Little League World Series

The shorter of the short people has been fascinated for the last couple years by the coverage of the little league world series on tv and to be honest, we've gotten into it, too. Indeed, I've been to gatherings recently where everyone knows the teams, mentions specific players,... Seeing kids close to his age, playing seriously good baseball and getting to do it on tv clearly resonates with the shorter of the short people and seeing the game played by someone other than super-rich spoiled professional athletes seems refreshing to us. But it worries me on some levels. On the one hand, in this era of the child obesity epidemic, anything the encourages exercise for kids seems a good thing. At the same time, we hardly need to elevate the status of jocks further in our culture. On the one hand, there seems something pure about kids playing the game. But, on the other, does this elevation only mean that little league, which is already often disgustingly political, is going to become even more infected? Is the attention to the little league world series overall a good thing?