While Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony led fans in a chant of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” after Sunday’s gold medal game in Beijing, a far more unlikely group of heroes were treated to the same cheer half a world away. After flirting with elimination a day earlier in the semifinals of this year’s Little League World Series, the team of seventh-graders from Waipahu, Hawaii emerged triumphant in the title game, beating the opposing squad from Matamoros, Mexico, 12-3. Hours after China sent off the world’s athletes with an ambitious closing ceremony, the fans in Williamsport, Pennyslvania—most of them face-painted parents or sunburned little sisters—departed as well. There were no fireworks or lip-synching nine-year-olds, only tired dads loading poster-boards bearing messages of good luck and empty coolers into their RVs.
Beyond its simplicity, though, the Little League World Series is a sporting event as important as any. It has garnered national attention of late, with a lucrative ESPN coverage deal and its very own scandal (that of phenom pitcher Danny Almonte, whose real age—14, two years too old for the LLWS—was discovered a month after he pitched a pair of perfect games in 2001). The level of play is certainly no Yankees-Red Sox match-up, and the field size is Lilliputian in comparison to a major league diamond, but what these kids have that the big leaguers often don’t is heart. In fact, it’s the only reason they play.
There are no paychecks, no endorsement deals, no supermodel girlfriends. Few of these kids, if any, will ever sit in a Major League dugout. Which means, quite simply, that they are playing for pride and for love of the game. Every single batter I watched this weekend stepped up to the plate with a fire in his eyes, tracking each pitch as if it were the last. When Waipahu entered the sixth (and last) inning of Saturday’s semifinal game against Lake Charles, Louisiana, trailing 5-1, every player on the team hung over the railing of the dugout with his eyes on home plate, willing his teammates to victory. They screamed and cheered when Tanner Tokunaga, their savior throughout the tournament, slapped a go-ahead double to the warning track, and again after Trevor Ling retired three straight batters to seal an incredible comeback win. The tears on one side of the field were just as real as the cheek-to-cheek grins on the other.
It was a display of emotion that sports fans rarely get to witness anymore, and it should be appreciated as much, if not more than, everything else that happened in the sports world this month. The Little League World Series is one of the last bastions of pure, for-the-love-of-the-game athletic competition. There are no steroids, no Hollywood-worthy feuds with teammates, and the players generally behave with the highest level of sportsmanship. In an age when we have come to expect the worst from our athletes, the integrity with which these young men play the game is something to admire.
