I grew up in a small, northern Alabama town where there wasn’t much else for kids my age for entertainment besides sports. In Albertville, the universal term was “rec leagues”.For me and countless other 7-12-year-old boys across the nation, rec league was a way of life. It’s safe to say that a lot of us today still have memories of the first time we used eye-black for little league baseball. I didn’t care that my mom had to drop me off. The unforgivable “Love you baby, hit a strikeout for me!” (My mom never did much get baseball) didn’t matter because I knew when I got out of the car, I would be the meanest, most badass looking 11-year-old on the field.
Our team? “Catfish Cabin.” I don’t know about other Alabama small towns but our little league teams had to sell their souls (or at least uniform rights) to whatever local business that would sponsor them.That year the 11-12-year-old Catfish Cabin ..ers(?) didn’t win a single game.We only had one twelve-year-old and the rest were eleven. Sure one year doesn’t seem like too much of a difference now but back then one extra year of experience and growth spurts meant a lot. The cool thing about rec league, though, was that if you played on an 11-12-year-old team while you were eleven, you got put on the same team as a twelve-year-old. So the next year, you know damn well that Catfish Cabin pulled a worst-to-first and went 16-0. It’s a great redemption story from my childhood. But I don’t write this to remember the 16-0 team but rather the first bunch clowns that took the field.
I remember what we did after our last beat-down by the hands of “the team”. You know “the team”. You might have even been on “the team” in your little league days if you were exceptionally talented and / or rich. Little League is a wonderful pastime but the corrupt world of underbelly Little League parent politics was so evident that it’s hard to do anything but laugh at the memory now. These dads REALLY cared about their sons little league. Even AFTER they beat the crap out of us, I remember the dad of one of their players giving his son hell because of a poor performance. I watched that kid accept his 1st place trophy and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t happy. Oh, man at these tangents…. I could go on for days.
Anyway, after the drumming, we went to one of my friend’s house for a pizza and pool party and had fun like eleven and 12-year-olds should. Seems kind of weird though right? In a world where NFL players are criticized for the sin of smiling on the sidelines while losing a game, it’s still universally agreed that 11-12-year-olds aren’t subjected to the same standards that paid professionals are. But for how long? You see, what I’m about to reveal could shock you. That night at the party, each loser on that team got a trophy. YES, THAT’S RIGHT! The coaches, parents, and players of an 11-12-year-old baseball team had the nerve to think that just because we didn’t win any games, there was still reason to have a keepsake of that season. Because while we were losing every single game (I can’t emphasize enough how bad we actually were that year) we were also making friends, getting into trouble and all the other things that every 21-year-old male wishes he could experience again.
The trophies weren’t anything special. Mine was just a plastic figure hitting a baseball that read “Noah Logan 2B - #2”. But each kid got to take one home. Some kids were more competitive than others and were still pissed about the game but no one rejected the trophy. I can only thank god that there wasn’t a Facebook at the time. My mother would have proudly taken a picture of this loser and his stupid loser trophy and posted it for everyone to see. After that, all you grumps would have RIPPED HER TO SHREDS because we were obviously being taught it’s okay to lose while forsaking the spirit of competition and ruining everything, RIGHT? No. We were being taught that no matter the result of the game if you try your hardest and have a good time while doing it then nothing else matters. I got that trophy out of my closet the other day. Sure the one from the next year was a lot nicer but it doesn’t change the way I feel about my lowly participation award. I cherish the memories and if anyone had to try to tell me at the time that I didn’t deserve that award, I would have gladly shown them the powers of badass eye-black can give to an 11-year-old’s fighting ability.
Maybe this is an isolated experience and we were the only youth sports team taught that it’s okay to feel good about anything you put 100% into. I can’t imagine we were. But I wish more people out there had gotten these loser trophies in their lifetimes. Because maybe then, I wouldn’t have to see the garbage on Facebook about how awesome James Harrison is for making his kids return their trophies after they lost a game. If you don’t know what I’m referring and questioning if that was a joke, it wasn’t. I loved watching the man play football but what an asshole. James Harrison probably can’t relate as an NFL star player. He was always on “The team”. I have no proof but I’m more than 100% sure of it. James Harrison and the people that supported this kind of notion need one very-very simple reminder. They’re kids. Participation trophies don’t encourage losers, they simply serve as reminders of what it was like before we grew up, became so bitter about everything and started to think like the dad who made his son cry after a 16-0 season. Say want you want, winning isn’t everything. Remember when a new stick of eye-black was enough to make us happy?
