Thank goodness there’s baseball

The Little League World Series is now down to the final game in Williamsport, PA, and what a drama it’s been.

As a coach told his team in one of the most memorable speeches from the Little League World Series, “The only reason why I’ll probably end up shedding a tear is because it’s the last time I’m going to end up coaching you guys.”

On Monday, after the Cumberland Americans of Rhode Island lost 8-7 in a win-or-go-home game, Coach David Belisle became a social media star as the best role model ever.

“One big hug, Belisle said. “I’m going to love you forever and you’ve given me the most precious moment of my athletic and coaching career. I’m getting to be an old man. I need memories like this. You’re all my boys.”

Turns out there is crying in baseball.

And then there was 13-year-old Mo’ne Davis, pitching for the Taney Dragons of Philadelphia.

Her team lost in Thursday night’s semi-final, but not before she became the first girl to pitch a shutout and the first girl to win a Little League World Series game.

Her 70-mile-an-hour fastball got her on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and attacked the old stereotype head on.

“Throwing 70 miles an hour – that’s throwing like a girl.”

It had been a week of street protests that felt like the bad old days, and had us wondering if anything’s changed in the past 50 years. It was good to know that at least we lived to see the day when it’s perfectly OK to cry like a man, and to throw like a girl.