The Little League game: How kids, coaches, and parents really play it

by Lewis Yablonsky

From As The Bad News Bears made perfectly dear, Little League is not benign, haphazard baseball; and as countless newspaper and magazine articles have made clear, those involved--especially the adults--are not all altruism and good cheer. In this informally researched report, Yablonsky and Brower write as if the realities of Little League are big news, a stance which allows them to characterize kids, coaches, and parents in all their sad particulars and to point out weaknesses in how the game is played. Macho coaches, out to win at any price, use humiliation as strategy yet sometimes favor the children of attractive divorcees; parents often scream from the stands--at their own children or at heartless coaches; and kids pick up prevailing attitudes from the adults around them, resenting unsupportive coaches or overinvolved parents and losing out on fun. Not surprisingly, the authors favor humanistic coaches who treat youngsters fairly and teach them skills--kindly coaches who lose every game don't appeal to children. The pros they have interviewed--mostly L.A. Dodgers--tend to Fifties pitcher Don Newcombe thinks kids should be taught how to lose, and current roster stars like Don Sutton and Steve Garvey also comment on the issues. All in all, this examination covers all bases routinely and makes accessible a familiar scene.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1979