margin. It was red, and it said "Lugazi, Uganda" on the back.

Before the tournament, Joseph Kony was pretty much the only thing I knew about Uganda, and the last thing I would have expected was that a Little League team from the very same country would be taking the field in Williamsport. Considering the role children have played in that country's ongoing civil war, the magnitude of the Ugandans even making it to South Williamsport can't be understated.

This wasn't lost on the crowd. About five minutes before the first pitch of Saturday's Mexico-Uganda matchup, a man walked down the left field bleachers followed by two boys. He held a white sign high above his head: "Watching Uganda Make History . . . Priceless." The man chanted "U-gan-da, U-gan-da," and most of the crowd, not in need of much urging, happily joined in.

The guy with the sign, Jason Welch, might be Uganda's biggest fan. "We're about a four-hour drive [away], and Uganda is the one thing that brought us here," Welch said. "It's an unbelievable story. They didn't have cleats when they were playing [in Africa]."

Of course, Welch wasn't the only one amazed by the story. A team composed of mostly 11-year-olds (a year younger than the age limit) from an African nation was playing at the Little League World Series. Even more impressive, their spot wasn't given to them. The Ugandans earned the right to play here just like any other team, by winning their region.

The team's story made them the overwhelming crowd favorites throughout the tournament, and thinking about the culture shock the Ugandan kids must have been going through was tough to imagine.

For all of the time the players had been in baseball, they played in front of no crowds, on mangled fields, with barely any equipment. Now they were playing with brand-new gear on the nicest Little League field in the world. And everyone was cheering them on.

"I can't even put into words how much I've been drawn [by the support]," Welch said. "It's amazing." Welch even scheduled a game between the Ugandans and his son's West Windsor Little League team on their home field in New Jersey.

Worlds were colliding in Williamsport, but in the most positive way possible. When a strong Mexican team had an easy time defeating the Ugandans, the Mexicans nevertheless showed a level of respect that was inspiring. After the teams shook hands (at the Mexicans' urging), the two teams took a picture. Then, as Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" blared over the speakers, the two teams did something remarkable in the world of overscheduled youth sports: they just hung out together. It turned out that the team eliminated after its first two games was the tournament's biggest story.

It was about that time that I realized that the Little League World Series had turned me into a believer. The kids were impressive, the parents and coaching supportive (and sane), the spectators charming. ESPN's influence hadn't been overwhelming. Hell, even the food was good.

I might not be tuning into the Mid-Atlantic regional final on ESPN2 next year, but I do hope to return one day with my as-yet fictional children, no doubt waiting for the speakers to blast Kanye West between innings to soothe me and my fellow parents, even as our kids complain about our taste in music.