Little League question

In many states, identities of juveniles charged with felonies are not protected by the law. If a 12-year-old is charged with felony assault, it's a still a felony charge to be handled by the district court, which can't seal the file, and a paper can print his name.

In your example, it's felony robbery, assault, and the prosecutor can add a weapons enhancement to hang a potentially longer sentence over the kid's head, hoping he'll scare him into pleading guilty for a lesser sentence. (The prosecutor has to keep his conviction rate high, because he has to run for office every four years.)

Underage victims? No, don't print the name. But kids committing that kind of violent crime? Report it.

... oh, youth sports? I don't care. Do whatever.

 

Amen! No interviews, just the coaches.

 

Who cares if word will get out? Anybody caught up in a Little League game to where they need to know the kid's name who blew it instead is a sicko IMO. You can write around it and say an infield error cost them the winning run or a third baseman's error is you have to go that far. I repeat ... who cares?? It's Little League. Journalistic integrity is not at stake here.

Like Mile High said, there are a ton of ways to write around it. I'd like to see you try to interview the kid who costs his team the game when he's crying. Any coach that would allow the kid to be interviewed is not a good coach. I wonder if Ace is trolling. (It probably doesn't matter anyway; kids that are 12 don't read newspapers anyway).

 

If you've never interviewed someone who is crying after a loss, you must not have been around much.

 

I don't get this at all. Are you THAT much against Little League baseball? It sounds like you've taken any horror story you've ever heard and automatically assigned it to every Little League program in the world.

 

Actually it is. Uusually when minors are charged with a crime their names aren't printed. Many times they are several years older than those who play Little League. It's pretty much accepted that when minors are arrested the names are not printed. So considering that, printing the name of a 12-year-old kid who makes an error is a bad call.

 

So where do you want to draw that murky line?

12 vs. 13?

Middle school vs. high school?

High school vs. college?

I know you're not going to hold to the minors defense for very long, or we'll never mention another high school interception.

So how far do you want to climb out on that limb?

 

In Little League, I'll go with not a murky line. The oldest kidscc just turned 13 and are entering 7th grade, 2 years from hs. HS, yes there is a murky line. Little League, IMHO, unless you want to embarrass a kid or don't like his parents, no need to mention the name of the kid who made an error. Pretty sure you're not going to get angry calls if you go with throwing error, bobbled a ground ball etc.

 

OK ... but you made the comparison with a minor committing a crime. And that was a crazy parallel to draw.

 

Could you write around an error or just not mention it? Sure

Should you write around or ignore errors in Little League? Yes. Most of the time.

I just think at the regional level, there would be times when it appropriate and necessary to mention errors and who made them.

What if the first baseman dropped a ball in the 5th inning, allowing the tying run to score, then hits a game-winninng homer in the sixth?

You still OK to say "a ball was dropped in the infield, leading to the tying run to score" and not asking him about his error?

 

I guess I'm undervaluing coverage of LL regional events. To me, life will go on, no more subscriptions will be sold, no more single copies will be sold, no journalistiic integrity will be broken if you write around the LL failures. I guess if a seventh grader makes a key error and comes back later and wins it with a grand slam you could write a big story in detail. Or you could just write about the game and not focus on one seventh grader over another.