Many years ago, there was a Little
League baseball game in Imperial, California. It was a playoff game and it drew
parents, grandparents and family members from every branch of each player’s
family tree.
Little League baseball is a great
family unifier.
During the game there was a
controversial play and, after a lot of arguing and phone calls to district
administrators, play had to stop while the adults acted stupidly.
Two players, one from each team, sat
on second base. They sat with their backs together and facing away from each
other so that their backs supported each other while they waited through the
marathon delay.
The kids just wanted to play baseball,
to get on with the game. The adults lost their heads.
A few years later, there was another
baseball game for kids in a different city, but this one was not sanctioned by Little League
baseball. It was a playoff game for the youngest players in Little League and,
at the time, there was no post season for players that age. The parents decided
the kids needed to play and set up the game.
One of the managers either failed to
understand the substitution rules in force that night or he wanted to cheat, I
never knew which. Whatever the case, he continued to insert his best hitters
into the batting order when he could not do so. He was stopped each time by the
umpires and the situation became steadily uglier. The teams involved came from
different towns and, as you might guess, the adults in the grandstands grew
increasingly restive.
Finally, the game ended.
Unfortunately, the arguing among the adults got worse and eventually baseball
bats were used as weapons in the parking lot. A game which should not have been
played in the first place turned into a riot.
The kids did not fight. They didn’t
argue with each other. They just waited for their chance to play baseball. The
adults could not allow that to happen without bickering and, ultimately,
violence.
And so, today, we have the same thing
happening on a larger scale in our nation’s capital. The American people just
want to get on with their lives and our leaders want to bicker.
Our leaders’ fragile egos can’t allow
what every Little Leaguer out there (and virtually every American adult) knows
is the key to making life work: Compromise.
Perhaps the answer to our current
governmental breakdown is to send a few Little Leaguers to Washington D.C, and
have the kids tell a few members of Congress this: “You guys agree to do this and you guys
over here agree to do this and everything will work out. That’s what Mom always
makes us do and it works.”
Every Little Leaguer knows that Mom is
usually gonna be right.
Let’s play ball.
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