Kids are cool, so step back with your big helium head self

Who am I, Art Linkletter? - Art wrote a series of books, “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” based on TV interviews from his show, “People Are Funny.” Little kids like me, because I wouldn’t care if they didn’t. You’ve got to chill with your big helium head descending into their airspace blocking out the sun. I was on the Boardwalk Aug. 26 ready to photograph what I call the Sundance Swim and Stride 5K – lots of microboppers were on the boards. I asked a trio of bib-wearing 8-year-old boys how fast they could run a 5K. They were telling me 21 to 23 minutes. I told them, “You guys are just like the older runners; you lie about your times.” There was a pause, then they laughed and two pointed to the third, Justin Heffernan, and said, “Well, he can.”   

Truth is not truth - We all heard that statement two weeks ago from Rudy Giuliani, which is the opposite of the popular expression, “It is what it is,” now perhaps, “It isn’t what it is.” That brings me to the word “quit.” Do athletes have the right to leave a team because they just don’t want to play the game anymore? The answer is: They certainly have the right. An athlete isn’t sentenced to a sport; it is an elective decision that can be reversed after much deliberation or on a whim. Adults repress the things they walked away from in life, but perhaps I’m different in going against the grain at times, contrary to what others thought I should be doing. “I Just Walked Away” would make a good anthology, baby bios of successful people who said, “Freak this mess” and changed course rather than endure the dead time of character building. That’s god’s honest “truth is truth,” but not everyone can handle the truth.

Jemele Hill - ESPN fired the 43-year-old sportswriter and sportscaster because of repeated forays into political commentary. The Michigan State graduate lost a $2.5 million a year gig, but her net worth was reported at $4 million, which should keep her flush for awhile. Hill is a smart and insightful, not to mention opinionated, Afro-American woman, and shutting her down is a First Amendment lesson to all of us – free speech intersects, and sometimes conflicts, with the policy and philosophy of your employer, who retains the right to unemploy you. I’ve been one foot over the line as a columnist the last 36 years. I was once terminated by INI newspapers (Delaware State News/The Whale) for writing about a hot dog wrapper. Told to keep all commentary local, I was outside the UVA football locker room before a night game versus Florida State. UVA head coach George Welsh came out, picked a hot dog wrapper off the ground – I noticed a bead of mustard – then tossed it into the air to check wind direction. I had imagined Bobby Bowden had eaten the missing hot dog five minutes earlier. I had fun with “big decisions at the upper levels of sports being made on the wingless flight of waxed paper.” I was gone for not keeping it local. My argument: “Anywhere I go is local to me and my readers.” Like four bald tires, that just didn’t get traction.    

Travel baseball - The Little League World Series championship from South Williamsport, Pa., was a staggering statement of travel baseball. It’s close to 5,000 air miles to Hawaii from Philly and 7,000 miles to South Korea. So hop in the Honda Odyssey and keep wheeling around, but it’s hard to catch up. I was struck when the Hawaiian cheering section started chanting “USA! USA!” Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959. It has the highest percentage of Asian and mixed-race Americans of any state in the union and the lowest percentage of white Americans. The entire tournament is romanticized by ESPN, the same network that fired Jemele Hill for expressing political opinions. The broadcast crew repeatedly went on expressing their personal beliefs that young athletes should play multiple sports. I was thinking: “Call the game. Who cares what you think? Let families make that decision.”       

Snippets - Question: How long does it take to post a numbered school roster to a school website once practice has begun? Answer: For most schools, at least three weeks. Question: How come some schools don’t post game results, scorers and highlights in a timely manner after the completion of games? Answer: Slacker Syndrome. Question: Should goal scorers, running times and other pertinent information be posted for middle school sports? Answer: It’s debatable. Some schools are just philosophically opposed to hyping middle school athletes. Speaking about the Phillies: Is it better to be on the verge of a September collapse than folding the tent in June with the fans still sleeping inside it? Go on now, git!