BASEBALL is supposed to be America's game, the quintessential summer pastime. But, like so many other supposedly simple pleasures, baseball has become increasingly complicated. Now, not even Little League is free of money, politics, scandal and excessive media coverage.
This summer's Little League World Series, like all those in recent memory, has been accompanied by out of proportion media coverage. The games have become a novelty of sorts, with championship games broadcast live and highlights on SportsCenter. At first glance, this is fine. After all, SportsCenter has become as much an American institution as baseball, and what 12-year-old wouldn't love to see his face on television?
The public must ask, however, at what point is the coverage too intense? When is there too much pressure on managers, teams and adolescents to win at all costs? That question was answered this week: There is already too much pressure, and only a huge effort to scale back such coverage can counter the current trend.
Danny Almonte, the star pitcher for New York's Bronx Baby Bombers and the first kid to pitch a perfect Little League World Series game since 1957, is being investigated for fraud. His crime? He may be 14 years old, not the reported 12, and too old to play Little League ball.
Almonte is a recent immigrant who came to America with his father and whose mother remains in the Dominican Republic. He speaks hardly a word of English; his SportsCenter interviews were conducted through a translator. Earlier this season, rival coaches in New York and New Jersey hired private investigators to look into the adolescent's background, and those of his teammates, and confirm his age.
All the money and time put into investigating Almonte and his teammates is excessive. Unfortunately, those making that investment may now have something to show for their efforts. Little League officials have found conflicting birth certificates. One in the home of Almonte's mother lists his birth year as 1989, making him 12. A second birth certificate, held in a records office in Moca, Dominican Republic, says that Almonte was born in 1987, making him 14 and too old for Little League.
If the League decides that Almonte is, in fact, too old, his team probably will have to forfeit its last game and its third place finish in the World Series. This is sad enough, but the real tragedy is what Almonte will have been put through, regardless of the ultimate outcome.
The simple fact that this scheming and cheating is plausible in baseball's all-American venue is disturbing. The amount of time, money and dishonesty invested in turning a group of 12-year-olds into a winning team is excessive at best.
For an organization whose own Web site claims, "the Little League Baseball program is designed to develop superior citizens rather than superior athletes,"(http://www. littleleague.org/about/mission.htm) members of the league certainly have gone to great, and possibly illegal, lengths to garner "superior athletes."
It is not, however, the fault of Little League alone that their program has become so focused on winning. America has always been focused on winning, on being the strongest, fastest and best. American culture is structured to be inherently competitive. The problem occurs when this competitive attitude defeats moral and ethical sense.
The major contributor to corruption like that alleged in Almonte's case is the media coverage that saturates every area of American life. There is no legitimate reason why a 12-year-old's pitching should be covered with the fervor that surrounded Almonte even before rumors of his falsified age were widely circulated. With television comes the promise of fame and often fortune. These can become too tempting to resist. Only the media is in the position to slow down what it has started.
It is a testament to the promise and opportunities America offers that Almonte's family was so eager for him to play baseball in the United States. It is also an indictment against the country, with its excessive media coverage and win at any cost attitude, that his family may have lied and cheated to get him in the game.
(Megan Moyer's column normally appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mmoyer@cavalierdaily.com.)
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