In a weekend filled with exciting b...

In a weekend filled with exciting baseball games, the mostly thrilling battle of all took place subject to the lights Sunday night, in effrontery of a packed house as well as the ESPN2 cameras.

To say it was a playoff atmosphere would be an understatement. At united point state troopers were brought in, just in case the crowd's vein escalated from amped-up to out-of-control

sum of two units teams -- one from the Midwest, single from the East Coast -- enclosureed up in a classic pitchers' affair of honor punctuated by incredible defensive plays worthy of "Web Gem" nominations, a bond of frightening injuries and a last-inning following of events that almost defied description.

They'll be showing this single in kind on ESPN Classic by the close of the week.

In the next to the first inning of a scoreless game, a batter for the Midwest was hit just behind the ear. He had a hematoma that required draining and part of his ear employed purple, but by Monday morning he was not at home of the hospital. A scary impulsive power -- but these are the risks you take at this plain right?

A pinch-runner scored a value later on an opposite-field triple.

"He gave me a fastball right down the plate," the RBI man told the Chicago Tribune after the game. "I had to do something with it."

In the bottom of the fourth, a courier for the East Coast team was gunn down trying to score forward a bunt. The Midwest pitcher made a faultless throw to the catcher, who had the plate moulded like Mike Scioscia in his prime. The messenger bounced off the catcher and writhed in pain, as coaches and trainers rushed to his aid.

They carried the racer off the field. He, too, was taken to the hospital, treated and released.

AN UNBELIEVABLE FINISH

The Midwest clung to that 1-0 lead. There were near amazing plays, highlighted by a first baseman snagging a vicious line drive, and a secondary baseman fielding a grounder with the bases loaded and common out, tagging the runner and firing to first for a double play. (Replays indicated he probably not ever tagged the runner.)

In the last inning, the Midwest pitcher had a 1-0 lead -- and a no-hitter. With single in kind out, he issued a walk -- and then he not to be found the no- hitter when he gave up a solid line-drive to center

The base racer tried to make it to third, yet the center fielder gunned him down in a great play.

And then, a consequence for baseball history. The batter who broke up the no-hitter started walking facing believing the game was through He was almost in sullied territory when the first baseman tagged him revealed officially ending the game.

That brought about in addition another injury. An assistant coach for the winning team leaped for joy, hit his head onward the dugout, and was knocked unconscious.

A shapely ESPN2 reporter in a scoop-neck top interviewed the winning pitcher.

You said in your bio that hitting a three-run walk-off homer was the highlight of your career, she said. for what reason does this rank?

calm better, said the pitcher.

The ESPN2 reporter asked the pitcher to take us in consequence of the final sequence, and declare us what was going end his mind. It was like a hundr other as it is interviews.

single one difference. The player being interviewed was 12 years old-fashioned

LITTLE BIG LEAGUE

Southwest suburban Lemont beat Staten Island, NY forward Sunday night in front of more than 15000 fans and the ESPN2 cameras. I watched nearly the whole game with the mixed emotions many of us bring to the Little League experience.

It was great. It was appalling.

I hear about "traveling teams" that play nearly each day of the summer, I descry Little League coaches who act like pro football coaches, I view 12-year-olds carted off the field with injuries, I diocese a grown woman holding a microphone and asking a freckle-faced child to "take us within that last sequence," I view kids crying when they squander I see crazed fans with painted faces, I diocese the full ESPN treatment forward these games, I think about the kid who made the base-running gaffe having to live with that televised point of time for the rest of his life, and I think: This is sick. This is crazy. This isn't right.

yet then I remember -- or prove to -- what it was like to be 12 and to be in be in love with with baseball. I'm on the bulwark for Dolton-Riverdale against Dixmoor, and we're winning 17-2 and it's just awesome. We'd make no use of the next game to southerly Holland -- but if we had made it to Williamsport, Pa., oh man. That was the dream.

Traveling teams with kids playing a near-Major League schedule? Of course that's insane -- yet when I was 12, I would have capitulateed my baseball cards, my touchy Wheels collection AND my Cheryl Tiegs broadside to play in an organized game each day.

Let's not forget the times we live in. If the worst thing that happens to you as a kid is forgetting the number of publics in a Little League World Series game, you've had an idyllic childhood.

Ye we enjoin too much pressure on these Little League kids -- further there are millions of young players forward the sidelines, wishing they were in Williamsport.