{"id":39581,"date":"2014-08-21T13:22:57","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T17:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39581"},"modified":"2020-07-13T13:23:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T17:23:09","slug":"when-adults-and-media-ruin-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39581","title":{"rendered":"When adults and media ruin the game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-39582 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/monedavis.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"490\" height=\"265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/monedavis.jpg 490w, http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/monedavis-300x162.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Originally, I wanted Mo\u2019ne Davis to lose, because the hipster in me always wants to see anyone hyped up beyond the stars be brought back down to earth, and to remind everyone doing the hyping that nobody is bigger than the game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Mo\u2019ne Davis\u00a0<em>did<\/em>\u00a0lose, and the Taney Dragons are one more loss away from elimination from the Little League World Series.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But in the aftermath of the loss, I realized that I wasn\u2019t happy that the hype machine was knocked off its tracks.\u00a0 Mo\u2019ne Davis, in the span of the last week, had been turned into this symbol of hope and expectations for not just the female gender, but also the entire African-American race, and I\u2019m happy that the symbol of hope and expectations was knocked down a peg by her defeat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">This isn\u2019t to say that I\u2019m being sexist and racist, and glad that a black girl got beat in the game of baseball, but it\u2019s more to say that I\u2019m glad that every adult and media outlet that turned a 13-year old girl into something completely other than a 13-year old girl, had their totem of hyperbole and bullshit symbolism chopped down a notch by losing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Mo\u2019ne Davis is just a 13-year old girl who happens to be very good at baseball, and I think it\u2019s completely unfair and unnecessary that adults and the media heap all sorts of unnecessary titles and pressure onto the shoulders of a kid.\u00a0 Sure, she\u2019s a she, and she also happens to be black, but on a team, neither of those are supposed to matter, as long as the team as a singular unit can win or lose, together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Adults and the media are trying their hardest to do exactly what teams don\u2019t want an individual to do, which is put themselves, or be put, above the rest of players the team.\u00a0 Mo\u2019ne Davis might have been throwing shutouts in the games prior to her loss to the Nevada team, but if not for her less-heralded teammates, they Taney Dragons wouldn\u2019t have the runs necessary to turn those games into victories.\u00a0 And lo and behold, not all of Mo\u2019ne Davis\u2019 teammates are girls and\/or black.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Needless to say, it disgusts me that adults and the media are tarnishing the game of baseball at almost its purest level, to schill an agenda of inequality in gender and race.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I definitely feel bad for Mo\u2019ne Davis, because she\u2019s an outstanding player, and even in defeat, has conducted herself in a manner in which if I were a parent, I\u2019d feel so swollen with pride with.\u00a0 But in the grand spectrum of things, I think it\u2019s best that she lost, so that people can be reminded that it\u2019s still, just a game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I say everything without being definitive, because at the time I\u2019m writing this the Taney Dragons are not out of it yet, and have a chance to still win it all, as long as they can pull together two consecutive wins, with Mo\u2019ne Davis eligible to pitch again if they make it to a second game.\u00a0 And if that happens, god only knows what circlejerk shitstorm of symbolic hyperbole the media will come up with next to anoint Mo\u2019ne Davis with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Although it\u2019s not going to happen, if Mo\u2019ne Davis were to get the opportunity to pitch in a championship game, I would really appreciate if the floodgates would hold for until after the game has concluded, to flood the world with all sorts of misdirected gender and racial rhetoric, so that maybe, just maybe, the 13-year old with the elbows-and-knees delivery and wicked curveball can focus on the game, and give the Taney Dragons the best chance to win.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">It\u2019s just baseball.\u00a0 Let the kids play baseball.\u00a0 Save the bullshit for after the game\u2019s over.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally, I wanted Mo\u2019ne Davis to lose, because the hipster in me always wants to see anyone hyped up beyond the stars be brought back down to earth, and to remind everyone doing the hyping that nobody is bigger than the game. Mo\u2019ne Davis\u00a0did\u00a0lose, and the Taney Dragons are one more loss away from elimination &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39581\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">When adults and media ruin the game<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,45,15],"class_list":["post-39581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-fail","tag-og"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39583,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39581\/revisions\/39583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}