Little League Is Awesome, Despite The Hype

As I write this, Chula Vista, Calif., is about to play San Antonio in a preliminary round of undefeated teams in the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Penn. The Chula Vista all-star team is the equivalent of the 1927 Yankees. They slugged 46 home runs in their last eight games and shutout their first two World Series opponents 29-0.

Sally Jenkins, the renowned sports columnist for The Washington Post, is not impressed. While she admires the talent of the Park View team from Southern California, she abhors the national spotlight on the youngsters in a system she says "has badly confused teaching kids to be good ballplayers with teaching them to be good people."

Jenkins offers two flaws, one at the players; the other at Little League rules. The kids copy cat their Major League heroes by spitting, scratching and grandstanding. She blames ESPN and ABC which televise the series as the main enablers.

The league's 85-pitch rule is too high, citing orthopedic surgeon James Andrews' description of an "epidemic" of arm and shoulder injuries to young ballplayers. "Andrews has been keeping tabs: in 2001 and 2002 he performed a total of just 13 shoulder operations on teenagers. Over the next six years, he did 241," Jenkins writes.

Let me offer a counterpoint.

I played youth baseball and the great thrill, the great goal was following in the footsteps of my heroes of which I read in the newspaper from stories and box scores and the few limited newsreels in the movie theaters. Much of the glory was verbal, passed on to us kids from radio voices such as Bob Kelly announcing Los Angeles Angels games in the old Pacific Coast League and I am certain from Red Barber announcing Dodger games in Brooklyn. If I spit too often, I had to.

I was smitten by the gods of baseball. The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's magazines carried full-page ads of Whitey Ford proclaiming he would walk a mile for a Camel cigarette. So, I began smoking cigarettes at age 13 even though it didn't improve my curve ball.

There were no 85-pitch rules in my day. Coaches instructed how to throw a curve ball. One former minor league pitcher coaching part-time at my high school tried to teach me how to throw both a knuckle ball and a split-fingered fast ball. My fingers and hands were too small, so we nixed that idea. But, I threw hard and often, never once feeling pain in my right arm or elbow. That injury occurred between my senior year in high school and college when I dislocated my right shoulder spiking a beach volleyball. It ended my baseball career.

Although not as critical as it is in playing football, baseball is a team sport and you learn quickly to back up your teammates on any given play. Baseball teaches you a little about life, anticipating what you will do if the ball comes to you depending on the number of base runners, how many outs and what inning and score it is.

Little League requires every player to be in the game for at least one inning and it instills a sense of sportsmanship win or lose. Crying is okay. That's the essence of the game and what happens to the players after they grow into maturity is not the flaws as Jenkins sees them by blaming Little League as an organization.

Every year at Little League World Series time I am incredibly impressed by the athletic skills of these 11, 12 and 13-year-olds from around the world. How they handle the immense emotional pressure to excel is just short of amazing.

If that was me on the mound or playing right field, I probably would pee in my pants.

Two Rival States Duke It Out

At least one California legislator has retaliated with a popgun attack against Nevada's million dollar ad campaign to lure Golden State businesses to the Silver State.

What started as a tongue-in-cheek snarky campaign by Nevada which has inundated the major California markets via cable television advertising the past two weeks is now being greeted by Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana) who told The Los Angeles Times:

"It's one thing to compare states in a factual way, but when you're doing nasty ads veiled in humor which dehumanize Californians, that's over the top."

The Nevada spots compare California legislators to monkeys, portraying two apples in which one representing California turns rotten because of its high taxes, and a pretty blonde lady who extols the virtues of California but by the ad's ending, she turns into a pig wearing lipstick.

Taking undisclosed funds from his campaign committee treasury, Solorio launched his own multi-media blitz proclaiming "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens in California makes the world go 'round."

The spots will show up on newspaper websites, Google ad sites, Facebook and e-mails, as well as on cable channels in Los Angeles, Orange County, Sacramento, Las Vegas and Reno, Solorio said.

Said A. Somer Hollingsworth, chief executive of the Nevada Development Authority: "I understand what they're going through, and I expected something like this. I'm not offended -- it's a good response."

Both states are suffering severe economic setbacks because of the recession. Gambling revenues in Nevada are down dramatically which pay for public services in a state with no personal income tax.

Touting California's massive consumer base, sunny weather and progressive entrepreneurial culture, Solorio said California's budget and tax problems and strict regulations should not be deal breakers for businesses.

Rivalry between California and its neighboring states is nothing novel. Years ago, Oregon posted signs on its highways near the California border welcoming visitors but asking them please don't move in.

School Bus Cuts Face Safety Concerns

I live across the street from Chaparral High School in Temecula, Calif., and every school morning and afternoon dozens of yellow school buses roll in and out of the campus's sprawling parking lot. Temecula is a semi-rural area 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles and its boundaries extend miles in all directions.

As most school districts, Temecula offers bus transportation to students living outside a determined radius, usually 1.5 miles, and by law for all handicapped and special education pupils. It was during last year's peak price of gasoline and diesel averaging more than $4 per gallon that I began wondering how in tarnation can these districts afford what I considered a luxury.

Well, gasoline prices dropped but the nation was discovering it was in a recession resulting in a revolting loss of tax revenues, a large portion of which goes to finance school districts, and, by extension, school bus transportation.

I am a product of rural America, raised on a farm two and one-half miles from San Juan Capistrano in southern Orange County, Calif., and yes, the yellow school bus picked up and returned us farm boys from elementary and high school. If we missed the bus, we walked. Our fathers told us the same blarney we've all heard: "When I was your age, we walked five miles in snow to school back in Illinois."

So, it comes as no big surprise that school bus transportation is getting the ax in almost every state in our nation. In California, school transportation funding was reduced by 20% in the last budget signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some districts are adjusting led by the Elk Grove district in Sacramento County in which parents, school, administrators and local transportation officials adopted a program that dropped 3,800 students from busing while improving safe walking and bicycling hazards on designated school routes. The district saved $3 million from its $10 million transportation budget.

Cutting school bus transportation may seem easy but it isn't. There's a safety factor, especially for elementary and middle school children, to consider. It poses a hardship on working parents who must find ways to deliver their kids to school on schedule.

Although I think his argument is bogus, Richard Odegaard, Elk Grove's associate superintendent, said school officials are concerned about cutting too much. They fear deeper reductions could mean fewer children attending school, translating into less money schools receive for average daily attendance, or ADA. "If we were to cut home-to-school transportation and we lost three-quarters of a percent of ADA, we would lose the value of cutting transportation," Odegaard said.

The safety issue cannot be underestimated because each year hundreds of students are killed walking or bicycling to and from school. Reports the Bikes Belong Coalition:

Cutting bus routes without a simultaneous and planned effort to address student safety concerns will likely lead to greater traffic congestion, poorer air quality, and higher parent transportation costs due to an increase in parents driving children to school. It is essential that school districts collaborate with parents and city officials to make it safer for children to walk and bicycle, particularly when cuts to school bus services are being proposed.

Here are some of the efforts taken by states reported on the Bikes Belong Coalition website:

• The state of Florida provides funding to local school districts to help underwrite the cost of busing children who live close to school but cannot walk or bicycle due to unsafe conditions. State law links the availability of this funding to a plan to fix the hazard. School boards that request hazard bus funding must work with the appropriate state or local governmental agencies to correct the hazard within a reasonable time.

• The state of Illinois reimburses schools for hazard busing when children live less than 1.5 miles to school, but the route is determined to be unsafe for children walking and bicycling. Costs for hazard busing have increased 67% in seven years, and the number of students enrolled in hazard busing is increasing 1.2% per year even while student enrollment is dropping. Illinois House Bill 3202, the Hazardous Busing Mitigation Act, would allow school districts to use a portion of their hazard busing reimbursement from the state to repair the hazards, allowing children to walk and bicycle and allowing the school to reduce busing costs.

• Washington state legislation requires that each elementary school develop suggested route plans identifying the safest routes for children walking and bicycling. The state provides a guidebook to help school administrators develop the school walk routes and work with public works officials to remedy deficiencies.

About 23 percent of school districts surveyed by the American Association of School Administrators say they are reducing or eliminating school transportation for the coming school year as part of cost-cutting measures. That's up from the 14 percent who considered such measures during the 2008-2009 year.

It's More Than $2 Jack, And That's A Fact

If you thought seniors fighting phantom cuts in their Medicare benefits at those town hall meetings were angry, wait until the first of the year when it dawns on all of them they're getting no cost of living increase for the next two years. In fact, six million of Social Security's 50 million recipients will suffer a pay cut and all will pay more for drugs.

I say "phantom" cuts because all of the health reform proposals in Congress are no where near being enacted into law. In stead, it has been a propaganda war between special interests in the health industry and opposing political parties in which the dominant argument is stupidly focused on creation of government "death squads" to euthanize the elderly. Fostering fear is the Obama administration's proposal to cut billions of dollars in Medicare costs as "savings" without spelling out where these cuts will occur. Some seniors translate that as cuts in their benefits.

January 1, 2010, will be the first time since 1975 Social Security beneficiaries will not receive a cost of living (COLA) adjustment. By law, the government cannot decrease benefits. In the past, COLA increases oftentimes were offset by increases in Medicare Part B medical premiums deducted from Social Security checks. The result was seniors annually falling behind because of the spiraling rise in medical bills outdistancing less inflationary sectors of the economy.

However, the law does not prevent the increase in premiums for Medicare Part D drug subsidies.

There are about six million seniors whose Medicare Part D drug subsidy program is also deducted from their Social Security checks. It is these who would face an average increase of $2 per month from their current $28/mo drug premiums although the amount varies by plan and the private insurance carrier administering the program for the federal government.

On the surface, this doesn't appear to be a big deal. But it is to both seniors and the nation's taxpayers.

Estimates vary but the consensus is about 25% of the 50 million seniors live in retirement with fixed income totally reliant upon their Social Security checks which average nationally at about $1,150/mo. The remaining 75% have seen their retirement and pension plans reduced by at least half because of the recession. Unless you live in your own mortgage-free home, there's not much playing around money for any of them.

For the government, increasing Medicare premiums excluding Part D without a compensating COLA is forbidden by law. That means the government would absorb billions of more dollars annually adding to the trillion dollar deficit to make up the difference in which the premium increase would have covered.

I can only address the situation from the perspective of a single person living solely on Social Security and meeting eligibility standards for Medi-Caid and rental assistance through the Housing and Urban Development agency.

Medi-Cal is broke and no longer pays my $96/mo Medicare premium. The government subsidizes Health Net to pick up all medical expenses. I pay a nominal $3.10 for each 30-day drug prescription. Every year Health Net changes the rules of what it will and will not cover. I'm a slave to their whims and am waiting with anticipation of what roadblock they will set for 2010. Last year it was no reimbursement for hospital costs. This year hospitalization was covered but should I need an ambulance to get there I had to pay $50.

Already, the Riverside (California) Housing Authority which administers HUD's rental assistance program notified me that beginning Oct. 1 I had to pay $50/mo. more for my apartment rent. I suppose that will make a major difference in HUD's $18.2 billion budget helping two million families in 2010.

So, when you hear us gray panthers (we no longer are gender biased) roar, it's more than a measly $2 increase in our drug premiums. It is more like being nickled and dimed to death.

Sources:

Associated Press

Politics & Poppycock

Get A Life, America

Believe me when I tell you how hard I gritted my teeth and refrained from commenting on the clucking chatter of First Lady Michelle Obama stepping off Air Force One wearing short shorts in 108-degree temperature on a visit to the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

"Smart, lady," I say to myself. "Very practical."

But, nooo. Her critics among the fashion police piously complained she was showing too much leg for a First Lady. Her fans -- myself included but who, for one, remained mum until now -- countered the Puritanical outrage with "Get A Life!" I mean, we're talking about Michelle Obama, not Britney Spears.

What catapulted me into the circus circulating the gossip of what a First Lady should wear in public is an article written by Robin Givhan in today's Washington Post. I confess Givhan knows more about women's fashion than me because, frankly, my dear, I really don't given a damn unless Michelle experiences a wardrobe malfunction as did Janet Jackson during a Super Bowl halftime show. Writes Givhan:

The noteworthy aspect of Obama's ensemble is that in recent history, first ladies have rarely dressed so informally in public, particularly as they are emerging from Air Force One while a phalanx of photographers stands ready to record the moment.

My God, I would hope so. Can you imagine Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, Nancy Reagan or even Hillary Clinton in shorts? You may ask, what about Jackie Kennedy? I would say women in Camelot would never dare.

Continues Givhan:

The image of Obama in her shorts was strikingly modern. And for a long time, modern was not a word typically associated with the role of first lady. The women who have most recently occupied that nebulous position often seemed terribly constrained by its traditions, by the contradictory demands of the public, by the desire to do the nation proud and by the need to live a fulfilling and authentic life. Balancing all that is impossible, and so these women have cherry-picked some things that are inviolable and gone on from there. The public has been free to applaud or criticize each woman's choices. The resulting analysis has had first ladies declared, among other things: elitist, dowdy and tragic victims of chauvinism.

Can't argue with that. No sooner than I was prepared to honor Givhan for her forthrightness, she says:

Avoiding the appearance of queenly behavior is politically wise. But it does American culture no favors if a first lady tries so hard to be average that she winds up looking common.

Oh, come on Givhan and anyone else who predisposes our First Ladies are royalty.

It's not Michelle's fault she was born in a lower income middle class family, earned a law degree and managed a large hospital. She should be accepted for whom she is: a brilliant mind, a terrific mother, loyal wife and, as they say, comfortable in her own skin. Being First Lady is just desserts and she can wear any outfit she deems appropriate.

However, Givhan nailed it when she observes:

This exclusive group of women might have dressed in a relaxed manner -- khakis or jeans, for instance -- but it was always in a way that suggested that they were keenly aware of the ever-present cameras. None of them revealed as much leg as the current first lady, either -- a fact that has been duly noted on the Internet by a nation that gets more squeamish about an artfully photographed nude than it does over a naked body lying in a pool of fake blood on an episode of "Law & Order."

Let me join the chorus: Come on America, get a life!

The Fine Art Of Corrections

One of the great things working for newspapers for so many years is the corrections we needed to print. Some editors were more sensitive to the process than others. A few were impervious to the point of neglecting their responsibility until the filing of a law suit.

Some may recall the recent plight of The New York Times when its ombudsman corrected a story written by the paper's TV critic who committed seven errors in the Walter Cronkite obituary.

But, the Los Angeles Times, plagued by recent staff cutbacks and a dearth of copy editors, has taken the correction business to a new level. And, I quote:

Thank goodness The Times is the forthright, ethical institution that it is.

And when a mistake happens, it rushes to set the journalistic record straight with an honest repair.

Here is an actual correction from Page A4 of today's print edition:

FOR THE RECORD

TV listings: The Prime-Time TV grid in Thursday's Calendar section mistakenly listed MTV's "Jackass" show on the MSNBC cable schedule at 7 and 10 p.m. where instead MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" should have been listed.

It's not the Worst Mistake in the World.

But without this kind of correction, online too, a few thousand people might have tuned into MSNBC, the Obama administration's favorite cable channel, expecting to see a "Jackass" show, and instead they'd have found Olbermann.

Worse, what if nobody noticed the difference?

-- Andrew Malcolm

Over the years -- even as recently as yesterday when I offered up a new first name (Harry) for West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd -- I have made hundreds. Some were simple typographical errors. Two in particular were real doozies and both where I committed the same crime.

In one, from a police report I jailed the good guy who defended himself from an attacker rather than the other way around.

The other needs some explanation. A young woman walked into the Santa Ana Register where I worked and requested a retraction from a paid classified ad. The ad recorded her father's funeral services but when the family viewed the casket, the body was not her father. Helluva human interest story, I declared. It was an old friend of her father's from Mexico who for years fraudulently used the guy's identification. I wrote the story one day. The next day I wrote the correction because I got the names reversed. Man, that was confusing AND embarrassing.

The Register in the late 1950s was notorious for allowing its editorial judgment get in the way of facts. It once wrote a retraction over a story about Dr. Edwin Teller, one of the principles in the development of the atomic bomb. The retraction was so laced with more inaccuracies that Teller's attorneys forced a second retraction of the first retraction.

When I worked for the San Diego Evening Tribune, it would not be unusual for a few people to call and demand a retraction of a story they deemed unfair and one-sided. The usual spiel was the caller said he lived in La Jolla where our publisher Jim Copley (pronounced COP-ly) resided.

Once, a caller said he was a personal friend of Mr. COPE-ly. Leo Bowler, our assistant managing editor, after one of his famous three-martini luncheons, told the guy to do something anatomically impossible and slammed down the phone.

But, really, corrections are the right thing to do and it is a practice I wish bloggers would follow more assiduously than from what I have seen.

The Nonsense Of Over-The-Hill Superstars

I have been a sports fan all my life but concede in the twilight of my existence what once was fiery passion has turned to embers. I'm not really jaded, bored or turned off because of steroids or performance enhancing drugs.

No. What bothers me are the superstar athletes who don't know when to call it quits. I'm undecided whether it's the money or a severe ego problem. Probably a lot of both. Toss in the possibility they spent only minutes wondering what the devil they would do once forced into retirement.

In my youth, Johnny Unitas was my hero quarterback for the Baltimore Colts. His performance in that sudden death championship game against the New York Giants I will cherish to my grave. But to see his hunchback posture masquerading as a San Diego Charger was embarrassing, pathetic, in his final season.

Today it is Brett Favre, a sure-fire first ballot candidate for the National Football League Hall of Fame. Heading into his third decade in pro football, a sore arm, age and interceptions have plagued his legend. In one final shot at the Super Bowl, Favre will earn $6 million after he takes his first snap in his new Minnesota Vikings regular season game.

He could still do it for he is a marvelous athlete, knows the Vikings offensive scheme, is blessed with the best running back in the NFL, a great offensive line and the best rushing defense in the league. Fans in Green Bay where he set every offensive record that means anything, consider him a traitor for joining division conference rival Minnesota.

No, that doesn't bother me.

What does rattle my cage is his on-again, off-again "retirement" announcements that have become a joke. Two weeks ago he told the Vikings his orthopedic surgeon recommended the stretched tendons in his right throwing elbow were shot and he shouldn't play. He reported to camp Monday after a miracle recovery that just so happens coincides with the closing of training camp and two-a-day drills. He pulled the same thing with the New York Jets at the end of last year's training camp.

Favre has never displayed such fickleness on the field. Why doesn't he fess up and admit he's earned the right not to go to training camp. If his coach and owner agree to Favre's demands, why play this cat-and-mouse game. He's hurting himself and his new teammates by not being forthcoming.

Brett, cut the image crap and be a man.

That is the reason I consider Jim Brown the greatest running back of all time. He played nine spectacular seasons for the Cleveland Browns and "retired" when owner Art Modell was too cheap to grant him a massive pay raise and he opted to become a movie star in "The Dirty Dozen" and playing the love interest to Rachel Welch in a horrible western.

That is why I also admire Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale who were exploited by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Both retired at the top of their careers. Koufax because his left arm might have had to be amputated if he continued pitching. Drysdale because of arm injuries, and, well, because he was Don Drysdale.

It must be said that Jim Brown, Koufax and Drysdale never made the millions athletes in today's market earn.

But the list of superstars clinging to the past of great careers is endless. The latest is John Smoltz, dropped by the Red Sox and now praying to make it as a St. Louis Cardinal.

Michael Jordan flirted with embarrassment in his final season with the Wizards.

Roger Clemens is accused of taking performance enhancing drugs to extend his magnificent career with the New York Yankees and Houston Astros. Even the proud and profane Nolan Ryan admits he should have retired a season before his final one.

I witnessed Luis Tiant, the hero of the Boston Red Sox in their losing effort to the Big Red Machine in the 1975 World Series, pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates five years later against the San Diego Padres. He was terrible, his once unhittable fastball now floating towards the plate at 69 mph on the radar gun. Bob Gibson, hobbled by a gimpy knee and old age, brought tears to my eyes in his final season with St. Louis. Same goes for Tom Seaver in his last season with the Chicago White Sox. Even Babe Ruth couldn't quit the game.

What is it these guys don't get? Quit embarrassing yourselves. Let us fans remember you the way you were in your prime. With the exception of a few such as Seaver who wanted to notch 300 wins in his career or reach specific sports milestones, the spectacle of their former selves is ridiculous but we still pay good money to watch them.

The thing is, their inductions into their sports halls of fame will still occur.