We've all met Jericho Scott

Sports commentators and bloggers erupted over the wussification/panzyfication/puddination (choose your term) of America when the story about nine-year-old Jericho Scott trickled out of New Haven, Conn. Scott has too much of a cannon for a right arm and parents of competing Little Leaguers are afraid he's going to bean little Johnny. As the Black Star Ninja said of a a young Michael Dudikoff in 1985, "He possess gdate skeel."

Wherever there's a controversy in youth sports, however, there's usually a sniveling adult manipulating things for their own benefit. Further into the story it's revealed Jericho was invited to play on the league champion's team ... the team sponsored by the employer of a league official. Smelly, smelly stuff. Jericho opted to play with his current team (8-0 and headed into the playoffs) when some group somewhere declared since he couldn't be fitted with a Hasbro restrictor plate he shouldn't pitch.

The vitrol and spewage coming at the bad guys in all of this is well-deserved. The when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-have-a-meeting message they're sending to their own children is unmistakable. These are the things that plant a seed of something bad coming down the road.

Everybody who's played youth sports has come up against Jericho Scott. That guy in our league was Stan Brooks. This was more than 20 years ago, but I can still see his windup, clearly. It was deceptively slow, like when a snake rocks back slowly before striking. He had a straight overhand delivery that seemed to put even more velocity on the ball because of that downward motion. Toward the end of his windup, another gear kicked in and his right arm became a rattlesnake, those two fingers down the seams fangs, the ball venom coming at you.

Believe it or not, 11-year-olds have their own scouting reports. The one on Stan was he had two pitches: that fast one you basically swung at in mid-prayer and hoped it connected, and a change-up that made you look like you were taking a whack at the firefly in front of you instead of the ball drifting by a full second later. (Later Stan came up with some kind of pitch that actually had some dispy-do movement. We were on the same team [prayer works] and I was catching for him. He'd signal to me it was coming but I still couldn't catch it.)

At some point, that fear of getting into the batter's box turned into respect. He was still hard to hit, but familiarity had given many of us at least some confidence. Success wasn't an impossibility.

These kids in New Haven aren't going to get that if Jericho Scott is benched for nothing more than being an insurmountable challenge. The best lessons in life come with the greatest risks. Often the result will failing. The biggest failure, though is if they never take that swing.