The Best Event In Sports

The Little League World Series is the best event in sports.  Go ahead and try to disagree with me.  Because if you've never been, you don't know what you're missing.  It truly is something that needs to be on every sports fan's bucket list.  And once you've been there, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.  You'll soak up every minute and become a kid again yourself.  (I went about 15 years ago when my uncle was chosen as an umpire, one of the biggest honors of his life.)

In a world where everything about sports has become so overly commercialized, the Little League World Series remains simple and pure.  Admission is free, the staff is pretty much all volunteers and the kids are out there purely for the love of the game.  It really is the perfect late-summer, feel-good event.

And just when you thought they couldn't make the Little League World Series any better, MLB came up with one of the best ideas of Rob Manfred's tenure as commissioner.  They hit a home run with the creation of the MLB Little League Classic, an event that celebrates everything right about the sport.  This was just the second time they've done it, and it's already one of those events that people look forward to.  They've already announced next year's participants (the Pirates and Cubs), and I think it's safe to say this is going to be an annual thing.

For all the logistical "inconveniences" that come with flying in the day of the game and playing in front of 2,500 people in a Minor League ballpark, you won't hear a single player complaining.  Just the opposite, in fact.  The Major Leaguers eat this up as much as the Little Leaguers.  If not more so.

They couldn't get Jake Arrieta to leave yesterday.  The Phillies went over to the ballpark to get ready for the game, but he stayed at the Little League complex until the final out.  He was supposed to be interviewed during the Staten Island-Houston game, but the Phillies didn't get there until there was one out in the top of the sixth.  He was in the booth for literally one out, but he stayed up there and did the interview for the full 15 minutes between games...and the Staten Island pitcher even came up to join him.

Same thing with the Mets.  During the MLB game, their starting pitchers left the dugout and went to sit in the stands with the kids.  For one day, everyone idolized them.  There were no heckles from opposing fans or boos from a disappointed home crowd.  It was a break from the daily grind of being a Major Leaguer and an opportunity to remember why they got involved with the game in the first place.  Because baseball is supposed to be fun.

"Fun" is the optimal word about what took place on Sunday.  From the moment the planes touched down to the moment they left Williamsport, the Mets and Phillies enjoyed themselves.  The real question is really who enjoyed it more--the Major Leaguers or the Little Leaguers? 

Of course, for the Little League teams that got to meet them on the tarmac and ride the bus to the complex with them, that's a thrill they'll never forget.  Nor will hanging out with Major Leaguers or sharing a field with them before an actual Major League game.  Then, of course, there's the opportunity to simply go to a Major League game, which was probably the first for a lot of these kids (and might've been the last for some of them).

Then there's the guys like Todd Frazier, who's a bonafide Little League legend!  He was the star of the Toms River, NJ team that won the title 20 years ago.  Now he's a Major League All-Star.  Fraizer was one of three players in last night's game who played in the Little League World Series.  Along with Michael Conforto and Scott Kingery, he's proof that you can make it.

Speaking of Todd Frazier, as the Commissioner pointed out, in what other sport can a player's career-defining moment come when they're 12 years old?  Those memories immediately came flooding back to him.  Same thing for Conforto, who was back in Williamsport for the first time since.  Arrieta's team never even made it to Williamsport.  They lost in the regionals.  But he still remembers it like it was yesterday.

It's become like the NHL Winter Classic.  Teams and players are begging to be involved.  Kyle Schwarber of the Cubs will get his wish next year, when they play the Pirates.  Obviously, the number of teams is limited because they need to be close enough to Williamsport to make it work (other than the two Pennsylvania teams, really only the Orioles, Nationals, Mets, Indians or Reds could reasonably host).  But that enthusiasm has spread, and it's a wonderful thing for the sport.

Next year they'll have a similar event in Omaha, when the Royals play the Tigers right before the College World Series.  I love that idea, too, and I think that event will be just as successful.  But it'll be different.  The College World Series is played in a 20,000-seat stadium.  And those players will be in the Minors a year or two later, and the Majors not too soon after that.

But playing in a 2,500-seat stadium full of Little Leaguers who worship you is something different entirely.  It's an experience that turns Major Leaguers back into kids, if only for a day.  And it's safe to say no one, from the Mets, the Phillies or any of the 16 Little League World Series participants, will ever forget it. 

Well done, MLB.  Well done.