Sports on the Air
Little League coverage is to be praised
By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 22, 2003
If it's time for the Little League World Series, then it's also time for the annual bashing of ABC and ESPN for saturating their channels with 11- and 12-year-olds playing a game.
But not here.
At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, ABC will televise the U.S. championship, and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. the World Championship, despite increasing groans from critics who swear that coverage is exploitative.
Too much pressure, they write. A loss of innocence, they moan. And as one headline bellowed, child abuse.
It's hard to see any of that in what ESPN has presented so far, and I've been looking. Have you seen that tough, humiliating interview? The constant replays of errors? The 30-second shot of the kid who just blew the game? Criticism levied by the announcing teams?
No, me neither. And that won't change this weekend. Announcers are careful in describing bad plays, and go overboard when discussing the good ones. Replays of the good plays are plentiful. Each broadcast has been peppered with solid, instructional analysis.
In a word, coverage is soft, as it should be for such an event.
ESPN has had opportunities to swoop in on crying little boys, and hasn't. There is the occasional glimpse of the sadness, but far from the intruding and demeaning spotlight some critics and child psychologists say television coverage casts.
California-based psychiatrist Vincent Fortanasce told the Miami Herald the Series was more for the adults, and "in the reality of life, if you don't succeed or win, you lose or you're out and you're a failure. That's an adult concept and is what the World Series, unfortunately, epitomizes.
"What you want baseball to do is teach children to try."
For those like Fortanasce, winning and losing is a bad thing. They would prefer, I'd guess, having the games taped and then aired only after every error, every out, every pitch not thrown for a strike - and of course the score - is expunged.
Just another case of misplaced angst. Those so concerned about protecting the kids from television should direct that energy toward Little League's other problems, and there are many: Rampant cheating (Danny Almonte), petty bickering, abusive parents, win-at-all-costs coaches.
SUPER TUESDAY: ESPN will debut its first-ever scripted dramatic series, Playmakers, at 9 p.m. Tuesday, and will do so without commercials.
"This show is unprecedented for ESPN, so we wanted to launch it in a unprecedented fashion," ESPN executive vice president Mark Shapiro said.
As far as football series go, Playmakers has potential. Think First and 10, HBO's attempt at football frivolity in the mid '80s with O.J. Simpson's California Bulls, but with a serious, more socially-conscious bent.
Playmakers is likely to garner good ratings, but will it be because of the quality of the series ... or the lead-in power of the 8 p.m. finale of the 2003 World Series of Poker?
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Sports on the AirLittle League coverage is to be praised
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