Title: ESPN Little League: Stands Agency: DCode, New York

ESPN Little League: Stands

Baseball is here, and what does that mean?

It means renewal. It means optimism. It means spitting. It means San Francisco is going to have a very bad six months. Title: ESPN Little League: Stands

That's because the Giants stink, substantially because their best hitter is a Giant no more, but an unsigned free agent, languishing at home with his all-time career home-run record and tattered reputation.

Yeah, Barry Bonds, the most prolific slugger ever, can't get a job because he's been denounced as a cheater. Very good power to all fields. Very bad role model.

Baseball's steroid scandal has robbed a generation of children of so many heroes. Bonds, Jose Canseco, Mark Maguire, Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada -- tainted by drug allegations all -- have left a trail of disillusionment. Baseball may have long since ceased being the true national pastime, but it is still uniquely situated for role modeling. Every player's approach -- swing, delivery, batting stance -- is distinct, and therefore prime for imitation by the kids who see it again and again over 162 games.

And kids imitate what they observe. (That, by the way, explains the spitting. Long ago, players chewed tobacco and spit out the juice. This led to generations of Little Leaguers spitting, too. When they got to the big leagues, they kept on spitting. The actual tobacco chaws are long gone, but the spitting goes on, a vestigial habit in a never-ending cycle of expectoration.)

But we digress. So if a kid can't believe in Barry Bonds, then who? Why, Dad, of course. He's the instructor, the mentor, the No. 1 fan and the voice of encouragement in the stands.

Or (sigh) not. Because with spring comes another annual rite: the obnoxious Little League parent at a kids' game, behaving like a jackass. He screams at the umpire. He hectors the other team. He second-guesses the coach. He berates his own child. And he can't claim he was doped covertly.

He's a dope all by himself.