Baseball, apple pie and a dose of capitalism

HEAVEN, SPONSORED BY EASTON, Pa.

It is true what they say, the feeling that hits you when first standing atop the famous hill and staring down onto Lamade Stadium.

If you spent your childhood — and way beyond for many of us — watching the Little League World Series each August, you can’t help but pause and appreciate the view.

The history of it. The drama. All the home runs and names and tears shed by 12-year-olds trying to cope with the immense pressure of performing before thousands of fans in the stands and millions watching across the globe.

But if you didn’t consider being in Williamsport one of life’s bucket list items before arriving, it takes just a few seconds of glancing across the outfield grass in a light rainfall to change your mind.

It’s far bigger than portrayed on television, a beautiful complex tucked into the woods of South Williamsport that includes two stadiums and several practice fields and batting cages and a museum and a barracks area for the participating teams that includes a game room and pool.

It’s really something. Immense. Green. Lush. Majestic.

But there are also two storylines at work in Williamsport, two decidedly different themes that describe those 11 days of games among the United States and international brackets.

Mountain Ridge players and coaches and those from 15 other teams define the greatest part of this event, those who arrive having fulfilled a dream and hoping to make more come true. Those who have proven over months of competition to be the best Little League has to offer on the field in a given year.

If there is such a thing as the last bastion of innocence in youth sports, and I’m not sure one exists when middle-school basketball players are being offered college scholarships, you can find it on the faces and within the actions of Little Leaguers.

That it became the first team from Nevada to reach the World Series and then having won its first three games to advance to the U.S. championship game, Mountain Ridge united a community in sport like few teams in Las Vegas history. Check the local TV ratings. There was off-the-charts interest in this team.

Its players didn’t receive the national attention of female pitcher Mo’ne Davis from nearby Philadelphia or the U.S. champions from Chicago, but they represented themselves and Nevada extremely well.

Mountain Ridge manager Ashton Cave personified the type of youth sports coach we should all desire to lead and instruct our children, his message as much about the experience and lifelong memories and friendships made by his team as the outcome of any particular game. He made a lasting impact on the lives of 14 young men, and the importance of that can’t be overstated.

But there is also another Little League World Series. There is the one of ESPN and Spalding and Oakley and Cannon and Subway and Chiquita and Sam’s Club and $4 chicken breast sandwiches that aren’t any bigger than a pinkie toe.

The only thing more than baseball items are the sponsorship banners flapping in a brisk Pennsylvania wind.

There are the daily lines of hundreds of souls that twist around the official gift shop for hours, those ready and willing to purchase countless items representing their respective teams or others.

There is the Little League that, according to a Yahoo! Sports report this week, has more than $80 million in assets and nearly $25 million in revenue and a TV rights fee contract worth $76 million.

It’s a gigantic business, and, I suppose, there is nothing wrong with that.

What’s more American than baseball, apple pie and a mountain’s worth of capitalism?

But for two weeks, kids such as Davis and those from the Chicago team and Austin Kryszczuk of Mountain Ridge are paraded across your TV screens and used to generate ratings and make suits more millions of dollars. They’re exploited for the rich to get richer.

Whether the ruling in the Ed O’Bannon lawsuit against the NCAA will cause a trickle-down effect to such a level as Little League is unknown, but the fact all players in the World Series aren’t compensated in the way of future college savings is more and more an archaic stance. They should at least receive compensation for furthering their education.

It’s a strange place in many ways, a global tournament that at times is represented by small-time actions. To promote a theme of using its event as a way to teach life lessons and then not bring any players from a losing team to any postgame news conferences is laughable. What is that teaching them about dealing with adversity?

The kids of Mountain Ridge will never forget this experience, and those memories are far more important than if TV broadcasters can properly pronounce “Nevada,” or why what is played as a double-elimination format for nine days suddenly becomes single elimination on the final Saturday.

Mountain Ridge and teams like it are all that is good about the Little League World Series.

Cave is all that is good about youth coaches.

They made history. They’ll never be forgotten in Las Vegas.

It’s a special place in so many ways, but don’t for a second believe those who run Little League aren’t first and foremost considered with the business side of things.

In between, memories are made and lifetime friendships formed.

It’s Heaven, brought to you by Honda.

And, seemingly, everything else.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.