Friday, August 22, 2014
Mo'ne Davis
I've watched the Mo'ne Davis story develop as her team's run in the Little League World Series has gone on these past weeks, and it is very interesting. I was watching the first game she pitched, and it was obvious to anyone watching that she not only stood out because of her gender, but because of her performance as well. However, after that performance, I couldn't get away from her. ESPN took her story and ran with it, focusing so much of their coverage on her that it began to look like the same kind of coverage they had with Tim Tebow a few years ago, which was indeed relentless. I was interested to see what they focused on, which was the fact that she was a girl, and obviously in Little League that is an anomaly. However, discussing the fact that she was African-American didn't come up as much as I thought it should, considering the lack of diversity that usually happens in the Little League World Series. Going off of that, there was not as much coverage of the team from Illinois, which was a team from Chicago that competed in the Jackie Robinson Little League. Certainly their story is worth sharing with the world, but we are so focused on one thing that we cannot appreciate what else is going on. Even Davis' own team, from Philadelphia, is one of the most diverse in the tournament, but that is lost in all of the media attention. These teams being where they are is huge for Little League, and it will help the league to grow in the years to come. I just hope other people can see that.
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I have been keeping up with the Mo'ne Davis story and her team as well. I was watching one of their games a few days ago and they lost pretty big. Mo'ne started the game off pitching and within 2 innings, 5 of the 6 outs were strike outs. Even though they scored a few runs, she managed to communicate with her teammates and stayed calm. I thought it was awesome to see. Clearly, she is a very skilled player. I think the coverage of her story and talent is awesome. Now with that being said, I think that we need to remember that she's a young girl, playing a game that she loves. I read an article that talked about her pitches and things like the "velocity of her fastball." We have to remember that the Little league World Series is something that these talented kids do for fun and because they simply love to do it, their kids. The article article talks about just letting Mo'ne Davis be a kid. She is not prospect, she is a Little leaguer and even before that she is a young female athlete. Of course, being a female athlete I think her story is amazing and seeing a young girl out there with young boys playing baseball is something special. But again, she is not a prospect or anything different just because this is out of the ordinary for our sports world today. Mo'ne actually wants to play basketball at the University of Connecticut, go girl!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/8/20/6049857/mone-davis-little-league-world-series-media-coverage-women-in-baseball