What happened to the toy store?

When I was 12 years old, my Little League baseball team faced a decision. We had played a game earlier in the season that we were unable to finish because of weather or some other occurrence.

I can’t recall the exact reason we didn’t finish the game, but I do recall what happened at the end of the year. We missed out on the league playoffs, but the team we faced in that game had a chance to get into postseason play if it could win that missing game.

Since our season was essentially over, the league officials gave us a choice on playing the game or simply forfeiting the win to the other team and allowing them to move into the playoffs. I remember wanting to play, to have a few more innings with a team I had played with for three years.

One of our more influential teammates, the star player on the team, decided he did not want to play, and he “encouraged” the rest of us to vote with him. Being the sheep we apparently were, we “collectively” chose not to play.

When I got home and my mom found out what had happened, I got a lesson from her in standing up for myself and not just following the crowd. As I recall it went something like this (I’m sure you’ve all heard similar advice), “If he jumped off a bridge, would you jump along with him?”

Baseball was meant to be fun, to provide a chance to learn life skills and bond with teammates and coaches. It was meant to be just a game.

For some reason this story came to mind as I watched the craziness in college football over the last week or so. Insulted that it was not invited to the College Football Playoff, Notre Dame opted out of any kind of postseason game with the statement that the players had chosen that course of action.

Other schools, and a number of individual players, are choosing to pass on participating in bowl games for various reasons.

While I’m sure the top players on these teams are fine opting out, I am guessing there are other players, those who seniors who have had less playing time over the years perhaps, who would really like to put on that Notre Dame uniform just one more time and run out of the tunnel with the guys, Rudy-like, but whose voice is silenced by the majority.

I have been increasingly bothered by the changes in college sports. It was inevitable that the calls to pay players more and more money would lead to situations like this.

I guess, in my naivety, I long for the days when we didn’t treat sports so much like life and death, when the chance to play A GAME was more treated as a source of joy.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to visit with the PGA pros and participants in a program called PGA Hope earlier this week. It’s a program that provides free golf lessons to veterans to help them heal and connect. It’s building community through sports.

I have covered sports for a long time, and I know I have contributed to the win-at-all-cost mentality that leads a team like Notre Dame to take its ball and go home when things don’t go its way. More and more, it’s about business, big business.

I just really long for the days when sports can be what it truly is, the toy store of life.