“Little League Strikeouts Ain’t Pretty,” by Robert L. Harrison
Posted: September 26, 2020 Filed under: Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, Little League, Little League Baseball, poetry, Robert L. Harrison, sports Leave a commentTo be fair, a strikeout at any level is rarely pretty — at least, if you’re the batter. This piece by Robert Harrison was published in January 2013.
*
With sadness I report
about the last ball
your son bought
It was both high and low
and curved before
the final blow
It was flying fast
a white meteor
that he let pass
And so I say with pity
that this scene
was not too pretty
For even I did cry
after he let
that ball go by
Home run trot
Posted: June 7, 2020 Filed under: Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, comics, Family Circus, humor, Little League, sports 4 CommentsClearly, this coach needs to re-evaluate their priorities. You just never know when you might need to break out the home run trot, especially at the Little League level. It’s best to stay prepared at all times. Hopefully coach is at least allowing the team to practice the bat flip? Because nothing teaches sportsmanship like perfecting the art of showing off.
This day in baseball: Little League girls
Posted: November 7, 2018 Filed under: 20th Century, This day in baseball | Tags: Baseball, history, Little League, Little League Baseball, sports, Sylvia Pressler 2 CommentsOn November 7, 1973, Sylvia Pressler, a hearing examiner for the New Jersey Civil Rights Division, made a ruling that ultimately resulted in the admittance of girls into Little League Baseball, making the Garden State the first to allow girls to play on Little League teams. Prior to the decision, regulations had prohibited girls from participating with boys in the program.

Sylvia Pressler (Associated Press)
Quote of the day
Posted: September 11, 2018 Filed under: Quote of the day | Tags: Baseball, Bob Uecker, Little League, quotes, sports Leave a commentHe struck out three times and lost the game for the team when a ball went through his legs at third base. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we left the parking lot. Gosh, I was proud. A chip off the old block.
~Bob Uecker, on a little league game in which his son, Bobby Jr., played

Wikipedia
Airplane Dad: Part 1 (A Cyanide & Happiness short)
Posted: January 7, 2018 Filed under: Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, comics, Cyanide & Happiness, humor, Little League, sports, videos 1 CommentNow and then, I find my entertainment through the web comic Cyanide & Happiness. As a general rule, the comic can be a bit crude, crass, and definitely not for children, so if that’s not your cup of tea, I wouldn’t recommend exploring the comic any further beyond this post.
The last short the comic put out, however, is actually quite warm and sweet, so I have no issues sharing it here. Absent dads can be hard on kids, but this Little Leaguer’s father finds a creative way to still play a role in his son’s baseball career.
Quote of the day
Posted: January 6, 2018 Filed under: Quote of the day | Tags: Baseball, humor, Little League, Little League Baseball, quotes, sports, Yogi Berra 4 CommentsLittle League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.
~Yogi Berra
Baseball in the Time of Cholera
Posted: January 3, 2018 Filed under: 21st Century | Tags: Baseball, Baseball in the Time of Cholera, books, cholera, documentaries, Elon Musk, Haiti, Little League, movies, sports, videos Leave a commentI have been listening to a biography of Elon Musk on audiobook, and it certainly caught my attention when the audiobook mentioned that Musk had sponsored a documentary called Baseball in the Time of Cholera. I don’t know whether Musk actually has any interest in baseball, but apparently he had visited the area of the cholera outbreak in Haiti, bringing with him gifts for an orphanage. The documentary was made shortly after.
I managed to find the documentary on YouTube. It’s only about half-an-hour long and certainly worth the watch. The cholera outbreak in Haiti began in 2010, and from what I’ve been able to tell online, continued until May 2017. I do have to caution, this documentary is a bit grim (the baseball helps to lighten things up slightly). Nonetheless, things like this are important to be aware of in our world.
‘Baseball, Boys, and Bad Words,’ by Andy Andrews
Posted: December 31, 2017 Filed under: 20th Century, Pop culture | Tags: Andy Andrews, Baseball, books, humor, Little League, Little League Baseball, sports 1 CommentI came across this book while browsing the library yesterday. Baseball, Boys, and Bad Words is a small book, and I found the title intriguing, so I decided to go ahead and check it out. It would be a nice, fast, easy read, and it was about baseball.
The story takes place in 1970, when the author, Andy Andrews, was eleven years old. He and his friends were returning for another season of Little League baseball. This year, they were getting a new coach who was “new to the area.” The new coach’s manner of speech at first confuses the boys, but then leads to some amusing moments throughout their season. We hear about themes familiar to anyone who’s ever played Little League: the worst player is in right field, the coach’s son is automatically the pitcher, etc.
It’s a very short story, so I don’t think I can say much more about it without giving the whole thing away. If it were typed in a straight text format, I can’t imagine this tale would take up more than a couple of pages. Obviously the text is broken up to allow for conversion into book format. Besides the story itself, the book is littered with a variety of pictures and baseball-related quotes, which, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you would know is something I enjoy.
Though I enjoyed the story (I literally laughed out loud a couple times) as well as the quotes and the photography, if you are curious about this book, I would encourage you to look for it at the library. It might make for a fun gift for a young ballplayer’s birthday, but outside of that, I honestly can’t say it’s worth the money you’d spend on it. It might have been better published in a magazine or other periodical, to be read and enjoyed once, but not something truly worth taking up space on your bookshelves.