It has become the matchup I’m hoping becomes reality
in coming days – pitcher Mo’Ne Davis going up against slugger Pierce Jones.
He of the three home runs and a triple who led the
Jackie Robinson West team from the Roseland neighborhood to a victory to kick
off the Little League World Series. She of the Philadelphia-area team that also
is playing in Williamsport, Pa., who pitched a complete-game shutout and only
gave up a couple of hits.
BIG SLUGGER AGAINST top pitcher – a key matchup that
will occur if the Little League tourney plays out in such a fashion that the
Chicago and Philadelphia ball clubs wind up facing off against each other.
Much has been made of the fact that Davis is a
12-year-old girl. Although all it really proves is that girls can be athletic,
and most likely many of the boys she is facing have yet to go through that
teenage growth spurt that turns them into adults and will erase whatever
physical advantage she now possesses.
Although as one who enjoys watching baseball and often
hears of the decline in the number of African-American ballplayers in the
professional ranks (largely because of the upshot in recent years of
ballplayers from Latin American and Asian nations coming to the United States
to play ball), I would find this story to be a bit encouraging.
For Davis is black. As is Jones, and his entire
Chicago-area ball club. That’s what happens when a Little League program
representing an African-American portion of Chicago winds up getting good and
winning the qualifying tournaments to represent the Great Lakes states in the Little
League World Series – which has eight U.S. ball clubs and eight international
teams.
YES, I’M FOLLOWING the activity of the team from
Nuevo Leon, a northernmost Mexican state along the U.S./Mexico border – which kicked
off its play by beating Canada 4-3, then losing Sunday 9-5 against a team from Japan.
But the big games that caught attention early on
were that 12-2 victory by the Sout’ Side club against a team from Lynnwood,
Wash. (I'm going out of my way to erase Sunday's 13-2 defeat from my memory); along with Davis’ shutout against a team from South Nashville, Tenn.
It was unique to see black ballplayers being such a
dominant presence on the ball field. Not that I mean that in any bad way.
The degree to which some people with racial hang-ups
were probably getting annoyed at the sight (or thought) of such activity was
pleasing to me.
IT WAS ENCOURAGING to see some of the nonsense-talk
that some people spew get rejected while watching these particular kids excel
at something that some people would want to think they’re not supposed to have
any interest in.
Plus, there’s the fact that they were kids – not quite
at the stage in life yet where such an experience would lead them jaded.
I don’t know if any of these kids is destined for
professional athletics in any form. It may well be that these few days in
Pennsylvania will be a highlight moment that they will carry with them for the
rest of their lives.
I’m also not convinced this is some seminal moment
that will help shift black people back to an interest in baseball away from
certain other sports. It would take several consecutive years of this – along with
a certain shift in the baseball mentality itself – for that to happen.
BUT WATCHING THESE kids does create some intriguing
moments on the ball field.
Particularly the thought of a Jones/Davis matchup.
Will Jones and his Jackie Robinson West teammates be
the ones who can handle Davis and smack her pitches around the ballpark as
easily as they did the kids from Lynnwood, Wash., last week?
Or will Mo’Ne be the one who schools Jones and
company – giving them a lesson in humility that our city’s professional ball
clubs give Chicago fans every time they lose another game on the field?
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