Games between Little League All-Star teams are supposed to ramp up pressure on youngsters as they compete for a spot in the heralded Little League World Series. In Georgia, it seems that the parents of some of those players are now the ones feeling a bit more of the pressure after an ugly brawl marred a game between two Little League All-Star squads in the city of Columbus.
As first reported by the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer and followed by ABC News, among other sources, two parents were arrested and charged with counts of disorderly conduct after a 7:30 p.m. clash during a playoff game between Northern Little League and Harris County Little League. The fight broke out at Britt David Park in Columbus and involved a number of parents, eventually requiring police to separate the crowds.
The two men arrested were 36-year-old Iram King, a Cataula, Ga., resident, and 38-year-old Charles Davidson of Midland. According to the Ledger-Enquirer, the scuffle began when Iram King and his wife, Rose, demanded that fans just beyond the right-field fence turn down music that they began playing after the Northern squad emerged from the game victorious.
The music was being played by Davidson, who reportedly turned down the volume but then began an exchange with King about players in the recently completed game. The result was the brawl you see in the video above.
Quite rightly, a local Little League administrator and another Little League's president both claimed the incident brought a sense of shame to the entire city.
"It's very embarrassing not only to each of those leagues but the whole city of Columbus," Pioneer Little League President Rick Chadwick told the Ledger-Enquirer. "You got kids trying to show their parents how to respect each other."
Little League District 8 administrator Bernard Ashley had even stronger words about the incident.
"It's about the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in Little League in all the years I've been doing it."
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