LITTLE LEAGUE BIG MEN

Boy Soldiers

The President's Council on Youth Fitness (PCYF) was established in 1957 because Eisenhower was shocked to learn that American youth fared miserably in fitness tests when compared to youth in Europe. The council was hastily established so that the government could demonstrate support for preparing its children, especially boys. Vice-president Nixon was the first chairman of the council, but soon this largely symbolic role was given over to sports leaders. Bud Wilkinson, Oklahoma's football coach, took over leadership. The PCYF was another way to fight the cold war. Its impact was negligible largely because America was quickly moving toward being a sedentary society and because the focus of the movement fell not on fitness but sports. The PCYF was more intent on moral character than physical fitness, and it was during the 1950s that youth sports, particularly Little League Baseball and Pop Warner Football, taught boys how to become men.

Rise of Little League

The original intentions of Little League Baseball were local, grass roots, and good. It started in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to provide boys with something clean and fun to do after school. Little League, however, quickly became an institution that rivaled the Boy Scouts for fostering political ideology. Little boys were not just playing baseball, they were becoming good Americans. Little Leaguers had their own pledge, salute, and motto (Character, Courage, Loyalty). Most of America supported Little League's ideological goals without question.

Destiny's Darlings

In 1954 a team from Schenectady, New York, won the Little League World Series. A New York Yankee announcer called them "destiny's darlings." Twenty years later reporter Martin Ralbovsky interviewed all the players to see how their experience and their coach, Michael Maietta, had shaped their character. Several players claimed that Little League was the best thing that ever happened to them and that Maietta, a notorious taskmaster, had taught them how to win in baseball and life. The team had both a black and a Jew on its roster, and both these boys felt they had been treated as equals. Maietta used the racial taunts directed at the black players by a team from the South as a means to encourage the team to win one for race relations. Schenectady won 17-0. On the other hand, one player recalled that Maietta had promoted a killer instinct in them so that they were the meanest kids in the tournament and everyone else was afraid of them. Another player claimed that he was simply a twelve-year-old professional; and still another, that he was a pawn in a chess game.