There’s No Joy In Mudville

I know what you are thinking. Two blogs in a row on SPORTS?? From SPENCER HUGHES?? The anti-sports guy?

First of all, I am not anti-sports. I am just not terribly crazy about America’s fixation on them, primarily at the professional level.

But I never said that valuable lessons aren’t learned every day in the world of sports.

Like this lesson: If you are too good at what you do, that might be a problem!

HUH??

How can being too good at what you do be a problem?

This is the inspiring yet sad story of Jericho Scott, a 9-year-old Youth Baseball League player in New Haven, Connecticut.

It turns out that the youthful pitcher is SO good at throwing the ball that the League told him he couldn’t play anymore.

You see, other players were too intimidated to face him. He has even had teams forfeit the game altogether.

Can you IMAGINE this?? It’s the latest chapter in the dumbing down of America. It reminds me of the late Kurt Vonnegut’s short story classic HARRISON BURGERON. The future presented in that brilliant work includes an America where beautiful people have to wear hideous masks so that ugly people won’t feel bad and the strong have to wear huge weights around their bodies so that the slow and out of shape don’t have their self esteem hurt.

Instead of training these children to SWING better against an exemplary player, they are getting rid of the exemplary player. Instead of raising everybody up, the League is bringing everyone down.

Imagine what will happen when this coddled generation of children becomes the leadership of this nation.

Actually at the start of a long holiday weekend, maybe we shouldn’t. Let’s eat our hot dogs, go to the beach one last time, and teach our kids it’s better to be mediocre than extraordinary.