Little League Scandal Has a Familiar Ringer

To paraphrase a recent national politician, I feel the pain of the Oceanside Little League team and its boosters.

First a disputed call by an umpire. Now a finding by the lords of Little League at Williamsport, Pa.--following a ruling by officials in the Dominican Republic--that the Bronx pitcher who chased the Oceansiders from World Series is 14, two years older than the rules permit.

A blown call is the breaks of the game. A ringer is another matter.

The year was 1959 and I was playing for the Broadway Market Indians deep in the suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area. Our fiercest rivals were the Marsh Manor Braves.

All spring and into summer the competition raged and finally the Braves emerged winners, largely due to their home run-hitting star. At season’s end, the league formed an all-star team in hopes of earning to trip to Williamsport.

It was not to be. A close loss in the first game with an all-star team from a league across town ended our hopes.

But the loss set into motion events that led to a shocker: The Braves’ star was 13, not 12. The rival league’s all-star manager had apparently discovered this fact and had been ready to demand our team forfeit in the event we had won the game.

My family felt particularly aggrieved by the deception. My father had been assigned to collect the birth certificates of the all-star players before the game, under rules set by Williamsport.

My father was not assertive and, as a man of principle, it never occurred to him that adults would cheat to give their child an advantage. He was easily bluffed by the star’s parents, who kept promising that his birth certificate would soon be arriving from the Midwestern city of his birth.

Some months after the season’s end, the Braves were stripped of the league championship in favor of the Indians, a gesture that provided but cold comfort.

Similar comfort may soon be bestowed on the Oceansiders, who will now be considered the third-place finisher in the U.S. finals. Still, officials and players here are not complaining about the Danny Almonte scandal. Others are taking a different tack.

“Little League baseball isn’t that complicated: You miss a base, you’re out. You’re over 12, you can’t play,” Oceanside-area radio talk-show host Ken Leighton said. “Is it too much for Little League to get those things right? Oceanside’s problem is that it played by the rules.”

If the players are bothered at all, they’re not showing it. They’re back at school, heady with local acclaim both for their athletic skills and sportsmanship. The team will be honored by the Padres, the Chargers, Legoland and Disneyland.

The Rev. Shawn Mitchell, pastor of New Venture Christian Fellowship in Oceanside and sideline pastor to the Chargers, said he is optimistic that the Oceanside players will not be disheartened by the notion of having been cheated.

“These kids are learning that life is like fish: It can taste great, but you have to expect some bones,” Mitchell said.

Maybe Mitchell, a former athlete, is right. Maybe Little Leaguers today are more mature. Then again maybe they have just inherited the cynicism of the modern age and accepted that fraud is an ever-present factor in civic life.

When I played for the Indians, there was an Army general in the White House and, James Dean and the Beat Generation poets notwithstanding, respect for adults as role models was still high.

All I know is that whenever I recall the summer of 1959 I sense what feels suspiciously like a fish bone in my throat.