On his blog, Matthew Tabor writes about the perturbing case of Jericho Scott, a nine-year-old from New Haven, Connecticut, who was recently expelled from his city's Youth Baseball League--not for cheating, not for misconduct, but for being too good. Not only that, but Scott's entire team was disbanded, had its 8-0 record annulled, and had its remaining players reallocated to other teams in the league:
The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho's team, redistributing its players among other squads, and offered to refund $50 sign-up fees to anyone who asks for it. They say Jericho's coach, Wilfred Vidro, has resigned.
Tabor aptly connects this "equality spectacle" with MPI fellow Chandler Tuttle's forthcoming short film 2081, a stunningly beautiful adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron." In Vonnegut's dystopian future, a "Handicapper General" burdens strong people with leaden weights, makes beautiful people wear disfiguring masks, and constantly distracts intelligent people with jarring, rasping sounds so that they cannot think clearly. The end product is a society in which genius, beauty, and exceptional accomplishment no longer exist; in which the remarkable has been eradicated; in which everyone is "equal" only in their mundane ordinariness.
The correspondence with Scott's real-life ordeal is striking. But the good news for Scott is that those who value freedom, achievement, and accomplishment have stood up to protest the handicapping efforts of his local league. The young player recently had the opportunity to be the special guest of the New Britain Rock Cats and to throw the ceremonial first pitch in their game against the Binghamton Mets. Let's hope this recognition will soon earn him a slot on a team that will be more appreciative of his prodigious talents.
Find out more about 2081 at its official website, FinallyEqual.com.