Cody Webster

I don't remember what I ate this morning (I'm lying: it was pussy) and I'm terrible at remembering names but I'll always remember the name Cody Webster, since we watched him beat Taiwan in the 1982 Little League World Series. Maybe that was the first year it was televised, maybe that's why it was a big deal?

Apparently, being a hero became a bit of a nightmare for the lad.

Diary of a World Series hero, Year IV - Cody Webster is making his first appearance at the plate in a Mickey Mantle playoff game in Southern California. He notices something unusual.

"Their coach was pointing at his head," recalled Webster. "He pointed to the pitcher, then pointed at his head."

The first pitch hits Webster - where else? - in the head. About brain- high. It cracks his batting helmet and knocked him to the ground and the other team tittered.

"Everybody in the park knew what was going on," said Webster. "Every year I think, OK, this will be the year people in baseball will forget about my past. Every year I am wrong."

Interestingly, I'm not the only person my age who sees the name Cody Webster as some sort of generational touchstone a la the 1980 Miracle on Ice.

Now, if you want to ask TigerBlog what is second on the list of sports moments that have impacted American national pride, he can come up with a few for you. And either near or at the top of that list is the name "Cody Webster."

Cody Webster Doc

Looks like it's already been done.

Adults in the stands and watching from home saw a much broader field of play. The memories of American hostages and a crippling oil crisis were still fresh; the economic malaise of the late 1970s still lingered; and the new President was recovering from an assassination attempt even while confronting new threats from the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, back on that tiny baseball field in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where America’s game was celebrated each summer, no American team had won a true international Little League World Series Championship in more than a decade.

More 1980 hockey parallels. Interesting.

And I told him a story – as best I could remember it – of a group of schoolyard friends from Kirkland, Washington. When they made it to the championship game back in the early ‘80s, ‘America’s Game’ didn’t really belong to America anymore. Teams from Southeast Asia had dominated the tournament for more than a decade. In fact, the only time a team from China, Taipei, or Tokyo didn’t win during that stretch was the year international teams were banned from the competition. In 1982, an over-sized kid named Cody Webster carried the team from Kirkland into the final game of the Little League World Series. Each member of that squad, whether they understood it or not, was also shouldering the frustrated hopes of an entire country. They won.

My son responded to the tale the way I’d hoped: promise and dreams still intact … but I found myself considering Cody Webster and his friends, now, more than a quarter-century removed from holding that championship trophy high over head. Where did they go? What did they become? What if that moment in Williamsport turned out to be the highlight of their lives? Whatever happened to the kids from Kirkland?

Herro! Whachu Wan For To Dwink?!

I was reading this SI article on Cody Webster, and came across (heh heh heh) this amazing line:

Against Taiwan, the Kirkland players, who, incidentally, almost all look alike,...

Wow. 1982. Such a simpler time!


ps - anyone else smell a 30-year anniversary doc "Where Have You Gone, Cody Webster?" cooking?

Xmastime Emergency TV Alert! CODE RED!!!!!!!

The CODY WEBSTER 30 on 30 is on ESPN right now!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: repeats at midnight!  :)

Xmastime Is Officially Calling Bullshit

On this absurd article ranking every 30 for 30 doc. The Reggie Miller one at 41? The Bo Jackson one at 35? Are these people out of their goddam minds?!! Even at 12, the Marcus Depree one is way, WAY underrated. And the Cody Webster one at the bottom of the heap? Oh, HELLS no!!

And while I of course loved Len Bias and ACC basketball of that era in general, the Bias one is my least favorite (how many times can we play the fucking 911 call - can we get ANYTHING about him as a player? Please? Please?!!), so of course these brain-dead fuckers have it at 3. Of course.

Final evidence this list is bullshit? The winning doc is about soccer. I mean, come the fuck on with that shit already. Fucking hell.