This kid is making sports fans everywhere proud

If you’ve ever gambled on sports, you know the feeling. You spend all your time prepping, finding the perfect line, and studying the trends in order to maximize the money you can win. You get through the first three legs of your four-game parlay totally unscathed and all that’s left is the final game, which you considered your easiest W. It’s Bills-Texans, and you took the Bills moneyline. Lo and behold, as the game’s winding down, somehow Davis Mills went off for 430 yards, five touchdowns, and another on the ground, while the Bills had their worst outing of the season. The Texans win 45-20 and improve to 2-9 on the season while the Bills fall to 8-3.

How, of every game you put money on, is that the one that falls through?! This can’t be right?! Vegas knows you were about to beat the casinos and plotted your downfall as soon as you put in that bet three days ago. They partnered with Buffalo Wild Wings and had the referees in their back pockets. That had to be the case. Nothing else can explain what you just witnessed! I mean, how did the ref miss that holding call on that pivotal third-and-long in the second quarter? That totally shifted momentum and it was all downhill from there. It’s fixed. Everyone knows the league is in cahoots with the sportsbooks. It’s all just a giant scam.

That’s a pretty standard reaction, a perfect example of appropriate coping after losing out on a massive payday. We never see this happen with the athletes themselves, though. Sure, we’ve had our fair share of athletes call out their league after retirement claiming that everything was rigged: Benny Cunningham, Dwight Smith, even Larry Bird once claimed an NBA Finals was rigged, but they would never say it out loud.

Well, when the athletes are younger and less experienced in television, all those insane theories come to the front of their minds and sometimes they can’t help but blurt them out to explain all the tomfoolery they’ve had to endure.

To offer up a little more perspective, the umpire, who was likely a volunteer by the way, called a ball on a close pitch to the previous batter. A strike would’ve ended the game. After that questionable call (not saying it was bad; in fact, I think it was off the plate) from the home plate umpire, Iowa shortstop Mason McFate immediately told his coach his thoughts. “Whoever’s pitching this at ESPN, so [Washington] can come back.” Bold call, considering his team was up 6-3 with only one out left before the end of the game.

You could make the argument that since this is Little League, the umpire should have been more forgiving to the pitchers on borderline calls. It’s tough to throw balls over the plate consistently at that age. So, maybe a few inches off the plate would still fall in the strike zone. However, that’s exactly what happened on the first pitch to the next batter. You can see it in the video. That breaking ball was clearly off the outside, yet it was called a strike. And wouldn’t you know it, Iowa won the game 6-3.

It was just awesome to see the kid this passionate about the game. Sure, you’d love to see him back up his teammates a little more and convince them to move on from the call like the coach did, but we shouldn’t expect that from a 12-year-old. All I know is that we’ve all been there, kid. Whether it be 49ers’ fans calling BS after some questionable officiating decisions in the 2013 NFC Championship Game, Saints fans claiming the 2018 NFC Championship Game was rigged after that no-call on Nickell Robey-Coleman, or me at a sports bar after my third six-game parlay in as many weeks fails to hit, every sports fan has assumed the worst and blamed the powers that be for scripting the game at some point. As McFate would have it, Iowa held on for the win, though. Most of the time, it ends in heartbreak. At least he didn’t have to deal with that.