DESTINY'S DARLINGS: A World Championship Little League Team Twenty Years Later

The high point in the lives of these former twelve-year-olds from Schenectady was a day in September, 1954, when they grazed Olympian heights by capturing the Little League pennant. For many of them later it was to be downhill all the way; for others, their win -- and, more specifically, the discipline and determination which brought it about -- gave them that competitive edge in fielding problems of everyday existence. What's significant to note from the biographical sketches of these once youngsters is their realization that their manager's manipulative skill -- he admits he had to be ""ruthless"" -- took the fun out of the game and turned them into pint-sized professionals. This then is the story of a group of boys (sandbox-to-sandlot-to Williamsport, Pa.) who were there ""for one reason: to win the world championship. Nothing else mattered."" Two decades later, no longer children playing an adult's game, they sense collectively that they've been robbed -- ""we were used, we were exploited"" -- of the pastime's original purpose. Enough wood on the ball to make it a strong indictment of the notion that Little League is just kid stuff.