By:Laura Lane
Last week, the Herald looked at how the league reworked its divisions. Under the old system, all children moved up to the Major League when they reached age 12. Under the new system, less skilled 12-year-olds will remain in the Minor League and play with the 11-year-olds, while the top 10- and 11-year-olds will go to the majors.
Mitch Zyman, the Merrick-North Merrick Little League president, believes the new arrangement will benefit the children. It-ll help kids who are picked last in the draft, especially the 12-year-olds, because they-ll be playing with kids of their own ability, Zyman said. I had a kid last year that didn-t get a hit the whole season. That-s depressing for a kid. They-ll get more hits since now the ball won-t be pitched as fast to them as it would be in the Majors.
Marshall Silverman is a member of the Little League Board of Directors whose 11-year-old son was asked to move up to the Majors. Silverman kept his son in the Minors. I-m speaking as a father and as a Little League official when I say I think the rearrangement will benefit the kids. I didn-t move my son up because if he moved up with the older boys at the top of their skill level, he would have been pitched to faster and harder. He could have played with them and not got hurt, but he wouldn-t have enjoyed himself as much as he will with the kids of his own ability. He can play the positions now that would have gone to older kids, the kids with the better ability.
Despite praise for the new system, Ed Metzger, a former Merrick-North Merrick coach of eight years, believes the league was realigned to promote competitiveness, and perhaps now it-s too competitive.
How competitive is too competitive?
During the spring, Little League is supposed to be about building children-s skills, said Metzger. Then, customarily, the best kids from the spring teams are selected for summer squads, which compete against travel teams from other leagues in tournaments that lead to the state championship and eventually to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
The Merrick-North Merrick Little League, Metzger said, is getting everyone in the spring to be aggressively competitive like the Williamsport teams, which are a different kind of baseball, very cutthroat. In the spring teams, you have some kids that are not very athletic. All kids should get a chance to play in the spring.
Metzger coached in the Merrick-North Merrick League until this year, when the Merrick-North Merrick Little League Board of Directors said he could no longer manage a team. Metzger believes he was barred from coaching because he refused to require his team to become more competitive. Little League went a different direction, a more competitive one, he said. I let kids play what position they wanted to as much as I could. Zyman declined to comment about why Metzger wasn-t allowed to coach.
Metzger had coached Bernard Floody-s son. Floody believes Metzger was blackballed by the league. Floody said Metzger always put in extra effort, and his dismissal is a loss for the league. I would go to work at 6 a.m., said Floody. Ed would be out there in his truck, raking the field, even if his kid wasn-t playing.
Floody, too, believes the league has become too competitive. The best thing for me is when you see your kid up at home plate, and his best friend is pitching, and they-re both smiling, said Floody. That-s what it-s all about, not some kid asking his coach if he-s got more runs than one of the other kids.
Warren Breining is director of Athletes Helping Athletes, a not-for-profit group that sponsors student-athlete and parent education training. He believes kids should want to win at baseball.
But, he noted, studies have shown that 70 percent of children drop out of competitive sports by the time they reach age 13. When asked why, they say the competition had become too intense and was no longer fun, according to Breining.
Some coaches don-t know what their role is and what objectives they should have, he said. There is a very untrained population out there. The objective should be for the children to learn life skills, life lessons, and learn to love sports, being a part of a team. They should learn to master skills and learn discipline. Good coaches know winning is not a goal. It-s a result.
Breining said the Williamsport Little League World Series promotes elitism in sports. The Williamsport model, he said, encourages Little Leagues to identify their best players during the spring. Those players then comprise the travel teams that work their way to Williamsport. Do we really need a national championship for 12-year-olds? said Breining.
The Merrick-North Merrick Little League Board of Directors recently invited parents to a meeting at which the board was available to answer questions. Held on the night of a snowstorm, the meeting was sparsely attended, with about 30 people representing the 1,100 children signed up to play Little League this year.
Merrick Board of Education member John Davis attended. I-m not a strong advocate of what Merrick-North Merrick Little League is doing, said Davis. I believe if you put kids who aren-t as good [with the better players], they-ll learn from the other kids. Some kids just respond quicker than others.
Diane Seaman, of Merrick, described the meeting as heated, with the majority of people unhappy with the league-s new arrangement. Of the new division system, she said, I don-t think this sends a good message to children of their value and worth. Everyone brings something different to a team. Even in professional baseball, there-s still a low-end and the high-end player.
Seaman said league officials told her that they would speak with parents at the end of the season to see how their children fared under the new system. She also said the meeting ended peacefully, with everyone shaking hands.
Still, Seaman, who has a son in the league, said others in the community think Merrick-North Merrick-s tone has changed. People feel competition has stepped up, Seaman said. They think Little League has gotten too competitive. People on the league-s board think that-s fine. But is this the right message, to send [12-year-olds] back to the minors?
Despite her misgivings, Seaman sees positive changes in the league. She cited an increase in sportsmanship among children and managers. And she said she doesn-t believe competition is bad. She wants to be sure the children-s self-esteem remains intact.
Howard Kass, the Merrick-North Merrick league vice president, believes the community meeting was a success, and that certain misunderstandings were clarified. This change was made for the benefit of the 1,100 kids in the league, he said of the new system. The new divisions, he noted, don-t benefit board members- children any more than any other parents- kids. In fact, percentage-wise, fewer board members- children moved up to the Majors when compared with the rest of the league.
Kass said, We explained to people that we are doing this for the betterment of the league, not for five or 10 kids. Many people came to the meeting with one point of view and left with another.
Kass doesn-t believe the league is becoming too competitive. I think there are certain kids who are extremely competitive kids, and those kids are achievers in life, he said, adding, And these kids are often the most compassionate kids.
Kass also said he does not believe in winning at all costs. Yes, we want to win, he said. Are we any more competitive than we were five or 10 years ago? We are more competitive in our travel teams and more successful than we-ve ever been. It-s a small number of people who think [rearranging the divisions] is an issue.
Differing opinions among leagues
Some Long Island Little Leagues divide kids by grade rather than age or skill. Among them is the Hewlett-Woodmere Little League. Richard Kahn, Hewlett-Woodmere-s vice president, believes dividing kids by skill is potentially damaging. It-s demoralizing for a 12-year-old to play with a younger child, he said. We [in Hewlett-Woodmere] don-t play a 12-year-old down, even if it-s their first year playing baseball. Our league doesn-t stress competition. This program is for everybody.
The Port Washington Little League also divides children by grade, and it never demotes 12-year-olds. Jimmy Cosolito, Port Washington-s baseball commissioner, said, We try to be competitive when we go out of the community with our summer teams, but the spring teams, it-s about the kids having fun, and we try to teach them. It-s not that cutthroat.
