A few notes and thoughts: I generally pay little or no attention to this over-hyped display of everything that is wrong with youth sports. But I watched a few games with the kids from Columbia, including last night's knock-out loss to Beaverton Oregon.

First, the announcers, Brent Musberger and Orel Hershiser do a pretty good job of painting it as some sort of wholesome, evrything that is good and right about America event. On the rare occasions they catch one of these over-stressed, pushed-to-the-limit 12 year-old kids smiling, they play it up for all it's worth. Did anyone else notice the lack of smiling and laughter in those dugouts and on the field? Damn, for 12 year-olds, these kids are pretty intense. Too intense for 12...

Second, the coach for the Oregon team is an A-hole. They had him rigged with a mic. and had the camera on him a bunch, in last nights game. Apparently, they don't use a delay. He comes to the mound in the 3rd or 4th inning and tells the pitcher and the whole world, "The ump is squuezing the chit out of you..." (nice to let the kid know it is OK to blame the umps for your troubles). Then ESPN shuts off the mic. When they finally turn the mic. back on he's asking the pitcher how he feels. The pitcher, who threw 280+ pitches in the regionals the week before, tells him he's getting tired. The coach tells him to get through the inning, then goes to the bench and tells his other coaches "He's done..." The kids ends up pitching the rest of the game (over 100 pitches)!?!?!? Of all the shots of this coach, he never once smiled and was always rding the kids. He's the kind of first class plick that coaches for himself and not the kids... Good luck having anything left of your arm for high school ball, if you pitch for that a-hole.

Finally, I was impressed with the umpires. They called a great game and did a good job managing the kids. The first base ump got an interference call right on a rundown. The home plate ump did a good job sending the catcher out to tell the pitcher not to go to his mouth, with his hand, on the mound...

Watching that makes me glad we got out of the select ball and 75+ games a year with our boy. We played less than 25 games this year and had more practices. The kids improved and had lots more fun.