Is broadcaster Stephen A. Smith the ‘voice of reason’ standing up for our freedom to express ourselves?

Remember the Jackie Robinson West youth baseball program on the city’s South Side? They’re the ones who nearly won the Little League World Series a couple of years ago – only to have their accomplishment officially erased from the Little League Baseball record books.

SMITH: Voice of reason?

League officials contend their rules were violated and that the Morgan Park neighborhood-based Jackie Robinson West program put its team together from talented youth across the South Side and surrounding suburbs – rather than just their respective neighborhood.

JACKIE ROBINSON OFFICIALS have finally filed their lawsuit against Little League Baseball, contending the league acted unfairly to taint the on-field accomplishments of those 12-year-olds who brought international glory to Chicago back in 2014.

But what also is interesting is that the lawsuit also includes ESPN and one of its announcers – in the form of Stephen A. Smith.

For those of you who aren’t sports junkies compelled to watch the blatherings of the many people who offer their opinions on ESPN, Smith is one who has a particular record of irritating people.

I’m sure he’ll say he just speaks his mind and says what he believes to be true. Others say he’s just a donkey (insert more crude term here) who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

IT SEEMS THE Jackie Robinson West officials take Smith more seriously than I do. I rarely think anyone’s commentary – other than my own – is worth anything. And even my own is only worth the price (gratis) you had to pay in order to read it!

But because his opinion was carried forth on ESPN and all the sports nerds of our society were watching (except for those who might have been tuned into a Fox Sports channel at the time), the local officials want to believe they’re forevermore tainted.

How many 'cheaters' wind up with an Oval Office appearance?

As for the offensive comment that has local officials upset, it seems Smith said it bothers him that a baseball program named for Jackie Robinson would play loose with the rules concerning eligibility and residency.

Which if you think about it, isn’t an outrageous thought at all. Even if you believe, as I do, that much of the outrage concerning the Jackie Robinson West residency issue is a lot of sour grapes from people who couldn’t beat the ball club on the playing field.

THE MODERN-DAY family structure isn’t the same as it was back when Little League programs became organized some 80 years ago. There are families with split residences – with one parent living in the area proper and the other does not.

But I’m not about to get into trying to justify the way the Jackie Robinson West program operates – other than to say I am aware it is a highly-structured program that attracts young people from across the area who want to play baseball.

And a part of me does wonder if the people who object to Jackie Robinson West’s accomplishment are really bothered by the fact it is an all-black organization in a Little League that all-too-often is dominated by white people?

I’ve already seen some reports about the lawsuit saying that it is the portion against Stephen A. Smith that will draw public attention and news coverage.

WHAT IF IT is capable that Jackie Robinson West can do what many people in sports have tried to do and failed – that is, put a gag of sorts on Smith’s mouth!

The simple fact is that he’s a blowhard who spouts off on anything and everything, and for his good fortune has found someone willing to pay him to do so. If anything, facing a lawsuit may wind up creating friends for Smith of all the people who want to rant about “those cheatin’ black kids from Chicago.”

Personally, I don’t think much will become of their lawsuit. Particularly if it turns Stephen A. Smith into the voice of reason whom we all stand up for to protect the concept of freedom of expression.

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Is Robinson, Ripken, Ruth youth baseball trifecta the best solution?

Perhaps it only makes sense that if the entity known as Little League Baseball wants to treat its 2014 U.S. champions as a pariah, that program will search for someone who won’t view them as something shameful.

That’s probably the most sensible way to view the reports Wednesday of how the Jackie Robinson West baseball program on Chicago’s far southern edge is now negotiating with the entities known as Cal Ripken Baseball and Babe Ruth Baseball (which is for older children through age 18) to be affiliated with them.

FOR IT SEEMS that if the Jackie Robinson baseball program that was created in the early 1970s to try to bolster baseball interest in inner-city neighborhoods is to continue, it no longer wants to be part of the Little League entity that many people probably think is a generic label that applies to all youth baseball programs.

The Jackie Robinson West team that won the U.S. Little League championship last year had ballplayers who lived in assorted southern suburbs, which means theoretically they should have played in suburban-based Little League programs.

But the reality is that the Jackie Robinson West program was more attractive to many of those kids because it is a city-based program with leadership focusing attention on African-American interests and concerns.

Many of the suburban players had dual addresses that theoretically made them eligible to play in the Jackie Robinson program, which is why Little League International officials initially said there was nothing wrong with the Jackie Robinson program.

PERHAPS IF IT had only been one or two players on that team last year, it wouldn’t have been much of a concern.

But when six of the 12 players on the Chicago-based squad that captured national glory came from places like South Holland (two), Dolton, Lansing, Lynwood and Homewood, it gave that bit of ammunition to the people from other Little League programs who were still bitter that they had lost to the Jackie Robinson team on the path to the Little League World Series and who started up the complaints that the DNAinfo.com website originally reported on.

Both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday that Jackie Robinson league officials are talking with the officials overseeing the Cal Ripken and Babe Ruth programs that exist in Chicago and the south suburbs. Nothing is definite yet.

For it seems possible that local league boundaries could be drawn in a way that all the territory where the Robinson league team came from would be included. Or that some territory might be shared in a way that the local kids would get to pick which program they’d rather play baseball in.

NOBODY OUGHT TO have an objection to that concept!

The alleged act of “cheating” that supposedly occurred (which strikes me as being more a matter of other leagues being jealous that some kids chose to play in the Chicago-based league rather than their home leagues) would be legitimized.

Perhaps it would be best in that the Jackie Robinson program would be able to operate the way it does without someone trying to claim it is violating the all-sacred “rules” that govern this matter.

As someone who always had a hard time thinking of the league’s actions as being foul because they were being so open about what they were doing, this really does come to be the best solution.

PERHAPS IT REALIZES that the south suburbs have truly become an extension of Chicago’s South Side and that there is a certain back-and-forth of people and activities – rather than being the place certain people fled to because their “new” neighbors had the “wrong” complexion.

And if Jackie Robinson ball ultimately makes for a trifecta of baseball names honored with youth leagues, the real loser might well be Little League Baseball.

It would have the knowledge that it chased away an interesting championship ball club while trying to pretend that teams from Las Vegas, Nev. (national champions) and St. Charles (state champs) somehow won something of significance on the playing field.

Which ought to be the place where all sports disputes get resolved!

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EXTRA: JRW -4/Seoul - 8

Ugh!!!


Not only did the U.S.-representing team from the Roseland neighborhood-based Jackie Robinson West baseball league manage to blow a ballgame to the international champion team from Seoul, South Korea, they did so big time.


KEEPING THE GAME close enough to dream of a comeback until the end, when the South Korea team managed to score five more runs in the final two innings -- turning an early 3-1 deficit for Chicago into an 8-4 loss.


Still, those kids managed to give Chicago a sporting ride that likely will be the highlight of 2014.


And it was encouraging to hear the team's coach, Darold Butler, remind the kids prior to their final at-bats that they had already managed to accomplish much of significance by being the lone U.S. team to survive to the championship game.


"Look at those other teams, they're not here right now," Butler told his pre-teen players. But that end-of-game Korean surge was just too much of a deficit for a sixth-inning rally of 3 runs to overcome.


SO WHERE DO we go from here? Those kids get to come back to Chicago, just in time to resume the upcoming school year. They get to resume their daily lives.


Although we can hope that they all gained enough of a taste of excellence that it can motivate them through the rest of their lives -- even if this turns out to be the highlight of their athletic careers.


So even though we're not getting a real "World" championship team this year, it has still been an interesting week watching the Little League World Series tourney. It will create a lasting memory, which will be necessary because it may be another three decades or so before a Chicago-based youth ball club makes it back to Williamsport, Pa.


Now we can go back to wondering if the Latin pairing of Avisail Garcia and Jose Abreu will lead the Chicago White Sox to a World Series someday in the near future? Or if the Cubs' grounds crew will ever learn to lay down a tarp in a timely fashion?


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EDITOR'S NOTE: Was I the only one who saw the purple colors worn by the South Korea team and the gold and blue of Chicago and thought it kind of looked like Northwestern vs. Michigan?

EXTRA: Jackie Robinson baseball now far bigger than Defender sports pages

It was earlier this past week that I happened to be in the Pullman neighborhood when 9^th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale got a crowd of 400-plus people all excited by merely uttering three initials.

“J-R-W.”

AS IN THE Jackie Robinson West baseball league that consists of a couple dozen teams from predominantly-black neighborhoods such as Roseland, Pullman and Morgan Park on the far Sout’ Side (and a few surrounding suburbs that have developed sizable African-American communities).

It’s a league that usually only gets public attention from the Chicago Defender, which often uses pictures of young African-Americans in action on their sports pages.

But now, that league is something far much bigger. They’ve been partaking in the Little League World Series tournament this past week, and became the best youth team in the United States when they defeated a Las Vegas, Nev.-area team Saturday by 7-5.

Which was particularly pleasurable because the one negative for the Jackie Robinson West all-star ball club during the past week was a 13-2 loss to that same Las Vegas team.

IT WAS PAYBACK of the finest kind for those of us with a Chicago interest and enjoy seeing one of our youth teams show it can compete with the best of the rest of the nation.

And considering how in recent years baseball has become so overwhelmingly pale in complexion while lacking in much interest amongst more urban communities, the sight of an all-black ball club takes on a certain other significance.

Particularly since they’re now going to represent this country when they take on the winner of the Japan/South Korea game played Saturday night.

I can’t think of a better ball club to represent what this country is about than the kids from the South Side. Particularly since way too many people tend to think the only things of significance in Chicago come from select neighborhoods on the north lakefront.

IT’S THE ENTIRETY of Chicago that makes it amongst the most interesting places in this country (and quite possibly on Planet Earth) to be. A small piece of that South Side existence is now getting national attention.

It’s a good thing that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has already committed city officials to having some sort of city-wide celebration when the team returns to Chicago in coming days.

Memories of that 2005 post-World Series parade the White Sox made through Bridgeport and Chinatown on their way to downtown come to mind. Although is a Grant Park-type rally also possible.

Let’s only hope that these kids go on to be inspired to achieve greater success in life (and not necessarily just in the world of athletics). Because the sad thing would be if this moment at age 12 became the highlight of their lives.

IT OUGHT TO be a moment that inspires all people to want to strive for greater things and higher levels than we already have achieved. That could be the real-life lesson we all learn.

So as we relish this moment of a Chicago-area ball club (even one of 12- and 13-year-olds) actually winning something (as opposed to seeing the White Sox blow a couple of ballgames to the New York Yankees in recent days or watching the Cubs’ ground crew show its ineptitude at laying down a tarp to avoid a rainy day), keep this thought in mind.

The next time Beale rattles off “J-R-W,” it won’t be just a room full of Pullman people cheering.

It ought to be the nearly 9-million of the metropolitan area  expressing its joy.

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Sout’ Side (but not the White Sox) make it to a ‘World Series’ of sorts

Baseball fans oriented to the South Side have something to cheer about this season – and not just the fact that Cuban sensation Jose Abreu is in the running to lead the American League in both home runs and runs batted in.

It’s not enough to pull the Chicago White Sox into contention for a division title.

BUT THERE WILL be talk of “World Series” bandied about on Thursday, and hopefully in coming days.

For we’re at that tournament in which youth league teams from around the world converge in Williamsport, Pa. – the annual home of the Little League World Series.

There are some “international” ball clubs present, but most are from the United States. And this year, the team representing the Great Lakes Region is from right here in Chicago – the predominantly-African-American Roseland neighborhood to be exact.

For the Jackie Robinson West Little League champion team this year advanced through the rounds of qualifying games to beat an Indiana team to make the trip to Williamsport.

ON THURSDAY, THEY will play their first game in the World Series against a team from Lynnwood, Wash. ESPN will carry the game live at 2 p.m.\

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has talked of having a viewing party so Chicagoans can watch the game, while Gov. Pat Quinn declared a “day” across Illinois for this year’s Jackie Robinson championship team.

That’s pretty heady stuff, particularly since the Jackie Robinson League baseball program is usually something only the Chicago Defender newspaper bothers to pay any attention to – and even then only to get a picture of a kid looking cute while trying to do something athletic.

So chances are most of us Chicago baseball fans had no clue what was happening in Roseland that a baseball team good enough to make it to the international tournament was in our midst.

REMEMBER THE CONTROVERSY from a year ago when the baseball program at Walter Payton College Prep tried cancelling out a game against Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep out of fear of the neighborhood?

That was Roseland as well, and in fact the Brooks high school uses Jackie Robinson League facilities for its program.

It will be intriguing to see a group of inner-city kids taking on the more heavily-experienced (when it comes to travel) teams that usually wind up playing in these youth tournaments.

And if some baseball fans get a jolt to see that black kids don’t just dunk basketballs, that may be a plus as well.

NOW I’M NOT about to predict a Chicago victory in the Little League World Series. The Jackie Robinson West champions (Jackie Robinson East baseball is played out in Newark and Jersey City, N.J.) may well be among the first teams knocked out this year.

Although let’s be honest.

If they were to accomplish something, it would be the sporting highlight of the year for Chicago – particularly since neither professional baseball club is going to win anything of significance this season.

So go Jackie Robinson West. Beat Lynnwood. And do the city proud as you work your way through the ranks of the top youth league baseball players the world has to offer. Show them you belong!

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What is safety? What is politicking?

I have no objection to regulatory measures meant to protect the public safety. There are times when it takes the presence of government to ensure that things are done properly because a business might merely want to believe that measures cut into their profit margin.

Yet learning that Gov. Pat Quinn earlier this week signed a bill into law that some want to think will make youth soccer programs safer makes me think that not all measures mean much.

THIS PARTICULAR MEASURE, which has taken on the name “Zach’s Law,” isn’t likely to change a thing. I don’t believe we’re any safer now than we were before.

Yet some politicians were able to use the death of a boy to drum up a controversy that they then used to score political points for themselves.

This particular law says that soccer goals now sold in Illinois must be designed in ways that make them tip-resistant. Or else they have to be anchored to the ground upon which they sit during matches.

Considering that many soccer programs are using open fields that serve multiple purposes (not all of which are athletic), it is just a reality of life that the goalposts are not permanently mounted onto the field.

THE “HOME” TEAMS often bring the goals with them, carry them out onto the field prior to the match – then have to remove them once the match is over. Some might say that this merely adds a little more time to the preparation and cleanup for a match. I’m skeptical.

I also can’t help but notice that the new law will only apply to goals sold once the law takes effect – which is on Aug. 2, 2012. Does this mean athletic programs need to hold off on purchasing a pair of goals for the next year?

Because the idea of tip-resistant goalposts won’t apply until then.

Maybe sporting goods suppliers will have to hold significant markdowns to sell off the goals they now have in stock. What I suspect will happen is that there will remain for quite some time goalposts in use in Illinois to which the new law will simply not apply.

IT’S NOT A legal loophole. It’s more like a sieve!

Yet political people were eager to vote for this measure when it came before the General Assembly during this spring session. All because it had a sad story attached to it.

The story of Zach.

Zachary Tran was a 6-year-old from suburban Vernon Hills who died in 2003 after a goal tipped over during a team practice and landed on top of him. Considering that I remember how small my own nephew and his teammates were when they were six-year-olds playing youth soccer, I can easily comprehend how severe the injuries can be.

THE 186-POUND goal most definitely weighed more than the boy.

Yet I can’t help but think of what happened to Zach as being the ultimate fluke accident that cannot truly be anticipated, and to which no amount of legislation could ever protect us from.

What happened to Zach actually reminds me of a death over a decade ago in the central Illinois town of Towanda. It was during a youth baseball game in which a boy was hit by a pitched ball in the chest.

It was something about the exact moment the ball hit him, combined with the rhythm of his heartbeat, that caused the heart to stop beating when the ball hit his chest. Had either the ball or the heartbeat been off by a fraction of a second, the beaning in the chest wouldn’t have been fatal.

I GUESS WE’RE lucky that no political person tried to use that incident to push for laws regulating youth baseball equipment even further than the regulations already call for.

Any politician who thinks that we are significantly safer now that “Zach’s Law” is in place (including the sponsoring state Rep. Carol Sente, D-Vernon Hills, and state Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan) is delusional. Or, they’re lying.

It bothers me when the images of cute kids get used by political people to try to create legislation to make themselves look more favorable.

Perhaps Link thinks that giving us “Zach’s Law” this spring overcomes the fact that he sponsored the casino expansion measure that, among its many provisions, ever-so-conveniently puts a casino in the 2,000-population town of Park City – which is little more than a couple of mobile home communities located in Link’s Senate district.

DON’T GET ME wrong. I don’t have a hang-up about Zach. I usually get offended anytime a bill takes on some child’s name – as though we’re supposed to feel guilty and ashamed of ourselves if we don’t back their overbearing bill that usually does little to change the practical reality of the law.

Such as down in Florida, where the people who demonize Casey Anthony are pushing for a bill known as “Caylee’s Law” – which would allow for felony charges against a parent if police believe the parent is not sufficiently cooperative with investigations into their missing children.

As though there aren’t already enough laws police can use to seek charges against those who don’t cooperate with their investigations. But voting for Caylee will be something that the Casey opponents will use to shame political people.

I’d like to think that somewhere, Zach and Caylee and every other child who has had his (or her) name appropriated for political purposes is looking down upon us, shaking their heads in disgust at the scene we have created.

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