Elite basketball player King Tari Johnson, 8, practices free throws as Father Tari Johnson watches and sister Celeste Wood, 15, (right) takes the live video of the session in Lodi, Calif., Friday July 29, 2022. King Tari is the eighth 8-year-old basketball player in the nation and trains regularly with his father.
An 8-year-old in Stockton is considered one of the best third-grade basketball players in the country, by a couple of national websites.
The extraordinary story of King Tari Johnson, written by Connor Letourneau of The Chronicle, raises an important question: Is it crazy to have charts for 8-year-olds?
Of course it is. It is too late for your baby to connect to the tubing. Fortunately, it turns out that some of the appraisers are classifying kindergarten children.
How would you like your kindergarten son or daughter to guard a 5-year-old superstar on a Nike contract? Which agent negotiated a two-juice deal for him?
For a moment I thought the Stockton boy story was a joke. Like the 1985 Sports Illustrated story about a potential Mets pitcher named Sidd Finch, throwing fastballs at 168 mph. That April Fool’s Day story, by George Plimpton, actually fooled many readers.
A 168 mph heater is more implausible than a circle rating scout in Letourneau’s story saying it rates nursery schools because “Time flies. In no time you will be in first grade.”
Letourneau swore to me not to make up the story.
In my gaming days, kiddie hoopsters weren’t ranked nationally. Or so I thought, until I checked with my mom. He went through some family scrapbooks and pulled out a basketball scouting report about me in eighth grade when I started playing basketball. Here it is:
Rating: n. 79,402 nationwide (among the eighth-grade right-wing strikers born under the sign of Libra) … You need to add some muscle, to compete on the low block, and to cast a shadow. .. Problem with dribbling, maybe you need a smaller Gatorade bottle … You don’t need the ball, which is fine, because no one passes it to him … Vertical not impressive, but horizontal it is (falls very low). .. He gets rid of the ball quickly, usually dribbling it from his feet … He distributes the ball well, to all the other nine kids on the pitch.
Onward and downward …
On a related topic, I was relieved to learn from my Twitter feed that I’m not the only person who avoids watching the Little League World Series on TV. This may interest you : Aaron Rodgers talks gratitude, coming to terms with the Packers and his state of mind.
We are not many, but perhaps enough to form a small Zoom support group.
You cannot completely escape the LLWS when browsing the channel. The games are broadcast on television non-stop, day and night, for what, four months? What happened to the school? Are these guys schooled on the bench?
And do we really need former big league players to provide expert analysis?
Hi, folks, and welcome to ESPN and the finger painting contest semifinal at Miss Freen Kindergarten. Here to break it down for us are two guys who really know their stuff, Hall of Famers Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet.
Fans, be sure to join us tomorrow as we bring you live coverage of the international World Series of Tee-ball, brought to you by Gerber, Breakfast of Champions.
• The “Field of Dreams” game that MLB has been playing for the past two years in that cornfield in Iowa is a fun idea, but corn is getting a little corny.
It has been suggested by Chronicle columnist Bruce Jenkins that MLB broaden the concept by bringing the “Field of Dreams” game to a different historical / mystical location each year. The MLB told Jenkins: “(We hope to highlight other special places with rich baseball traditions in the future.”
Jenkins and Chronicle writer John Shea named Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala. That ancient green ghost, built in 1910, is the oldest baseball park in the world and is still in great condition. Heard the shoes of Babe Ruth, Satchel Paige and a teenager Willie Mays.
The Colosseum of Los Angeles. No sports facility in America is more historic. The Colosseum (and Los Angeles) saved the Olympic movement by hosting the Games in 1932, during the Great Depression, when no other city / town could afford it.
What about baseball? When the Dodgers and Giants moved west in 1958, baseball west of the Mississippi was a gamble and an experiment. The Giants played at crackerboxy Seals Stadium, while the Dodgers played four seasons at the Coliseum, with a seating capacity of over 90,000. A 1959 World Series game attracted 92,706.
The layout of the field was a joke, but wonderful. The left camp was 251 feet from home base, so they erected a 42-foot high fence, a giant net tent. The left fielder would literally play with his butt against the fence. Dinky pop-ups went for homers, squashed line units slammed into the fence for singles.
The odd pitch, wild enthusiasm, and massive voter turnout proved to the world that professional sports could thrive on the West Coast.
And for fans who love the Iowa cornfield idea, here’s a West Coast twist on the agricultural motif, updated to appeal to the younger demo: carving a baseball diamond from a marijuana field in Humboldt County. .
Scott Ostler is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: Sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler
Scott Ostler is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: Sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler
