Youth Baseball

This year's Cal Ripken 12-and-under World Series, the eighth overall and fifth in Aberdeen, will be the first played with 70-foot base paths and 50 feet between the rubber and home plate. In previous Ripken World Series, the games were played with 60-foot base paths and a 46-foot pitching distance. Cal Ripken Jr.'s proposal of going to the longer distances received an overwhelmingly favorable response from the Babe Ruth leagues and commissioners. The recently inducted Hall of Famer sees it as a "proactive step" that "will have a tremendous impact on youth baseball."

Judy Johnson was one of the best all-around third basemen of all time, a Negro leagues standout in the 1920s and '30s and one of the first Negro leagues players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ryan Reed likely doesn't know all of that yet. But the 11-year-old infielder will know it soon, because he plays in the Towson Recreation Council youth baseball leagues and wears the uniform of one of Johnson's former teams, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. Each of the 44 teams in seven age groups this season is named for one of the legendary teams of pre-integration baseball and wears the official logos.

DEAR CAL -- My kids' baseball coach spends every practice doing little more than batting practice. The entire emphasis is on hitting, with pitching (just fastballs) getting a little attention when the kids are throwing to the hitters. The problem I see is that there's no time spent really teaching fielding or situational baseball. I've talked to the coach, and he says at this age (13-14) the game is all about hitting. He says they get fielding practice when the balls are hit. I disagree.

The minor league Ripken Stadium, which opened to acclaim and sold-out games five years ago, has proved to be such a financial drain to the small town of Aberdeen that the mayor now wants to sell it. Mayor S. Fred Simmons says that he has had conversations with several potential buyers but that the most promising involve the stadium's namesake: hometown hero Cal Ripken Jr., who owns the team that plays there, as well as a sprawling youth baseball operation...

The latest effort to bring baseball back to life in America's blighted urban neighborhoods and their residents couldn't have picked a better city to start. There's no concrete evidence that Baltimore needs help in this area more than anyplace else. Nor was that specifically why Bank of America's fundraising campaign for the 7-year-old Little League Urban Initiative kicked off at Camden Yards on Thursday, with Hall of Famer Dave Winfield doing five hours' worth of print and broadcast interviews next to the Orioles dugout.

Tomorrow morning in North Baltimore, I expect to be surrounded by Crickets. I'll probably catch a glimpse of 14 Gophers. And it would not be surprising to encounter roving bands of Knights and Wizards. It sounds harrowing, but it's Opening Day of the youth baseball season. Of all the traditions and rituals of kids sports, nothing compares with Opening Day. For the parents, there's the challenge of finding a parking space and the risk some chilly mornings of losing a finger to frostbite.

Baseball is major cause of blindness As a pediatric eye physician and surgeon, I have been distressed by the Maryland Senate's unwillingness to pass the bill that would protect children from blinding injuries playing baseball ("Youth baseball could get new look: masks, goggles," March 22). The leading cause of monocular blindness in children ages 5 to 12 is baseball injuries. Young pitchers can throw a ball up to 60 miles per hour. The impact of a wild pitch to a child's fragile eye can result in permanent eye damage such as ruptured globes and retinal detachments.

As spring settles in, with the crack of Little League bats soon to follow, Maryland senators wrangled yesterday over whether the state should be trying to save baseball's youngest players from bruises, bloody noses and concussions. A bill to require youth league players to wear state-approved protective gear struck some senators as too costly and too hard to enforce. "What are you going to have - helmet police?" asked Sen. Sandra B. Schrader, a Howard County Republican whose daughter plays softball.

Defending champion Mexico avoided a major upset yesterday, edging the fourth-seeded Republic of Korea, 3-2, on a wild pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning in the single-elimination round of the Cal Ripken 12-and-Under World Series in Aberdeen. Seeking its third consecutive World Series title, Mexico will face another tough opponent today when it takes on the Dominican Republic, an 8-0 winner over Australia, in the international championship game at 1:05 p.m. Oahu, Hawaii, advanced to a third straight United States championship game by outlasting the Bronx, N.Y., 6-3, yesterday.

Erin McAndrews of Marblehead, Mass., just missed becoming only the second girl to be a winning pitcher in the Cal Ripken 12-and-under World Series in Aberdeen yesterday. Willamette Valley, Ore., scored three runs off McAndrews in the top of the sixth inning to win, 9-7, and clinch a playoff berth for tomorrow with a 3-1 mark as the second-place team in the National Division. Marblehead is 0-3 with one game left, a 1 p.m. contest today against Meridian, Miss. (1-2). "I got tired in that last inning and it's hard playing against the boys because they are so much bigger and stronger," said McAndrews, a right-hander who said she'll likely give up baseball after this tournament.