Last summer, a few hard working kids from the South Side of Chicago fought for success in the face of great opposition. They stole America’s heart, made national news, and became the soapbox on which many a political opinion would stand. At their core, however, they were just kids.
Punishing the players of Jackie Robinson West is the most messed up thing I’ve ever seen and I’ll tell you why.
Chicago Baseball is Already Messed Up
Chicago baseball, by design, is divisive. This is a city structured around lines of race and economics, and because of that the façade of neighborhood pride and familial tradition often facilitates underlining feelings developed from racism and classism. None of this by the way is about baseball. Again, it’s about race, economics, and politics. That’s messed up.
Of course, not all baseball fans are bigots. Some are in it for the romance. Who else but a romantic would root for a team that hasn’t won a championship since 1908? To put things into perspective, here are a few other events that occurred in 1908:
Martin Luther King’s mother turned 4 years old.
Henry Ford produced the first Model T.
Oklahoma’s star was added to the US flag. The. US. Flag.
The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority was established.
Mother’s Day became a thing.
If you’re rooting for a team that hasn’t won a world series since airplanes were the future of transportation, that’s pretty messed up.
The Little in Little League Stands for “A Little Messed Up”
Little League rules state that all players must reside within their team’s geographical neighborhood boundaries. This makes sense until you consider the unfair disadvantage this mandate gives to teams playing within areas housing fewer fields on which to practice, fewer parents available to support their kid’s hobby, and fewer resources available for the team’s uniforms and equipment.
Not to mention, the league’s decision to strip JRW of their United States championship title and give it instead to the Mountain Ridge team from Las Vegas is so messed up. How anticlimactic for all the kids over in Vegas, learning that the game winning play was made by a falsified boundary map 6 months after the final inning.
The bigger picture: MLB’s domestic talent pool is shrinking faster than Kanye West’s popularity scores. If the majors don’t find a way to make “America’s pastime” more appealing to minorities, they’ll soon find themselves competing for numbers with MLS. (Low-key, soccer is everything.) This was an opportunity to both reward and recruit black and brown players into a game few have on their radar.
The World is Messed Up
Off to the Races! This matter will, in the end, be just another log thrown into the fire of racial unrest instead of an opportunity for the adults involved to both learn from and correct their mistakes.
Cheaters Win! JRW’s dishonest boundary structure is no more an anomaly in the Little League than the Patriot’s use of underinflated footballs was to the NFL. The difference between these two teams and the rest of their league? Winning! Some teams cheat and they still lose. Some cheat and win. Winners get haters. Haters call the authorities. Authorities take away titles… unless you can blame a locker room guy.
Pride is Before the Fall. Never ones to waste a good moment for boasting, a few suburban officials publicly praised players of JRW they claimed as homegrown – essentially outing the team for illegal boundary mapping. I mean, like, seriously though? That’s messed up.
Jackie Robinson West’s story gave a divided city reason to stand up and cheer unitedly for a game almost no one watches. It was a beautiful thing – those 6 months it lasted. Above all, this story is one of children, preteens, accepting punishment for the actions of adults. That, I believe we all can agree, is the most messed up.