ANY SENSE OF INNOCENCE?

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

Not an inning too soon, the 2006 Little League season reaches its climatic world championship conclusion in sleepy little Williamsport, Pa., this afternoon.

Live, on national TV. With a five-second delay. And for good reason.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but there's been stuff going on the past few weeks that would embarrass even the parents of the Bad News Bears brats. It makes a forged Danny Almonte birth certificate seem like tiny tater tots.

Where do we start?

With the team from Utah that explained ahead of time to officials that, because of Mormon religious beliefs, it would really rather not play games Sunday during the Western Regional competition in San Bernardino? Say your prayers, kids. They had to forfeit.

How about the coach of the Vermont team who realized that with one inning left and his team winning, he forgot to get one of his players the required three outs in the field and a plate appearance in a New England regional semifinal. He told his team to throw wild pitches and make errors so the other team could tie the score in the top of the sixth. But then the New Hampshire coach figured out what was going on and told his players to swing at the bad pitches to end the game, knowing that even with a loss, the other team would have to forfeit -- which is what eventually happened, after several protests were filed.

Then there was the player and manager of the Staten Island, N.Y., team both receiving a official reprimand from league officials after the former blurted out an f-bomb that the ESPN microphones picked up, inciting the latter to smack him with an open hand.

We don't recall if all that happened before or after an incident during the New England-Midwest game when ESPN's audio caught a pitcher complaining to his coach that the umpires were squeezing the strike zone and ``not giving me s---t.''

Some of that was overshadowed when the president of said Staten Island Little League complained to the New York Post that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner ``only'' donated $5,000 to help defray the team's travel expenses, and then openly called out Alex Rodriguez for not kicking in anything.

And do we even have the space to lump in the story that came out Friday about the former treasurer of the Post Falls Little League in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho who disappeared, and now has an arrest warrant out on him because $30,000 from the league account is missing?

Little League painfully tries to uphold this image of a Norman Rockwell painting come alive. Somehow, it just keeps coming off as Dogs Playing Poker on velvet. Allowing your own kids to watch it may be even more dangerous than letting them surf the Internet by themselves.

We'd like to think these pre-teens play because they actually have fun, want to hang out with their (All-Star selected) friends, show good sportsmanship and don't pick their nose in public. But we're also realists.

People see this 6-foot-8, 250-pound-plus 13-year-old with size 19 shoes playing first base for the Saudi Arabia team comprised of kids from U.S. oil workers in the Middle East, and you know someone's suggesting that the kid must be pumped with illegal substances. No wonder they moved back the fences this year.

We see the coach from the Columbus, Ga., team that reached today's final allowing his son to throw 190 pitches in one game, because the only bylaw restrictions involve the number of innings pitched. Little League rulemakers have since decided to institute a pitch count to curb the practice. There's still nothing in place that stop kids from throwing curveballs, hiring personal instructors or begging for $250 aluminum bats.

The easy, and most visible, foil in all this continuing decline of childhood civilization is television, which once upon a time only carried the title game when the Taiwan teams pummeled the Americans. For years, we've campaigned that this kids' convention need not be wall-to-wall fodder for all the all-sports ESPN channels, but that spitball seems to have sailed long ago -- ironically, as the Bristol, Conn., home for the network sits just down the street from the A. Bartlett Giamatti Little League Leadership Training Center.

Today's TV-savvy kids don't seem to be complaining too much about doing an interview with Erin Andrews before she throws it back up to Brent Musburger. But even that's a matter that soon could be disputed.

Bob Cook, a freelance writer from Chicago, wrote a column recently on MSNBC.com that made frightening sense: The Little Leaguers should consider unionizing and threaten to go on strike. Just look at all the people (and TV networks) that profit from their supposed sugar-coated innocence during this Little League World Series sponsored by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes (that's the official title).

If that's taking things to a new level of ridiculousness, think about all the frosted flakes sitting in the stands disguised as caring parents who'll end up volunteering to carry those picket signs.

We kid you not.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, 4 boxes

Photo:

(1) These Little Leaguers from Portsmouth, N.H., did find time to act like kids while in Williamsport, Pa.

Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

(2) JERED WEAVER

(3) BRYANT GUMBEL

(4) JUSTIN GATLIN

Box:

(1) HOT ... LUKEWARM .. COLD FISH

(2) FANTASY BASEBALL

- Bryan Fowler

(3) Sunday Punch

(4) The Pop Quiz