Cheating.
It’s always been a part of sports and it always will be. But it’s worse when it involves kids who become pawns for overzealous adults.
The latest scandal involves the much-celebrated Jackie Robinson West youth baseball team out of Chicago.
it won last summer after an investigation revealed it had falsified boundaries to field ineligible players.
In a nutshell, Jackie Robinson West recruited players from outside of its boundaries in order to create a super team. Keep in mind, Little League teams are not all-star traveling teams that have become so ubiquitous in youth sports. Little League Baseball is about neighborhood teams comprised of local kids.
“This is a heartbreaking decision,” Stephen D. Keener, the Little League International president and CEO, said in a statement. “As painful as it is, we feel it is a necessary decision to maintain the integrity of the Little League program. No team can be allowed to attempt to strengthen its team by putting players on their roster that live outside their boundaries.”
I can already hear some of you out there shouting: “What’s the big deal? Kids are recruited in sports all of the time! You’re only hurting the kids! “
These are the same people who blindly dismiss the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. The only thing this contingent of fans cares about is the bottom line, wins at any cost.
Sports fans, I know, get tired of stories about PEDs, NCAA recruiting violations, deflated footballs and whether or not
But I contend that it is the media’s job not only to report on cheating, but also to make a big deal about it.
Hopefully, the furor over steroids has convinced young baseball players not to yield to the temptation to get bigger, stronger and faster through the needle.
Hopefully, the firestorm over the Jackie Robinson West team will help convince youth coaches, high school coaches and parents that it’s not OK to bend the rules.
Chew on this
• Speaking of cheaters, the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez has apologized for, well, for being A-Rod.
The Yankees and Rodriguez released a joint statement on Tuesday evening, saying Rodriguez “initiated the meeting and apologized to the organization for his actions over the past several years.”
Is A-Rod really contrite? I doubt it. It smells like another calculated move by the disgraced slugger.
There is a lot being written on the topic, but one of the best accounts of Tuesday’s meeting comes from the The story’s subhead reads: “During a meeting at Yankee Stadium, Rodriguez ‘apologized profusely’ for his disastrous 2013 effort to escape a Biogenesis doping ban, even as team brass told Rodriguez that they did not intend to pay him the millions in marketing bonuses for any home run milestones he might reach in the future.”
• It was 25 years ago that Buster Douglas KO’d Iron Mike Tyson in one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Ron Borges, the gifted writer for the Boston Herald, was in Tokyo that night. and the turmoil surrounding Douglas as the fight approached.
From Borge’s story:
“Tyson was … wrong about Douglas, who was housed in a hotel room the size of a broom closet, steaming at every slight and hurting in the way a man can feel only when he’s lost everything.”
• ICYMI: The CSU Rams basketball team took another step closer to the NCAA tournament with an important 70-59 victory over New Mexico on Tuesday night.
It was CSU’s 21st win and senior guard that the Rams are planning to go dancing.
“We have a lot of doubters and haters everywhere — here, wherever,” Bejarano said. “So we’ve just got to continue to stick together and know that we are going to make a big impact these last few games, in the Mountain West tournament and the NCAA, because we will get in.”
As Lyell notes in his story, only five other CSU teams have won 21 games in a season, and all five have gone on to play in the NCAA tournament.
• For men of a certain age, it’s a defining question. I bring this up because Tina Louise, who played Ginger Grant on “Gilligan’s Island,” was born on this date in 1934.
For the record, I’m a Mary Ann man.
Patrick Saunders: psaunders@denverpost.com or twitter.com/psaundersdp
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