(Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati Enquirer)

In a few weeks, 23,000 kids in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area will celebrate the 75th anniversary of Knothole baseball by filling the springtime air with the nostalgic sounds of the game we all grew up with:

Hey, battuh-battuh. Please swing if it makes you feel good about yourself!

The Knothole Club of Greater Cincinnati has decided to eliminate "chatter." Unless the chatter is "positive" and directed at your own team. You can't say "We want a pitcher, not an underwear stitcher!" unless, maybe, you grew up in a culture that idolizes underwear stitchers. Standings for the Feelgood Division of the Self Esteem League will be available any time now.

Until then, a moment of silence for the death of an American tradition. Proponents of the new edict say it was a necessary response to increased incidents of taunting. They cite one especially ugly example from June, involving a game in Colerain Township between two teams of 14-year-olds in the A-2 division. One parent received 15 stitches after a player whacked him on the forehead with a metal-spiked baseball shoe.

The incident began with a coach being ejected for arguing a balk call and escalated into a full-scale brawl.

Apparently these days, one kid's "no batt-uh" is another kid's "let's throw down."

"We didn't want Knothole to get a bad name for anything," Knothole president Dave Epplen explained. "If you're saying, 'Swing, batter,' and this poor little kid is swinging at everything, he feels bad and maybe he turns to the catcher and gets mad. Honest to gosh, I didn't have any trouble doing this."

Knothole follows the Rules of Major League Baseball. Rule 4.06(a)(2) states, "No manager, player, substitute, coach, trainer or batboy shall at any time, whether from the bench, the coach's box or on the playing field or elsewhere, use language which will in any manner refer to or reflect upon opposing players, an umpire, or any spectator."

Coaches and players found guilty of "negative" chatter will be warned once, then suspended for a game. Maybe they'll be sentenced to watching "Oprah" for a month, too.

"We're going to follow the rule as it's written," Jim Pecot, umpire coordinator for District 34, said.

Practically speaking, there is reason for the move. Taking their cues from the pros, kids have raised (or lowered) the level of chatter to suit the times. It isn't enough now to tell a pitcher he has a glass arm. You also have to question his heritage or disrespect him after a home run.

Given that some of the umpires working lower-level Knothole games are as young as 12, it can be hard for them to differentiate between good-natured chatter and over-the-top woofing. As Pecot put it: "It goes from 'Hey batter, batter' to telling the pitcher he sucks. It gets out of hand. Sometimes, that can be tough for a 13- or 14-year-old umpire to handle."

Well, OK. Kids can be cruel (always have been); young umps can be, um, callow (always have been); and parents, coaches and anyone else who should know better can release their inner-ogres when it comes to kid sports (always have). Any adult ragging a 10-year-old player or a 12-year-old ump should be sent to his room with no "SportsCenter."

But, c'mon.

There are some truths we hold self-evident. Big stuff, such as life, liberty and all that. And there are other, more vital verities, such as the right to shout mildly denigrating things at the other team's pitcher. Or to tell a batter to swing. Or that a catcher's underwear is showing. Great, all-American stuff.

Only now, that's out. You can't have little taunters screaming "Pitcher has a glass arm!" and not expect Attica to break out.

"Chatter is the foundation of youth baseball," said Nick Lutz, a coach in the Loveland Youth Baseball Organization's D-Rec League of 8- and 9-year-olds. "If my self-esteem had been damaged by Knothole, I'd have killed myself by now. I was probably a .190 hitter. I still had fun yelling 'hey batter-batter.' "

The kids on Lutz's team have varying opinions. Essentially, they come down to "Do we still get a snack after the game?"

Said Ryan Mangan, 9: "It's sort of weird, but it has a point. Some kids don't have the same feelings as you." Will Reverman, 8, allowed that the rule was "dumb." Ryan Lutz said it was "really dumb."

Eight-year-old Michael Staley had a more practical concern: "We can still steal, right?"

Goosey's Gabbings...

Not much more to say about this. Daugherty says it well, and with as much sarcasm snark that should be about this; our PC society with this stuff needs to worry a little more than about what is said on a baseball field.

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