I know it’s not like that on every team in every town. I’ve been through the system and have had my own kids go through. I’ve coached and managed teams. And I’ve seen things that are pretty dreadful. I’ve also read the same stories you have about managers attacking umpires and walking the good hitter to get to the weakest hitter and doing a lot of other things that don’t measure up to the standards of sportsmanship I’d like my own kids to embrace.

But it’s impressive and laudable that you see almost none of that when you get to the World Series. The managers and coaches are intense and want to win, but the ones you see in Williamsport almost always get the balance right between winning and competing well.

They understand it’s Little League and kids. They know that you can pitch a no-hitter and still lose, that kids will make errors or suffer brain lock. And at the end of the game, the losers and winners congratulate each other.

I used to be one of those who wailed about putting kids on national television in prime time. But I’ve come to realize that everything is on television these days, and kids today have a different view of it than we old folks have. Why shouldn’t they be on television? What they’re doing is of interest to a broad segment of the nation.

The games are fun and quick and clean. It’s good theater played out by people who have yet to be spoiled, by people who aren’t playing for money or their next contract but for the love of the game.

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I don’t mean that there aren’t competitions that are more pure. The annual Death Valley to Mt. Whitney run that recently took place in California, for example, is pure competition for competition’s sake. People torture themselves for 135 miles and sometimes a couple of days for nothing more than a t-shirt and a pat on the back. There’s no television contract for such events, no updates on Sports Center, no endorsement deals. Nor are there coaches who yell at the participants or parents who make egregious asses of themselves.

But of those things that get splashed across national television and talked about on the nightly sports shows, the Little League World Series is in a class by itself. As much as is possible by fallible humans, it does things right.

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