Five years ago, Mo’ne Davis captivated sports-viewing audiences across America. With her 70-mph fastball and a mix of off-speed pitches, the then-13-year-old from Philadelphia became the first girl to win a Little League World Series game, and the first to record a shutout. A surge of media attention followed, including an appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated — the first Little League World Series participant to do so.
But she wasn’t the first Little League World Series standout to become a national sensation.
In 1982, a team from Kirkland, Washington, reached the Little League World Series final against Taiwan led by a 5-foot-6, 174-pound 12-year-old named Cody Webster. Taiwan had won five titles in a row, and 10 of the last 14. Behind Webster’s two hits allowed and 12 strikeouts in six shutout innings, the American finalists snapped Taiwan’s 31-game win streak at Williamsport. Webster became an instant celebrity, culminating in an appearance on “Good Morning America.”
Webster and Davis are perhaps the two brightest stars forged in the annual August tournament. But their paths diverged from there. While Davis reveals the potential of teenage notoriety to be a force for good, Webster represents its pitfalls. Together, they form a yin and yang capable of acquainting viewers of this year’s Little League World Series with a question at the center of American youth sports: Is it ever too early to become great?
This year’s Little League World Series started Thursday and features plenty of storylines, like Oakland Athletics infielder Jurickson Profar’s younger brother Jurdrick hoping to lead the squad from Curacao to victory, or Maddy Freking of Coon Rapids, Minnesota, becoming the first girl to compete in Williamsport since Emma March and Davis in 2014.
But first, an acknowledgement: Most Little League World Series competitors are not like Davis or Webster. Few — if any — reach similar levels of fame. Few reach professional baseball, though some do. So for the wide majority of participants, the bright lights and packed bleachers of Williamsport will be the pinnacle of their athletic careers, and that can be wonderful. What’s not to like about a kid getting to clown around on national TV with a chance at winning a title they’d claim for the rest of their lives?
Especially when those kids, like Davis, turn the experience into something positive.
Her ascent to the pinnacle of sports fame was meteoric; as The Undefeated’s Aaron Dodson noted in 2017, despite peaking in a summer where LeBron James returned to Cleveland; Derek Jeter ditched the diamond; Germany won a Men’s World Cup and Serena Williams became the first woman to win three consecutive U.S. Open titles since the ‘70s, “somehow that brief era belonged to only one athlete: Little League phenom pitcher Mo’ne Davis, 13.”
Even though her team eventually lost, fame followed her; stories highlighting her athletic achievements post-LLWS fame remain common. When she was 15, Bleacher Report profiled her, focusing on her goal of playing college basketball. The profile noted she was still sometimes asked for autographs and interviews, but lived like a typical teen with hoop dreams.
She went on to play three sports in high school, and right about now, she’s preparing to start college at Hampton University, where she’ll play softball. She’s managed to keep her fame and adolescence in perspective; she told Bleacher Report, “Why be so serious now? This moment will go by so fast, so just smile and be happy.”
Webster wasn’t able to do that. If fame followed Davis like a pleasant perfume, it followed him like a shoe frosted with dog waste.
It wasn’t always that way. In the immediate aftermath, he received more than an appearance on “Good Morning America.” President Ronald Reagan called to congratulate him; he met Arthur Ashe; he threw out the first pitch at Shea Stadium; he served as the honored guest at a hometown parade. But the pressure and expectations heaped upon him — the person most responsible for taking down the Taiwanese juggernaut (if such a thing exists in youth baseball) were enormous.
He told the Woodinville Weekly in 2016 that a year after the win, he stopped liking baseball.
“What bugged me was the other team’s fans,” he said. “It was people hoping that I would fail. I get the competitive part where you want to beat the World Champs, I get that. But for a 13- or 14-year-old, some of the angry comments, it messed with my head.”
He also stopped growing. Or at least he lost the advantage of being the biggest 12-year-old on the field. He maxed out at 5-foot-11.
Fans chanted “Little League hero” at him to mock his inability to live up to insurmountable expectations, according to ESPN. He was even spat on. And when he reached college at Eastern Washington, his debut was carried on live television. A shoulder injury ended his college baseball career after one season.
“Sometimes it can be hard, the judgments people make on you,” his former teammate Shawn Cochran told ESPN. “Cody got the brunt of it because he was the big name.”
In 2010, ESPN’s 30-for-30 documentary series released a film titled “Little Big Men” about the team from Kirkland that became an American darling. It covered how that moment adhered to him like a neon forehead sign, and that no matter what he did, that would always be his burden — and, to some extent, his blessing.
“It’s hard when you’re recognized all your life for something you did when you were 12,” he told the Weekly. “But I’ve come to accept it and embrace it. It’s time to own that stuff, be proud of it. Open up about it more.”
He added that he’d like more people to understand how impressionable 12- and 13-year-olds can be, and how profound an impact such an experience can have. He acknowledged opportunities like the LLWS can be positive — he retains many joyous memories of his teammates and their accomplishments. But they can also have nasty side effects. Especially now, he told the Seattle Times, when the Little League World Series and other youth sports contests are gaining more prestige, more attention and putting more pressure than ever on kids.
“I don’t want them,” he told the Times, “to go through what I did.’’