The boys from McAllister Park Little League in San Antonio will play in the U.S. Championship on Saturday, provided they can drag themselves away from the babes clamoring for their attention. They are doing very well with the 12-13 year old ladies who have taken a liking to their favorite players ... and these "sharks" are on the prowl. Observe:

"The one in the green shirt is calling me," [Kyle] Pollard said. "She's my stalker. This is like the ninth time this has happened." ....

"It's pretty weird," [Steven] Cardone said. "I don't really know what to do a lot of the time. The good thing is that I don't have a cell phone, so I just give them Kyle or Wyatt (Willis') number and I don't have to talk to them." Willis claims to have collected 26 phone numbers. His success is touching only the surface of the team's overall fandom. ....

"I mean, they were nice and took our pictures and got our autographs, so it was cool," Drew Brooks said. "But yeah, she made a jersey with my name on it. That was weird." ....

[Zack] Morrow was talking to one group of girls earlier in the week when a reporter walked up and the girls scattered. "Go stand over there," he shouted at the reporter. "You blew it. You stopped the shark attack."

Oh, man. Wait until these kids get to high school and find out that LLWS rings are no longer a license to pull talent. (Talk about peaking too soon.) The moms are freaking out too, of course, because they know what these junior miss hussies are after. Those seven minutes in heaven can quickly turn into lunch milk support payments until graduation.

Unfortunately, not all of the attention is welcome.

"An old man gave me an Emmitt Smith action figure because he saw on TV that he was my favorite player," said Pollard. "That was the first action figure I ever got from an old man I don't know."

Oh ... my. You should probably tell another adult about that.

Little Leaguers are livin' large [My San Antonio]

•It's pretty much unanimous: everyone hates Liberty National, the golf course built over a toxic industrial site in Jersey City. Well, what do they expect? Nicky Santoro is buried under the 15th green.

•So, which is worse, a clubhouse cancer like T.O. or your number one receiver being Patrick Crayton? That's life for the Cowboys for a while, after Roy Williams goes down with a shoulder injury.

•John Elway to tie the knot tomorrow with former a former Raiderette. Hope he had his fun, because once she says "I do," she won't let him near her black hole ever again.

•Your Little League World Series final four: California, Georgia Texas, Mexico and Taiwan. The semis are tomorrow, and finals on Sunday. So, no need to leave the house to get your crying children fix this weekend.

•Mike Vick lines up in the slot, in the shotgun and behind center - and only one of his six plays goes for a decent gain. Yup, he'll fit in just fine as an Eagles QB.

•Yes, it's come to this: extreme pogo jumping. Not nearly as hardcore as extreme jump rope, which I believe involves barbed wire.

•Don't act like you wouldn't pay to see this. From "Dr. Coolsex," the live action Mario Kart movie:

Baseball is supposed to teach youngsters the value of teamwork and fair play. But sometimes the game is just so damn frustrating that all you want to do is drill some kid in the back with a fastball. Mercer Island's Brandon Lawler certainly understood that after allowing the tying and go-ahead runs to score in the top of the sixth (and final) inning against Georgia—an inning that included three wild pitches and two passed balls. His coach came out to talk him down, but Lawler was not in the mood.

COACH: "Hey, we're going to come up again."
PITCHER: "Is it okay if I just hit this batter?"
COACH: "What? No. No. Are you kidding me? ... Let's get this guy. Come on. We're still in this game. One-run game. You wanna stay in?"
PITCHER: "No."
COACH: "You wanna come out right now?"
PITCHER: "Yes, I do. Can I sit out?"
COACH: "No, you're going to first base."

Now I know a lot of people are going to get down on this kid for pouting and quitting on his team, but you know what? I guarantee you that more than few big leaguers have acted even more childish and pissy than this when on the mound. And it's hard not to sympathize with a 12-year-old who just messed up the biggest moment of his life in front of a national TV audience. Sometimes sportsmanship can go take a fucking hike.

Little Leaguer shows sportsmanship, heart in defeat [Stupid Sports Blog]
Warner Robins Rallies in Sixth [Little League]

Rice explained that the All-Star chumps you see today, can't compare to genuine American heroes of Jim Rice's day. They didn't have the rock and roll and the drugs back then, so their old timey brand of baseball was pure and good. Unlike the kind you see from that hippie Derek Jeter.

Guys that I played against and with, these guys you're talking about cannot compare ... We didn't have the baggy uniforms. We didn't have the dreadlocks," Rice said. "It was a clean game, and now they're setting a bad example for the young guys." [...]

Flexing the muscles in his right arm, Rice said, "That's all the steroids you need. ... It's called God-given talent."

So remember kids—say your prayers and eat your vitamins and you too can wait 15 years to get into the Hall of Fame on a sympathy vote. Then you can badmouth the existing generation of baseball players all you like.

Hall of Famer Rice takes big leaguers to task [AP/USA Today]

• Flat-brimmed caps. The first minute upon receiving your team hat should be spent creasing the top and rolling the brim, preferably so that the ends almost touch your cheeks. When I played, a cap such as this would have gotten you tied to a tree in the woods for most of the summer.

• Giving up home runs to Canada.. Their baseball fields don't completely thaw until late July, and their bat racks contain nothing but hockey sticks, snowshoes and umbrellas. And so scenes such as this are totally unacceptable, even if the opponent is Italy.

• The National Anthem on violin. The only thing that could make this worse is if Alfalfa accompanied on vocals. Welcome to a fall and winter of ass beatings, son.

• Parents who are way too into it. As we can see, Josh's mom is wearing less than the minimum 15 pieces of flair. I guess she just doesn't love her son very much.

• Goodyear Blimp. Good rule of thumb: Any youth sporting event which includes a blimp should be avoided.

• Crying in baseball. Capturing tears makes for compelling television ... if it's Adam Morrison or Dick Vermeil. If it's a 12-year-old Little Leaguer who just struck out in front of a national audience, that's child abuse.

• Instant replay. Half the fun of being a kid is to argue over whether a ball was fair or foul. How about turning the camera on the crappy umpiring behind the plate?

• Old guys who forget how many grandkids they have. Every kid in his section has hit this guy up for snack bar money; some of them twice. The sad part is he thinks he's at the Civil War reenactment.

• Dugout, the Little League mascot. Bland, Disneyesque costumed rodent teaches children that imagination is not important; just make sure that our mascot offends absolutely no one. Next year, give me Blowie, or give me death.

• Little League pledges. "I won't cheat?" F—- you, Little League Baseball, you pretentious, fascist windbags. I taught my son not to cheat when he was two, so send your patches where they'll do some good ... Bud Selig's office to John Edwards, or the White House.

Sauceda struck out all 12 batters he faced in a 12-0 win over Emilia, Italy on Sunday; the game ending after four innings due to the 10-run mercy rule. If you were in a moderately-long line for a polish dog, you missed it.

Sauceda starred at the plate, too, going 3-for-3 with six RBI, including a grand slam in the third inning. "The speed of that pitcher doesn't exist in Italy," Italian manager Andrea Bettati said, shaking his head.

Of course Bettati's voice was dubbed, and it was hard to hear what he said over the Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

How are U.S. teams doing? Lake Charles, La., pitcher Trey Quinn threw a no-hitter in a 9-0 win over Jeffersonville, Ind.; and Waipahu, Hawaii, beat Tampa, Fla., 10-2. Tokyo beat White Rock, British Columbia, 9-3; and Maracaibo, Venezuela, stopped Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 12-0. Jeffersonville, of course, was the team that had a no-hitter on Friday but still lost.

And now a quick glance at the calendar reveals that the teams who make the finals in Williamsport will have about three days of summer vacation remaining before school starts. Thanks, Little League, Inc.!

LLWS Sees First Perfect Game In 29 Years [NBCSports]

Maryland scored in the first off a walk and an error, and got two runs in the fifth off a hit batsman, a walk and four wild pitches...Ellis hit Nick Karlen with a pitch and walked Brady Hornbecker to start the Maryland rally in the fifth. He struck out the next two hitters, but the wild pitches allowed Karlen and pinch-runner Mark Grunberg to score, making it 3-2 and delighting their raucous fans.

Ellis struck out 11 on the day. But it sounds like they coulda taken the kid out in that spot. What about that, skip?

[Drew's] father, manager Derek Ellis, said his team would bounce back.

"It's baseball, it's not life or death,'' he said. "So we lost one, big deal.''

Thanks, Dad. No big deal. Why should I care about the team's trip. My kid got to pitch the whole game! Let him drive the team bus while you're at it. Well, wait, that might be an actual life or death scenario. Never mind.

Indiana Pitcher Gets No-Hitter But Loses At LLWS [SI.com]

I've always found ESPN's obsession with the Little League World Series pretty self serving. They are, after all, making money off the backs of 12-year-olds. I have nothing against Little League — I once coached it — but I have no clue as to why anyone other than coaches or parents would want to watch it. It's actually pretty boring; the umpiring is usually terrible and the parents are nuts. And the best players are mostly the ones who've hit puberty first, and watching a six-foot teenager hit popups that go for home runs over a 200-foot fence isn't my idea of compelling viewing.

All that having been said, however, Daulton Carriker's pitch-perfect quote on Sunday, after hitting the title game-winning home run against Japan, is making it hard on us cynics. "I felt like I was flying, like Peter Pan," Carriker said. "I didn't know what I was doing." Who but a kid could get away with a quote like that? That made it all kind of OK, at least for a day.

Just Peachy [SI.com]

This nation may be moving toward exposing athletes on a national level at a younger age — what's the point of televising high school football? — but for some reason, I grant the Little League World Series an exception. Maybe it's because of how the announcers treat the kids: as kids, not as competitors. Any player bio whose pertinent information includes "favorite food" is certainly trying to keep the event free of bad sportsmanship and belligerent parenting. Through the final inning, you can tell that all the kids playing are having fun, until the last out when a winner is crowned, and then one team starts crying. That's the other thing. This is the final stage of someone's athletic career where crying is an acceptable response to losing.

Right now Georgia and Japan are tied at 2-2, and we're through four innings. In the end, I won't care who actually wins, provided the team that wins is from the United States.

UPDATE: And here come the waterworks from Japan. but Dalton Carriker hit a solo home run in the 8th inning to give Georgia its second straight LLWS championship with a 3-2 win. Another impressive streak was held intact, as the United States reached the LLWS final for the umpteenth straight year, which is a testament to not only our country's little children, but also to the hard-working men and women that gerrymander the bracket.

Wallpole is located about 20 minutes southwest of Boston. So before the game, the team got a pep talk from Curt Schilling, Coco Crisp and Red Sox manager Terry Francona, and Rando's catch was shown on the scoreboard at Fenway Park. All well and good ... but check out the Walpole team introductions, below, and note who the kids' favorite players are. Two are tied for first with three votes each. They've gotta be Red Sox players, right? And one one of them certainly doesn't play for the Yankees. That would be crazy.

Move Over Erin Andrews, There's A New Chica On The Block [Awful Announcing]
Mike Rando! [Minneapolis Star-Tribune]

Nice grab, kid. Now let's see you make that same catch while breaking your face. -Clare

Rando's big league catch helps Walpole beat Hamilton in LLWS opener [AP via the WWL]

But Georgia's victorious march through Williamsport was not without controversy. Specifically, the Columbus manager was accused — by an opposing team's parent, during a game, of course — of throwing his team's final game of pool play last week. The Northern League (Ga.) Blog has the details:

Apparently Connie Watson, the mother of Phoenix, Ariz., player Hunter Rodriguez, thinks Northern didn't try to win. Watson ran up and down the Northern side yelling at the players. She then started yelling at the Northern fans. Police had to remove Watson from the game in the sixth inning. "This is totally wrong," Watson told the East Valley (Ariz.) Tribune. "They laid down their bats. This isn't hearsay, it's absolute fact."

Columbus had already secured advancement to the semifinal round when it lost to the team from Illinois, with that result eliminating Arizona. Look, it's all pretty complicated. Just know that all of the kids involved are playing Madden '07 right now and don't remember a thing about it.

Columbus Wins Little League Title [Ledger-Enquirer]
Bitter Finish To Dawgs' Run [East Vallley Tribune]
The Theory [Northern Little League Blog]

Let's look at the Little League World Series. Oh, I'm sorry, the Little League World Series presented by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, its official name. The Little League World Series presented by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes that takes place on national television, and whose preliminary rounds take place on national television. The Little League World Series presented by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes that has sponsorships out the wazoo (not a Marxist term, technically), including the likes of ReMax, the official real estate company of Little League Baseball.

Tell me, Little Leaguers — when was the last time YOU bought real estate? Exactly.

Now, Little League Baseball itself is a non-profit organization, and all of the money it makes from product tie-ins goes toward its own funding. But Kellogg's and ESPN are under no such restriction. Of course, this doesn't apply to the kids from the recently eliminated Staten Island team, most of whom are already employed as dockworkers.

What Does 'Strike' Mean To Little Leaguers? [MSNBC]

But we still have sympathy for the Erin Andrews of the world, if just because no matter what they do, no matter where they are, no matter how much work they might put in ... to their male colleagues, they're pretty much still just a skirt.

Witness this report from last night's Little League World Series game broadcasted by Andrews and Eric Karros.

Erin Andrews was doing a bit piece about an injured player who was hurt playing ping pong. She throws it back to Brent Musberger and Eric Karros, and Musberger talks about Kirk Gibson and how memorable that was. Karros replies, "Yeah, I think all of these boys will have something to remember with Erin Andrews." Musburger responds, "yeah," and is followed by 15-20 seconds of silence. It seems Karros is trying a little to hard to replace a former Mariners legend.

That's, of course, entirely inappropriate for a live television broadcast. And yet we do kind of think those 12-year-olds are indeed going to remember Andrews forever.

For Steinbrenner, $5,000 is throwing dollar bills in the air. Everything counts, don't get me wrong, but it's disappointing. And A-Rod, he plays $1,000 a hand in poker, he might as well throw $1,000 in our dugout. I don't want Steinbrenner's money. I want A-Rod's money. He's making $20 million a year.

It's just as well. From what we know of the Staten Island kids, they'd just blow the extra money on booze and cigars. The team plays what will most likely be their last game today.

Oh, and Johnson had also tried to get the Mets to fork over a little cash. One can probably guess what happened there ... they never got back to him.

A-Rod, Boss Ripped By N.Y. Little League Boss [MSNBC]
From The Mouths Of Unusually Large Babes [Deadspin]

• Dhahran, which qualifies for the tournament nearly every year, has a tradition in which all of their players dye their hair blond before the first game.
• Durley, 13, doesn't pitch. He does, however, turn any sentence he hears into a rhyme.
• Dhahran also has players who are 6-3 and 5-8.

Meanwhile, Sunday's ESPN LLWS broadcast included a soft-focus feature on the Lake Charles, La., team, whose manager died of cancer before the squad made it to Williamsport. Seems the coach had a habit of giving his players coin pendants for good play, and all the players displayed their coins, as misty, heartwarming music played in the background.

Then it was back to the live action. ESPN broadcaster Eric Karros informed the audience that the Lake Charles team was not allowed to wear the lucky coin pendants because "Little League World Series rules prohibit the wearing of necklaces, chains, pendants or any form of jewelry." And on the next pitch, a Lake Charles batter was called out on a botched call by the first base umpire.

Little League Baseball, Inc.: "Taking all of the fun out of it since 1939."

Man Among Boys In Little League World Series [MSNBC]

(UPDATE: Apparently, Nationals reliever Jon Rauch is taller than Randy Johnson. So there you go.)

A precious moment last night during the New England/Midwest game as I was flipping through—a kid gave up a couple walks or hits, not sure, Skip was coming out to pull him, and ESPN's mikes caught the little scamp expressing his frustration. "He's not giving me shit! The ump won't give me shit. Don't touch me! This is bullshit!" Two regrets: 1. I was so embarassed and disgusted by this f—-er that I impulsively changed the channel like it was the Wonder Years and Kevin just got wood in gym class, thereby losing the Tivo continuity, and 2. Hal Reynolds wasn't there to give the kid a "hug".

That observation is enough to make me forgive the disturbing Wonder Years visual. But yeah, that's fantastic. Little League has its very own budding Albert Belle.

Little League World Series [Little League Online]

Yesterday, Portsmouth and Colchester played for the right to play in the game that decides who goes to the LLWS. Colchester won the game, 9-8. Until it was discovered that the Colchester coach failed to get one kid his necessary at-bat. The game was handed Portsmouth on a 6-0 forfeit instead. Colchester's going home.

Ouch. That's a rough way for a group of 12-year-olds to lose. I'm guessing there were a lot of temper tantrums thrown in the Colchester area last night, from petulant kids and petulant parents alike. The coach should probably grow eyes in the back of his head. Youth sports parents don't always react well to this sort of thing. I feel bad for the kids, but hey... life lessons, I suppose.

Colchester called out on a rule-book violation [Burlington Free Press]
Moral Turpitude In The Little Leagues [the mighty mjd]