Sure, there are plenty of things I like about Little League: For example, it keeps kids off of my lawn. Also it promotes exercise … unless the player in question is in the outfield. But when the final week of August rolls around, I expect to see children in football pads and cleats, or at least in the gym watching girls volleyball.

Take the lad above, for instance. Luke Ramirez is 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, and plays for the Parkview (Chula Vista, CA) Little League All-Stars. He should be hunting quarterbacks right now in some Pop Warner youth program, but instead he’s still terrorizing kids half his size on the baseball diamond — his team is 2-0 in the Little League World Series at Williamsport, PA. ESPN loves the this time of year, of course. But below are 10 reasons to not like it so much … only one of which involves gigantic kids who might kill you with a foul ball. Read more…

• Brooks gleams the cube, as he & SbB Girl Cecilia check out the X-Games.

• Percy Harvin regales U of Florida recruits with wild Gator tales of partying, pot smoking, and coach choking.

• Speaking of the SEC, does Matthew Stafford’s U of Georgia girlfriend have enhanced gazongas?

• Fresh off the LeBron Dunkgate comes the Tiger Woods Fartgate.

• Detroit Pistons rookie DaJuan Summers places a Twitter bet with porn star Valerie Luxe on who can get 4,000 followers the fastest.

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• Prince Fielder gets royally p.o.’ed at Guillermo Mota for plunking him, then tries to crash the Dodgers’ clubhouse after the game.

(Look out! Here he comes!)

• Tulsa, Oklahoma, has hopes to host the 2020 Olympics. If they can get a spokesperson like Katarina Witt, then we might just listen.

• Reggie Wayne comes to Colts camp in a dump truck & decked out in construction worker gear. Your move, Clinton Portis.

• The NHL plans to suspend & not pay any players who get hurt during any Olympic summer training camp.

• Frank Deford dresses down ESPN, calling the Worldwide Leader a “journalistic disgrace“.

Read more…

Here below we see another unfortunate Little League Slide Fail. It’s reminiscent of the way I did it — once injuring my butt, ripping my pants and killing a squirrel during the same slide into second. Yes, my technique was horrid, but never once in my youth baseball career did I imagine that I could get money for it.

A Staten Island parent whose son tore up his knee in a slide during a Little League game has settled a lawsuit with the league for $125,000. In the suit, the parent claimed that her son’s coach had never taught him how to slide properly. Don’t get any ideas, New York Mets.

Read more…

It’s stories about Little Leaguers that cause me to hearken back to my own younger days and the things that I love most about baseball. The freshly-mowed grass, the sound of the bat hitting the ball, the law firm of Moscowitz & Moscowitz filing writs with the law firm of McCready & Schwartz. And now, following our National Anthem and the reading of the injunction, let’s play ball.

(Hey kid in the back adjusting your hat, way to seize your moment of fame)

A controversial (which usually means completely stupid and unwarranted) call in a West Virginia Little League All-Star game has caused the mother of one of the 10-year-old players, who is an attorney, to file an injunction and halt the tournament. Bridget Furbee, mother of Bridgeport player Tanner Furbee (above, far left in front), sought an injunction in Kanawha County Circuit Court to stop the championship game, after an umpire disallowed a home run by her son’s team due to an interference call.

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Well, they don’t fool around in Texas, I suppose. William Jacobsen, a youth baseball coach from Little River-Academy, will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibilty of parole for sexually abusing two boys, one who played on his Little League team. Jacobsen, 32, was arrested in Mexico where he had fled with his wife, Marilyn Wesson, 58, after initial police questioning. (Frances McDormand in “Fargo”: “He’s fleeing the interview! He’s fleeing the interview!”)

Jacobsen was the first person indicted and tried in Bell County under a new law that went into effect in 2007, which raised the punishment range between 25 years to life in prison without parole for continuous sexual assault crimes that occur beyond a 30-day period. What makes me especially unsympathetic is the fact that he threatened to harm the families of two other kids if they talked about the abuse. Charming fellow.

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God only knows where a Little League got $130,000 — those must have been some pretty aggressive candy bar sales drives — but someone seems to have stolen it. The former treasurer for Stony Point Little League in New York has been arrested for cooking the books and making off with the money meant for equipment, hiring umpires and, well, hmm … there’s still 110 grand left over.

Maybe they were going to have a pizza party with the money — with live music by Bruce Springsteen. Anyway, Karen Ramos was arrested and charged with second-degree grand larceny and 26 counts of first-degree falsifying business records. Well, the banks don’t have money anymore; where else is she going to embezzle it from? Read more…

The Little League World Series is coming up pretty soon, that time when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of Williamsport, Pa. Billy Funkhouser and Brenden Barrows (center and right, below) are no different — they’re teammates on the Hillsborough (Calif.) 11-12 year-old All-Stars, and had been co-MVPs of their league during the regular season. But they had more in common than they knew.

While researching an old baseball last month that Funkhouser’s dad had in his collection, the boys discovered that they each had rather famous ancestors who were also teammates — on the 1909 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Sam Leever, a star pitcher on that Pittsburgh team who won nearly 200 games in his big league career, is Brenden’s great-great uncle. And Fred Clarke, the Pirates’ player-manager that season and a member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, is Billy’s great-great grandfather. Read more…

You know it’s summer when the youth baseball coaches come out and start having opposing players arrested for nonsensical reasons. Actually Bill Marshall is a sheriff’s deputy, part-time Ballston Spa Village police officer, and coach of Galway of the Ballston Spa Junior Baseball League in New York. Marshall had Gary Hall Jr., an opposing player, arrested on Saturday for “intentionally” hitting one his his players with a pitch, and for kicking a batting helmet after the game.

After Galway had beaten Ballston Spa, 2-1, last week, a Galway player punched Hall, 16, in the stomach in the post-game handshake line. According to witnesses, Hall pushed the other player away, then fell to the ground in pain. Hall then kicked a batting helmet near the dugout. If you thought that ended things, you don’t know American youth baseball. Marshall filed charges and had Hall arrested. Read more…

• Danica Patrick helps sell cell phones by autographing some boobs - but not the kind of racks you really want to see.

• Tony La Russa sues Twitter over pseudo-St. Louis manager account.

• Vince Young wants a trade? No, it’s all just a wacky misunderstanding!

• The Penguins give a little extra effort in beating the Red Wings - thanks to no penalties for extra men on the ice.

• Red Sox caps - now available with the fresh scent of watermelon!

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