Our coverage of Little League evidently has parents of nine- and 10-year-olds talking. They’re discussing a headline we ran in print July 22, 2015: “Highlands pummels Hastings in U10 BC final.”
READ MORE: Highlands Batters Hastings
I love hearing from readers, so keep the calls and messages coming. I heard from several parents this week.
Two fathers of players at Hastings Little League were put out by our word choice. These two dads seemed to be reading from the same script. “I would love to show this article to my son but am unable to because it is completely off.” That’s a quote from a caller. You can read a similar message in a letter on our op-ed page next week.
One said our headline was “disturbed.” I don’t agree with that but will keep in mind these players are young and a loss like this will be memorable because of the stage but also because of the disparity between runs.
Another sent me the Little League pledge, which begins "I trust in God." This move was as passive aggressive as the pledge is out-dated. He may trust all he likes, but that doesn't change the fact his team lost 12-1 and was mercied by the fourth inning.
Still, the verb "pummelled" is admittedly aggressive, and both parents made good points.
Other headline options we could have used include dispatched, defeated, deflated and even that unimaginative stalwart, beat.
The online headline reads “batters,” which is not a reference to a batter but a baseball pun. And, in a championship final where the winners mercied the losers, you could also accurately say crushed, hammered, trounced, thrashed, smashed, walloped, whipped…
The metaphors are extreme and exciting, just how many like their sports. And this is something nine and 10-year-old players will come to learn. Teams lose. Sometimes they lose badly, even if they played well.
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But another point from that story: I wrote that one team “sailed through the round-robin undefeated” and also reported all teams won at least one game. These facts are obviously in contradiction and it’s an error. The tournament winners, Highlands, lost two games before winning the provincial title. The error is mine.
