ANOTHER 'WEED IN THE GARDEN' STORY? OR MORE?

"TOO GOOD" JERICHO SCOTT

Now, I don't know whether to describe this a another 'weed in the garden' type story or something even worse. Maybe a little 'arsenic in the dinner'? This is more common than you can imagine. When I ran a league, we had a twelve year-old who was about 6-0, 190 lbs. AT TWELVE!!! He threw close to 70 miles per hour, with little or no clue as to where it was going. So we had a few meetings spent discussing whether he should be required to move up to the 13-year old field and it's 60 foot pitching distance.

Luckily, LL insurance would not allow an underage kid to move up in class anymore than they would allow another Danny Almonte. Thankfully, he didn't hit anyone all season. Mainly because most if not all of the kids employed a serious 'foot in the bucket' hitting style with an early 'booty in the dugout' exit from the batters box as a chaser.

He was what Dr. Mike Marshall describes as an early or accelerated maturer. In a sense that is what the Little League World Series has become. A battle of the early maturation players. The team that gets the most kids to the growth spurt first wins.
Actually, Little League accentuated that advantage by moving back the birthday for kids to be eligible a few years back, so now you have chronological aged 13 year olds playing on the mini-field. The tournament used to include only 12 year olds, if you turned 13 years old before the tournament ended (around the end of August most years) then you didn't play at this level in years past.

Ahh, the good old days. Before we had to worry about pimping the kids for T.V. money and ratings.

IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FOR THE KIDS.
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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/08/25/pitcher.toogood.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player -- too good, it turns out.

The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.