THE ISSUE: America’s pastime

OUR OPINION: Baseball worthy of celebrating, but the game has its issues, too

Football may be king in many places today, but baseball remains the great American pastime. More than 2 million kids from around the world will play on 7,000 Little League teams this year.

These children, ages 13 and younger, are taking part in a tradition that spans nearly 70 years.

“What is on the field is an imitation of human life,” says Dan Liberthson, Ph.D. and author of the new book, “The Pitch is on the Way: Poems about Baseball and Life.” Parents across the world enroll their children in Little League not just to learn the sport, but to learn the ethics and team spirit associated with the game.

Liberthson’s poems point out four lessons both adults and children can get from baseball if they know where to look:

1. Failure, injury and defeat are as much a part of the game as success. As Liberthson points out in his poem, “The Mound,” about a pitcher yanked from the game, we can all blow it, but we need to pick ourselves up and try again.

2. Don’t relegate yourself to the dugout. A player might miss one opportunity and lose his focus for the rest of the game. He becomes obsessed with that one early mistake and can’t recover. It is the same with life: if you dwell on your past misstep, you’ll never get a foothold on future success.

3. Don’t let the hecklers get you down. In many games, some fan is shouting above the crowd for the batter to miss, or the pitcher to throw badly, or deriding the umpire’s calls. Taking such spiteful criticism to heart will only ruin the player’s pleasure in the game and his chance of winning.

4. You can’t win by yourself. Baseball is a team sport. Sure, some teams have high-paid “hot shots,” but without nine players on each team and many support staff, there is no game. The same is true of life: you can be the best at what you do, but if you’re not surrounded by good, supportive people whom you treat well, your chances of enjoying the experience are zero.

Liberthson extends his assessment by contending that taking part in baseball games and watching the professionals on the field are ways to teach children the basic morals and guidelines of life. “For 130 years we’ve been cheering for players to battle each other and challenge themselves on the ball field. No other sport is quite as American or inspirational.”

Parents want to give their children the tools for a successful and enjoyable life. Little League, Pony League, college, and professional baseball are great ways to build the foundational skills kids need to become adults, Liberthson says.

In praise of Liberthson’s book, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig agrees: The great American pastime isn’t just a sport – it’s a chance to learn skills that guide Americans through all the pitfalls the world can throw at us.”

There, however, must be a couple of qualifications in all this praise of the lessons of the game. Any fan, from Little League games to the majors, knows that baseball sanctions behavior by its players, coaches and managers that most other games do not allow. The spectacles involving arguments with umpires are a tradition of the game -- one that leaves us to wonder just how good an example is being set.

And what of the retaliation factor? What kind of lesson is being taught when a tradition of the game calls for the opposing pitcher to throw at a batter when a hitter from his team has been struck?

Such displays of anger and retaliatory actions in most settings in life will result in harsh and punitive consequences. Celebrate baseball, yes. Pretend it doesn’t have some issues, no.

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