Word that the Jackie Robinson Little League has been forced to vacate its 2014 American championship due to rules violations has predictably triggered a veritable second Great Fire in Chicago among local officials and parents. The outrage is itself outrageous. "Disrespectful," proclaimed one team member's mother in the Chicago Tribune regarding the action taken by Little League International. After asserting that "our boys not only played, they won," she went on to suggest that the action was taken because some "African-Americans exceed[ed] the expectations," so that "there is always going to be fault that is found in what it is that we do."

Not to be outdone when there's a chance for cheap, sensational publicity, Jesse Jackson has now stepped into the fray. CBS News reported that he held a press conference to ask, "Is this about [the league's] boundaries or race?" Remarkably--and insultingly--Jackson has apparently asked the Las Vegas teams not to accept the American championship title on the grounds that, although they participated fairly unlike their finalist opponent, they nevertheless "did not earn" it. Wow! And so the race card is played, and the thorny crown of victimhood is donned.

Feel bad for the team's players, sure. By all accounts, they were the unwitting victims of a scheme cooked up by adults whose interest in winning at all costs (and glorying vicariously in achievements they themselves were incapable of attaining) exceeded their responsibility for being role models and teaching good sportsmanship to adolescents. If true, they and their parents have indeed been victimized, not by the International Little League but by the coaches or other adults who engineered the original deception merely for the sake of winning.

It's not difficult to empathize with the Chicago parents' disappointment, but their anger is certainly misdirected. They seem to be immune to the notion that the Las Vegas (Mountain Ridge) runners-up played by the rules and did not inappropriately enlarge their "catchment area" to add high-skill players to their rosters illegally (which of course also simultaneously deprives other players who properly live in the league's legitimate zone from a chance to be on their local All-Star team). Nor have they acknowledged that the winning team from Japan did not cheat in this manner, nor as far as is known at the moment did any of the other teams participating in last year's World Series, all of whom could have benefitted substantially by pulling players from outside their designated residential zones -- a system designed, by the way, to promote fairness and ensure that the winning teams do not consistently originate in large cities with huge populations from which to draw.

Had the Las Vegas team followed the same practice, they might well have trounced the Jackie Robinson team. Perhaps a few moments' reflection on the values represented by their league's namesake, Jackie Robinson, might be in order before accusing everyone else other than the adults who set out to cheat in the first place. It's those individuals, and only those individuals, who victimized a group of young men and their families (including the players and families of the Las Vegas team, who now hold a "tainted" title they likely don't really want).

National Felony League?

Lest anyone should fall under the perception that the recent (2014), highly publicized spate of abuse of women (Ray Rice) and children (Adrian Peterson) has served as a corrective to National Football League player misbehavior, a short article in the New York Times on February 4 provides a clue to the contrary. As one of the paper's Sports Briefing entries for that day, the Times cites the case of Dallas Cowboys running back Joseph Randle being charged -- for the second time in less than four months -- with suspicion of marijuana possession. Immediately following that entry is another noting the arrest of Packers defensive tackle Letroy Guion on felony charges of possession of marijuana and a firearm (along with a bag in his truck containing $190,000 in cash!). Directly beneath that item appeared yet another, citing Colts linebacker D'Qwell Jackson being charged with assault after an argument over a parking space.

In case you think the NFL was merely having another of its increasingly common "bad weeks," consider that in the new year 2015, through the date of those incidents on February 3, there had already been a total of eight arrest incidents involving NFL footballers. Beyond the three noted above, there were charges for domestic violence and battery, reckless driving, running a stop sign and open carrying of a firearm, rape and confinement leading to bodily injury and battery, and drunken driving. Happy New Year, NFL fans -- your favorite players are still up to their old, lovable shenanigans!

By the way, for those who might be interested in learning more about NFL arrest records, there is the wonderful NFL Arrests Database maintained by U-T (Union-Tribune) San Diego. Dating back to the year 2000, this database catalogs 718 arrest-related incidents while offering the "disclaimer" that there are likely more that were never reported by the media.  

Generation Distracted

In another depressing sign of the self-congratulatory, psychologically needy, Internet- and video-game-raised, social-media-driven generation now emerging into early adulthood, a recent survey of 1,200 college undergraduates by the market researchers at Student Monitor reveals the degree to which that group is attached to their cell phones and websites.

Student Monitor asked those students to choose what they believed was popular or "in" on campus from among a list of seventy-seven items. The top ten choices, each selected by 48% or more of the participants, included the obvious like drinking coffee (2nd, surprisingly) or beer (7th) and working out (9th), but if you thought sleeping, hooking up, smoking pot, looking at porn, studying, or performing community service were in the top tier, you'd be wrong. On the other hand, if you thought interacting with the Internet or personal technology would be among them, you would be more than just right -- you would have hit the target seven of the ten times!!

So what were all these tech choices? Number 1 was the Apple iPhone, Number 3 was texting, Number 4 was Facebook, Number 5 was the Apple iPad, and Number 6 was Instagram -- five of the top six choices. Following these were Snapchat (8th) and Twitter (10th).

Makes you wonder what those students' parents are paying for.