A Boy is Too Good at Baseball

9-year-old boy told he's too good to pitch By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Aug 25, 7:17 PM ET



NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player — too good, it turns out. The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.

Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho's team, redistributing its players among other squads, and offered to refund $50 sign-up fees to anyone who asks for it. They say Jericho's coach, Wilfred Vidro, has resigned.

But Vidro says he didn't quit and the team refuses to disband. Players and parents held a protest at the league's field on Saturday urging the league to let Jericho pitch.

"He's never hurt any one," Vidro said. "He's on target all the time. How can you punish a kid for being too good?"

The controversy bothers Jericho, who says he misses pitching.

"I feel sad," he said. "I feel like it's all my fault nobody could play."

Jericho's coach and parents say the boy is being unfairly targeted because he turned down an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of one of the league's administrators.

Jericho instead joined a team sponsored by Will Power Fitness. The team was 8-0 and on its way to the playoffs when Jericho was banned from pitching.

"I think it's discouraging when you're telling a 9-year-old you're too good at something," said his mother, Nicole Scott. "The whole objective in life is to find something you're good at and stick with it. I'd rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner."

League attorney Peter Noble says the only factor in banning Jericho from the mound is his pitches are just too fast.

"He is a very skilled player, a very hard thrower," Noble said. "There are a lot of beginners. This is not a high-powered league. This is a developmental league whose main purpose is to promote the sport."

Noble acknowledged that Jericho had not beaned any batters in the co-ed league of 8- to 10-year-olds, but say parents expressed safety concerns.

"Facing that kind of speed" is frighteneing for beginning players, Noble said.

League officials say they first told Vidro that the boy could not pitch after a game on Aug. 13. Jericho played second base the next game on Aug. 16. But when he took the mound Wednesday, the other team walked off and a forfeit was called.

League officials say Jericho's mother became irate, threatening them and vowing to get the league shut down.

"I have never seen behavior of a parent like the behavior Jericho's mother exhibited Wednesday night," Noble said.

Scott denies threatening any one, but said she did call the police.

League officials suggested that Jericho play other positions, or pitch against older players or in a different league.

Local attorney John Williams was planning to meet with Jericho's parents Monday to discuss legal options.

"You don't have to be learned in the law to know in your heart that it's wrong," he said. "Now you have to be punished because you excel at something?"

Japan Invades US

It wasn't until around the fifth grade that I began to think something was wrong. That year, a strange new cartoon worked its way into the social lexicon of coolness. It was called "Dragon Ball Z" and, for reasons my 10-year-old mind could not articulate, it was making me nervous. Ten years later, I can't help thinking that I could have done something, anything, to stop the tsunami of anime that was to come.

In a society dominated by excess and two-second attention spans, cartoons play a significant role in preparing us for the world. Each can be thought of as a 30-minute babysitter, instilling the kids who watch them with certain values and life lessons. But the landscape has changed.

Before I go any further, I should state the following: No matter who you are - whether you're black, white, Asian, Latino, even Canadian - I don't judge you by the color of your skin. I say this because I direct my comments to the media elites, in Japan and elsewhere, who have taken it upon themselves to flood the airwaves with shows like "Pokemon," "Digimon," and "Yugio" - sorry, "Yu-Gi-Oh!" They all started as card trading games, and should have ended there as well. Instead they've jumped to the mass media, where they're slowly chipping away at our collective moral fiber.

It's not a conspiracy. A conspiracy, by definition, requires that multiple parties are working together to achieve some sort of goal. None of the shows I've seen make nearly enough sense to be working toward anything other than a lackluster battle between Bulbasaur and Charmander and the next commercial break.

Don't believe the threat's real? A report from CNN's Tokyo affiliate in December 1997 documented an incident in which "More than 700 people, mainly school children, were rushed to hospitals Tuesday after suffering convulsions, vomiting, irritated eyes and other symptoms." Was it a gas leak at the local school? No. Were the kids breathing glue out of brown paper bags? No. Were they watching "Pokemon"? You bet your authentic Squirtle trading card they were.

Remember the cartoons you watched as a child, like "Rugrats"? Everyone watched "Rugrats." With his toothless grin and indomitable spirit, Tommy Pickles represented the very best in all of us. He was like a Che Guevara for the MTV generation. Sure, when he and the rest of the Rugrats "grew up" I died a little inside. But still, not a day goes by where I don't take a moment and thank Tommy for the life lessons he taught me. So what is Pokemon teaching the next generation of kids? The virtues of capturing exotic animals and making them fight for your amusement? I already learned that from Michael Vick.

Some of you may be thinking, "That's all well and good, but what about all of the mindless American television?" After all, this country invented mindless television. And networks like VH1 are keeping that proud tradition alive. But the difference here lies in the target audience: Shows like "Flavor of Love" and "Hogan Knows Best" are watched by people who have already been stupid for years, even decades. There's nothing we can do but make them as comfortable as possible.

The next generations of kids aren't even getting a chance. Unless something is done to reverse this trend, we're going to be looking at millions of high school dropouts who don't see the point in going to college unless it teaches them to capture magic crystals. No one wants to see that day. This issue transcends politics, even religion. It's the ethical dilemma of our day and age, one that makes me want to throw my hands in the air, and yell, "Will someone think of the children?"

Daddy Day Dump

Dad dumps preschooler in box for unwanted newborns
POSTED: 7:50 a.m. EDT, May 16, 2007


TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A Japanese drop box for unwanted babies triggered a wave of nationwide soul searching Wednesday, a day after it was discovered a preschooler -- and not an infant -- had been dumped there by his father on its first day of operation.

Nationally circulated newspapers warned that the anonymous drop-off, known as "Stork's Cradle," is open for abuse and could traumatize youngsters. They also condemned the father, saying his action could spur copycats.

The drop-off was opened last Thursday by the Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in the southern city of Kumamoto to discourage abortions and the abandonment of children in unsafe public places. The same day, a boy believed to be 3 was found inside.

The boy, who was in good health, reportedly said he was dropped off by his father, who was seen holding the youngster's hand as they approached the hospital. They apparently rode Japan's bullet train to Kumamoto, but it was unclear where they lived.

"I came with Daddy," the boy was quoted as saying by the Mainichi newspaper.

The find triggered a wave of outrage among political leaders on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying "Anonymously throwing out a child is unacceptable." He urged parents to consult social workers for help if raising children gets too tough.

Local media reported that the boy was able to identify himself by name. But it was unclear whether the father had been identified.

The hospital has refused to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns, but said there were age limits on its drop-off service.

Police have decided no crime was committed in the current case because the child was left in a situation in which it was not exposed to immediate harm, Kyodo News reported Wednesday.

"We must rethink the meaning of the baby drop-off," the conservative Sankei newspaper said in an editorial. "Unlike a baby, a toddler may suffer from trauma."

"This little boy must be experiencing great loneliness. We urge his mother or father to come forward," the newspaper said, calling his abandonment "unforgivable."

The Yomiuri newspaper said it was too early to judge the baby-drop, but said that it must be used for its original purpose of receiving newborns, not young children. Parents should also be encouraged to seek outside help before dumping their offspring.

The Mainichi said the misuse of the box could inspire copycats.

A small hatch on the side of the hospital has been set up to allow people to drop off babies into an incubator 24 hours a day.

The drop box was created after a series of high-profile cases in which newborn babies were left behind in parks and supermarkets, triggering a public outcry and government warnings against abandoning babies.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

DDR PE

P.E. Classes Turn to Video Game That Works Legs

SETH SCHIESEL

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Children don’t often yell in excitement when they are let into class, but as the doors opened to the upper level of the gym at South Middle School here one recent Monday, the assembled students let out a chorus of shrieks.

In they rushed, past the Ping-Pong table, past the balance beams and the wrestling mats stacked unused. They sprinted past the ghosts of Gym Class Past toward two TV sets looming over square plastic mats on the floor. In less than a minute a dozen seventh graders were dancing in furiously kinetic union to the thumps of a techno song called “Speed Over Beethoven.”

Bill Hines, a physical education teacher at the school for 27 years, shook his head a little, smiled and said, “I’ll tell you one thing: they don’t run in here like that for basketball.”

It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity. While traditional video games are often criticized for contributing to the expanding waistlines of the nation’s children, at least several hundred schools in at least 10 states are now using Dance Dance Revolution, or D.D.R., as a regular part of their physical education curriculum.

Based on current plans, more than 1,500 schools are expected to be using the game by the end of the decade. Born nine years ago in the arcades of Japan, D.D.R. has become a small craze among a generation of young Americans who appear less enamored of traditional team sports than their parents were and more amenable to the personal pursuits enabled by modern technology.

Incorporating D.D.R. into gym class is part of a general shift in physical education, with school districts de-emphasizing traditional sports in favor of less competitive activities.

“Traditionally, physical education was about team sports and was very skills oriented,” said Chad Fenwick, who oversees physical education for the Los Angeles Unified School District, where about 40 schools now use Dance Dance Revolution. “What you’re seeing is a move toward activities where you don’t need to be so great at catching and throwing and things like that, so we can appeal to a wider range of kids.”

A basic D.D.R. system, including a television and game console, can be had for less than $500, but most schools that use the game choose to spend from $70 to $800 each for more robust mats, rather than rip apart the relatively flimsy versions meant for home use.

In a study last year, researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that children playing Dance Dance Revolution expended significantly more energy than children watching television and playing traditional video games. West Virginia, which ranks among the nation’s leaders in obesity, diabetes and hypertension, has sponsored its own study and has taken the lead in deploying the game, which requires players to dance in ever more complicated and strenuous patterns in time with electronic dance music.

As a song plays, arrows pointing one of four directions — forward, back, left, right — scroll up the screen in various sequences and combinations, requiring the player to step on corresponding arrows on a mat on the floor. Players can dance by themselves, with a partner or in competition. (Though the game, which is made by Konami of Japan, began in arcades, it is now most commonly played on Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox game consoles.)

As a result of a partnership among West Virginia’s Department of Education, its Public Employees Insurance Agency and West Virginia University, the state has committed to installing the game in all 765 of its public schools by next year. Almost all of its 185 middle schools already use it.

The mastermind behind the project is Linda M. Carson, Ware distinguished professor at West Virginia University’s School of Physical Education and director of the state’s Motor Development Center.

“I was in a mall walking by the arcade and I saw these kids playing D.D.R., and I was just stunned,” she said. “There were all these kids dancing and sweating and actually standing in line and paying money to be physically active. And they were drinking water, not soda. It was a physical educator’s dream.”

In February, Ms. Carson and her main collaborator, Emily Murphy, a doctoral candidate at the university’s School of Medicine, announced results of a multiyear study. They found significant health benefits for overweight children who played the game regularly, including improved blood pressure, overall fitness scores and endothelial function, which reflects the arteries’ ability to deliver oxygen.

None of that would come as a surprise to Maureen Byrne, mother of two boys in Chesterfield, Mo., who introduced the game to her local school district after seeing its impact on one of her sons.

“My oldest son, Sean, used to have love handles; he was kind of pudgy, and I’ll be honest: we were worried about it,” she said. “We had heard of D.D.R., and I got it for him for his birthday. We put limits on the other video games he plays, but we told him he could play D.D.R. as much as he wanted. And now it’s like he’s a different kid. He’s playing sports and running, and we see D.D.R. as like his bridge to a more active lifestyle.”

Ms. Byrne and her family demonstrated the game for the local parent-teacher organization in the hope of convincing it to underwrite a test at school.

“I remember going to the P.T.O. meeting and getting in front of all of them without my shoes on and doing the moves, and that was kind of funny,” said Sean, now a 12-year-old sixth grader.

Today, eight schools in the Parkway School District, based in Chesterfield, have their own D.D.R. systems, and three other game systems circulate among various schools in the district, said Ron Ramspott, the district coordinator of health and physical education.

“Our teachers are really buying into D.D.R. as a way to promote both physical health and learning,” he said. “When you’re playing the game you really have to process the information and then also do the moves physically, so we think it can help with brain development as well.”

As Leighton Nakamoto, a physical education teacher at Kalama Intermediate School in Makawao, Hawaii, put it: “The new physical education is moving away from competitive team sports and is more about encouraging lifetime fitness, and D.D.R. is a part of that. They can do it on their own, and they don’t have to compete with anyone else.”

Mr. Nakamoto said that he had used the game in class for four years and that his school had also installed the game in its “Active Lifestyle” room, where students are allowed and encouraged to play in their free time.

Dave Randall, the educational specialist for coordinated school health for the Hawaii Department of Education, said Hawaii was trying to put together a program like West Virginia’s to get the game into all of the state’s 265 public schools over the next three years.

Back in West Virginia, Anna Potter, 12, and Mikayla Leombruno, 13, were not concerned about all of the academic theories as they shimmied and bounced to the beat in Mr. Hines’s gym class.

“I like that you get to listen to music and you don’t have to be on a team or go anywhere special to play,” Anna said after their song. “If you do baseball or basketball, people get really competitive about it.”

Mikayla chimed in, “And you don’t have to be good at it to get a good workout.”

Taser Happy

Taser used on dad leaving Houston hospital with baby

By CYNTHIA LEONOR GARZA and KEVIN MORAN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle


A Houston couple said both the Houston Police Department and the Woman's Hospital of Texas are responsible for endangering their newborn when the husband who held the baby in his arms was hit by a taser as an off-duty police officer as he attempted to leave the hospital early Thursday morning.

But police maintain that William Lewis, the baby's father, endangered the 2-day-old infant by refusing orders to quit trying to remove the baby from the hospital when abduction alarms went off.

Lewis, 30, said he and his wife were preparing to leave the hospital when staff told him he would not be able to leave with the baby. After a failed attempt to leave through the elevators with the baby, who wore an alert sensor that warns hospital officals about potential kidnappings, staff called security, Lewis said.

The man's wife, who did not want her name used, said she came out of her room into the hallway as police arrived and saw off-duty HPD Officer D.M Boling shocking her husband. Boling was working security at the time.

"He was holding the baby when [the officer] tasered him. My baby hit the concrete floor," said Lewis' wife, who was still in the hospital at the time recovering from a C-section. "When I went down to pick her up to take her to the neo unit her scream was so loud and so bad I thought she was dying right there."

The mother said hospital pediatricians examined the baby after the incident and said she was fine, "but my baby she had the shakes real bad. She's not as calm as she was before."

Lewis was first charged with kidnapping, although it was later changed to endangerment, police said. Lewis appeared in State District Judge Debbie Stricklin's court today. His arraignmnent was rescheduled for April 30 and Lewis is free on a $5,000 bond.

Boling tased Lewis after Boling repeatedly told Lewis he could not leave the hospital, Houston police spokesman Officer Gabe Ortiz said today.

Boling's report of the incident does not indicate whether he knew Lewis was the baby's father, Ortiz said.

He said the report showed that Lewis dropped to the hallway floor after being hit by the Taser. Boling estimated in his report that the baby fell from the father's arms about two feet before landing on the floor.

Boling joined the department in September 1984 and was working an off-duty security job at the hospital when the incident occurred.

Records show that since HPD officers began carrying Tasers in December 2004, Boling has shocked at least two other people. In one incident, in February 2005, Boling discharged his Taser three to four times to subdue a man who resisted arrest during a disturbance call.

The reports show that the baby was born April 9 and was two days old when Lewis decided to leave the hospital with the baby about 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, Ortiz said.

Police reports gave no indication that the baby suffered from any conditions that required continued treatment, Ortiz said.

Hospital officials did not address whether they believe the father should have been leaving with the baby in a statement released after the incident.

"Our nurses educate the mothers and their family members upon admission regarding the safety procedures throughout our hospital," hospital officials said. "The security of our infants is our utmost priority here at The Woman's Hospital of Texas."

Security measures identify the mother with a new infant from the moment of birth, they said. "In this case, our safety measures worked. Our infant abduction deterrent was effective."

Woman's Hospital spokeswoman Kris Muller said the hospital has had the most advanced anti-abduction meaures availalble in place at the hospital since it opened in 1976.

"We regularly upgrade it whenever improvements are available,'' Muller said.

The hospital delivered 8,867 babies in 2006 and 8,333 in 2005, Muller said.

St. Luke's Hospital spokeswoman Melinda Muse said that institution also has sophisticated anti-infant abduction security measures in place. However, the hospital does not release details of the systems, Muse said.

"My deal is that I broke no laws and maybe I broke some hospital policies but I broke no laws," Lewis said. He and his wife said they were preparing to leave because they felt they were ready to leave, but "it was like you can't leave no explanation, no reason," Lewis said.

Lewis' wife said "the only thing that endangered my child was that police officer who tased my child when Will was holding the baby ... I don't know how it went from us leaving to this."

Lewis' wife said she was prepared to ask for a copy of the hospital's surveillance video. She also said she may not return to the hospital "because they hired an irresponsible cop and he was taser happy."