Politics of Innocence: Major League Baseball’s Attempt to Make Game “Kid Friendly” through Its 2017 MLB Little League Classic

(Iowa Western Community College, Clarinda and Page/Freemont County Centers, USA)

Abstract: This paper was originally a short presentation made at both the 23rd Annual Baseball in Literature and Culture Conference at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas, in April 2018 and at the 35th Annual Conference of the Sports Literature Association at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, in June 2018. The theme of the presentation is my personal argument of how Major League Baseball in its 2017 MLB Little League Classic, held at the Philadelphia Phillies A-level minor league Bowman Field in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and televised on ESPN during Little League World Series, co-opted childhood innocence as a marketing ploy. The ploy was to get viewers, sell merchandise, and please advertisers by romanticizing the ideal of baseball as just a kids’ game in the backyard when it mingled Major Leaguers with Little Leaguers in the cozy minor league ball park. I maintain that 2017 MLB Little League Classis was weak staging of a neighborhood, sandlot game in how it presented/ESPN televised the event. Outside this event, MLB’s regular operations and its on-field product undercut childhood innocence, ironically eclipsing many real, beautiful moments of family enjoyment in the stands. Additionally, I argue that youth sports are often quite politicized and costly to parents and local communities. News and commercial web sites are referenced to confirm specific information about the event as well as other stated facts.

Key words: 2017 MLB Little League Classic, politics of innocence, youth sports, sports television marketing/advertising to youth