Does America suffer from too many baseball meta-phors? Over the decades, writers including George Will and David Halberstam have carpet-bombed the literary scene with tomes using baseball as a symbol for some Lost American Eden. Cornball movies like “The Natural” and “Field of Dreams” have turned the game into something a little precious.
The trend continues to an almost farcical degree in the “30 for 30” documentary “Little Big Men” (7 p.m., ESPN). The film recalls the 1982 Little League World Series championship team from Kirkland, Wash., a group of talented and well-coached 12-year-olds who dethroned perennial winners from Taiwan. At face value, this is a neat little story, filled with interviews with many of the players, now around age 40, many of whom have become fathers and coaches themselves.
Not content to recall their thrill of victory, the filmmaker reminds us that during the recession-plagued times of the early 1980s, this Little League team “made America believe in itself again,” a cliche so familiar you can almost hear comparisons to the 1980 Winter Olympics “Miracle on Ice” coming ’round the rhetorical bend.
If this weren’t heavy-handed enough, the film, directed by Al Szymanski, transforms Kirkland’s victory into something mawkish and shot-through with portents of “Innocence Lost.” Foreboding music hints that something truly dreadful followed their fateful day at Williamsport, Pa., and tearful interview segments also promise revelations of Very Dark Things to come. Gosh, I wondered. Were these kids molested? Kidnapped?
Here’s what happened. After being feted as young champions, the team, and its pitching star Cody Webster in particular, were the subject of too much media adulation in too short a time. This was followed by the jealous backlash by other little league players and their mean-spirited parents. We learn, amidst swelling strings and tears, that these adults were thoughtless and mean and occasionally profane and that somebody called Cody “fat.”
No adult should be cruel or unfair to a 13-year-old, and this behavior may or may not have contributed to Cody’s decision to hang up his cleats at an early age. But Greek tragedy this is not. And no amount of swelling music or oratorical bombast can make it so.
Tonight’s other highlights
Note: Network programs scheduled for 7 p.m. may be delayed because of coverage of a Presidential Address on Iraq.
• On two episodes of “Glee” (Fox), Kurt rebuffed (7 p.m.), a list inspires rumors (8 p.m.).
• Semifinals continue on “America’s Got Talent” (8 p.m., NBC).
• A killer commandeers Artie’s bag of tricks on “Warehouse 13” (8 p.m., Syfy).
• Alicia defends a very compromised suspect on “The Good Wife” (9 p.m., CBS).
• Four previous winners return to compete for a $50,000 prize on “Chopped” (9 p.m., Food).
• The “P.O.V” (9 p.m., PBS, check local listings) offering “Wo Ai Ni (I Love You Mommy)” follows an 8-year-old Chinese orphan adopted by an American family.
• Sheila grieves on “Rescue Me” (9 p.m., FX).
Cult choice
A New Jersey housewife (Rosanna Arquette) gets lost in New York’s New Wave downtown scene in the 1985 comedy “Desperately Seeking Susan” (7:15 p.m., IFC).
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