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Hypocrisy: That’s the theme around a New Jersey Little Leaguer’s controversial suspension for flipping his bat after a home run.
Suspended Haddonfield Little League star Marco Rocco’s father, Joe, called out Little League’s decision-makers for suddenly being anti-bat flipping after his 12-year-old son’s celebration landed him a suspension ahead of the New Jersey Little League State Tournament final beginning Thursday.
“They’re hypocritical,” Joe told The Post. “They post bat flipping on their own Twitter account.”
Joe certainly has a point.
Little League posts plenty of highlights on X throughout its tournaments — and that includes bat flips like the one that earned his son a one-game ban.
In 2022, Nicaragua’s Luis Garcia hit a massive homer to left field during the Little League World Series and proceeded to flip his bat just about as exultantly as Marco did last week.
Garcia was not ejected during the incredibly exciting moment for him and his team, and ESPN’s announcers went berserk and praised the over-the-top celebration.
Little League even posted the highlight to X.
Former MLB star and Little League World Series legend Todd Frazier was one of those announcers who celebrated the excited reaction.
“The bat flip to go with it!” Frazier, who famously led Toms Rivers to the 1998 championship, excitedly said. “That is one of the highest bat flips I have ever seen!”
Frazier was not only blown away by the home run but also the replays of the bat flip and Garcia’s other celebrations, stating: “There we go!”
In a compilation of Little League World Series bat flips that runs more than than eight minutes, various broadcasters never once express disapproval of the flipping and, like Frazier, many hailed the celebrations and got a laugh out of them.
Many of the bat flips included in the video uploaded by the unaffiliated “LLWS Productions” account can be found on Little League’s official X account as well.
“The worst part of it is Little League openly promotes bat flipping,” Joe told the Post. “Kids see bat flipping as celebration.”
But while kids see it as a celebration, Little League classified it as “horseplay” in Marco’s case, which is against Little League rules.
Not only does he have a problem with Little League being “hypocritical,” Joe believes things need to be more clear-cut.
“You have to either say, you can do it, or you can’t,” he told The Post.
Haddonfield is among the final four teams in New Jersey’s 12U division and the teams are set for a double-elimination bracket starting Thursday, with the winner moving on to the Metro Region Tournament.
The Rocco family filed an emergency temporary restraining order in the Gloucester County Chancery Division in an attempt to have the suspension overturned, NJ.com reported Tuesday.
Joe previously told NJ.com he expected a hearing Wednesday.
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