The Little League World Series has become a major event on the ESPN calendar, as games are given primetime spots on big ESPN as well as weekend timeslots on ABC.
For many, the appeal of watching some of the best 12-year-olds in the world play baseball is how pure it all feels, with heartwarming stories about players, touching shows of sportsmanship, and a bunch of kids playing the game they love (at a high level). However, for the kids themselves, this is the most important thing they’ve ever done, and plenty of them are hypercompetitive and are in “win at all costs” mode, which can lead to some unintentionally funny moments.
On Saturday, we saw that when Iowa held a 6-3 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning over Washington, needing just one out to secure the win. A pitch that certainly looked a touch off the plate was called a ball on a 3-2 count to put runners on first and second and bring the tying run to the plate. While it was a borderline pitch, the kids from Iowa thought it was strike three and had begun to trot off the field, standing in disbelief at the ball call.
Their coach brought everyone together to calm them down and help them move on, but the shortstop was not ready to let go just yet and hot mics caught the young man blaming ESPN for rigging the game for ratings.
Kid from Iowa saying ESPN is rigging the Little League World Series pic.twitter.com/Z86exhK47A
— SmittyNYK (@SmittyNYK) August 20, 2022
ESPN hot mic catches Little Leaguer blaming bad call on ESPN fixing the #LLWS 😆 pic.twitter.com/svPSWfroul
— Brandon Contes (@BrandonContes) August 22, 2022
Listen, I don’t know what the strike zone was in this game prior to that pitch and Little League zones can be pretty wide so that might’ve been a strike all day, but it certainly appeared off the plate. Also, just generally, the umpiring at that level is so uneven (even with the best) that blaming a questionable ball/strike call on ESPN rigging things for ratings is pretty funny.
If nothing else, the Little League World Series joins the NBA Finals (and pretty much every other major sporting event) as being things ESPN has been blamed for rigging, with the Iowa shortstop playing the Ayesha Curry role here.
The good news for Iowa is they got out of the jam with no damage done and won the game 6-3, despite the best efforts of those dastardly ESPN executives pulling the strings in Williamsport.
