Warner Robins, Georgia, Wins Little League World Series

The Little League World Series came to an end yesterday with an extra inning game between the US champions from Georgia and the international champs from Tokyo, Japan. The American kids won 3-2 with a walk-off home run in the 8th inning (Little Leaguers play 6 usually). The only thing that distinguishes this from Major League Baseball are the prices. There are no multi-million dollar contracts for 12-year-olds.

For years, the LLWS has brought teams from all over the world to a small town in Pennsylvania called Williamsport to play in a couple of stadia that are good enough for AAA minor league play. For some of these kids, it’s the biggest field they’ll every play on, and since it is broadcast all over the world, there may well have been more people watching yesterday’s final than watched the Mets and the Dodgers on ESPN last night.

This is the third straight win for the US, but the tournament structure makes that less impressive than one might think. The championship game pits the international winner against the team that wins the US side of the tournament. Since there is an American team in every final, winning three times running is significant, but hardly a statistically difficult thing.

Be that as it may, a game that goes into extra innings is always exciting, simply because the whole thing can end with a single pitch. And so it did yesterday, when Dalton Carriker hit a 2-1 pitch over the fence. “I felt like I was flying, like Peter Pan,” young Mr. Carriker said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Georgia’s pitcher, Kendall Scott, said, “the game could have gone either way; thankfully, it fell in our favor. I just hated to see them cry, and I just wanted to let them know that I care.” Graciousness in victory is one of the pillars of sportsmanship. Someone learned more than how to throw a curveball.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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