Follow up to my bat flip story

As I have stated before I usually do not get to do follow ups on my blog posts because the matters I write about do not always occur locally and it is difficult following up on matters occurring in other parts of the country or world; however, the issue in my previous blog occurred locally and I have follow-up to the story, one that has led me to more questions than answers.  A quick disclaimer, again I will not be using the child’s name or town due to the fact he is a minor and I am now more that convinced the child is being used as a pawn in this little story. 

A quick recounting of the story is as follows: in a recent state Little League playoff game a child was ejected for doing a bat flip after hitting a home run, and the ejection led to him being suspended for a game for breaking Little League’s “no horse play” rule.  After some discussion between the child’s parents and Little League International, that did not lead to the resolution the parents wanted, the parents took the case to court looking for a restraining order to allow the child to play in the double elimination tournament. The judge ruled in favor of the parents and the child was allowed to play with his team being eliminated.   

Now, you think that would be the end of this story and the young man would move on to the rest of his summer and getting ready to go back to school/play a fall sport but no, this story has another chapter, one that has me wondering what youth sports has really become.  Supposedly, the bat child used, along with 75 trading pins are going to be brought to the Little League World Series (LLWS) and auctioned off with the pins being traded.  Now, in fairness, the 75 pins will not be available for sale, but will be available for trade among the attendees at the LLWS.  Trading pins is a rite of passage at the LLWS and the few times that I have flipped in to watch you see kids trading pins with each other and as a collector of sports pins myself I find this a wholesome and fun activity. 

According to the article published on August 13^th by Patrick Lanni on NJ.com, the father of the child stated “they said it (the bat flip incident) was a significant event in Little League this year, and there was a lot of national attention on it and they thought that making a pin and keeping the pin at a limited number would be an interesting item at the Little League World Series” the number of pins will be capped at 75 as that is how long the league that child was playing in has been in existence.  The father goes on to state he was unfamiliar with the pin-trading culture, which is extremely hard for me to believe.  This is man who went to court to get a suspension of his son overturned because this was something that his child has dreamed about his “whole life,” yet he does not know about the pin trading culture.  I have been removed from playing Little League for over 50 years (something I hate to admit…LOL) and I never coached in Little League (I coached Cal Ripken baseball), and I know about the pin trading culture at the LLWS.  If you watch any of the LLWS they invariably do at least one feature story on pin trading.  Now, I know the story was fairly big around here because 1) it happened in New Jersey and 2) the New York/Philadelphia media markets are some of the biggest in the world, but when doing some research before writing my first blog on this story I did not see much “national” press on this incident.  Finally, anyone who is involved in the “memorabilia” market knows quite well that much of the “memorabilia” ends up in the hands of people, usually adults, who then sell it to make money so I am betting that within a few days of these pins being released at the LLWS someone will be selling these pins online somewhere. 

Now onto the bat auction.  My question here is who is going to purchase a bat, at auction, used by a 12-year-old boy?  Now, Arron Judge’s 62^nd home run bat, the ball from Nolan Ryan’s 5,000^th strikeout, the bat from Pete Alonzo’s recent record setting 253^rd home run to set the Met team home run record…. sign me up.  I can see people bidding on these items at auction.  Professional athletes setting/breaking professional sporting records yes, but not a 12-year-old who hit a home run, broke a rule (probably a questionable/silly rule, but a rule nonetheless) and had daddy running to court to get the suspension overturned.  Interestingly enough, the bat is being auctioned off by an individual who owns an auction house and co-owns a sports training facility with the father of the child who this whole incident revolves around.  Apparently, any money raised from the auction will be donated back to the Little League that the child played for.  My question is “what is the auction house getting?”  Now, I am not a connoisseur of auction houses, but I do know they get a percentage of whatever they sell at auction.  Are they going to donate their percentage to the Little League? Are they going to put the money into the sports training facility that they own or is the money going into their pockets? 

I stated in my first blog on this incident I was not going to use the child’s name because I felt he was being used as a pawn by the adults around him and after reading this article my mind has not been changed.  Was it this child’s dream to play in the LLWS, of course it was…every child who plays Little League baseball, including myself, dreams of playing in the LLWS in Williamsport.  Was the horse play rule that suspended him questionable?  Maybe, because horse play is a broad term and we are talking about 12-year-old boys.  But carrying on this charade and trying to profit from a child’s mistake is, in my opinion indefensible.  A rule was broken, the parents won in court, the child got to play in the games and that should be the end of the story.  Finally, I admittedly will not watch much if any of the LLWS, but here’s betting that this father will somehow weasel his way into some sort of interview that will allow him to promote himself at the expense of his child.  I really hope that this does not happen, and I hope that this incident dies a slow death and yet another ridiculous chapter in youth sports fades away.