I don’t remember when, but at some point in the past few years, my Mom gave me a handful of children’s books from my childhood, so I could read them to my own kids. One of those books is Syd Hoff’s _The Littlest Leaguer_ (although mine was published in 1976, there’s a 2008 edition still available). I saw it on my son’s bookshelf this morning, so I grabbed it and took a few minutes to read it again. With the words on the first page of the story, I was taken back to my own childhood experience and was reminded immediately why the story resonates so well with me:

>Of all the players in the little league, Harold was the littlest.

The story is about Harold. Harold was a little guy who really, really wanted to play on the little league team. His small size seemingly limited his usefulness to the team. He couldn’t play infield because ground balls bounced over his head. He wasn’t as good at the outfield positions as the taller, longer-legged boys who could move more quickly under fly balls. And, well, his batting wasn’t up to par, either, because "there was no bat light enough for him and balls zoomed past him before he could swing. So, poor little Harold ends up on the bench wishing there was some way he could contribute to the team’s efforts.

This, my friends, is very similar to my own little league experience. :)

But, as you probably expect—because you know how narrative genre works (cf. Martin and Rose, _Genre Relations_)—the story doesn’t end there for Harold (nor did it for me, incidentally). An additional complication enters the storyline: "Big Leon," the prototypical stud athlete who’s a bit of a bully to Harold, steps in a hole and twists his foot and, thus, is unable to go to bat to potentially win the game. The coach calls Harold’s number and puts him in to bat for Big Leon.

Harold stands in batter’s box and takes two strikes from Knuckles Smith, the opposing team’s pitcher. Then it dawned on him that he could use his small size to his advantage. He crouched as low as he could so that the strike zone was too small for Knuckles to hit. The next three pitches resulted in three balls. With the count a full three balls and two strikes, the next pitch came. Harold closed his eyes and swung. Crack! Home run! This game-winning hit reverses everyone’s view of Harold who goes from zero to hero:

>"Harold, you may be the littlest leaguer, but today you were the biggest leaguer of them all," said Mr. Lombardo [the coach]. And even Big Leon was cheering.

I want to highlight how the language of appraisal (for a basic introduction to appraisal model, see the Appraisal Web site) is used to position the implied readers of the story first to view Harold in a negative light (even if still feeling sympathy toward him) as a means of generating the main complication in the story and second to reverse this evaluation to provide a resolution to the complication to end the story and to persuade the readers to accept a number of value positions.

Generally speaking, if a language user wants readers/hearers to take up a negative stance with regard to someone or something (e.g., a person, a value position), she or he will in their own writing/speaking will evaluate that someone or something negatively. On the other hand, if a language user wants others to take up a positive stance, then she or he will evaluate that someone or something positively. These evaluations will manifest themselves in the linguistic choices of the language user in terms of Affect (emotion), Judgment (+/- appraisals of people’s behavior/character), and Appreciation (+/- appraisals of things, ideas, etc.). Let’s take a quick look at how this plays out in _The Littlest Leaguer_.

Much of the first part of the story contains negative evaluations of Harold’s capacity as a baseball player—some inscribed, some implied:

- "Of all the players . . . Harold was the _littlest_" (in the context of sport, _little_, although an instance of negative appreciation at face value (evaluation of his physical stature, not behavior or abilities), is an ideational token of negative judgment; that is, this description in the context of sport implies the lack of ability to perform the acts of the sport satisfactorily—hence **negative judgment**)

- "'Maybe you ought to go home and come back next year,' said Shirley" (another ideational token implying incapacity, a **negative judgment**)

- "'Maybe you ought to go home and not come back at all,' said Big Leon" (**negative judgment** with the same implication as Shirley, but more force [not come back at all])

- "He [i.e., Harold] tried harder…" (**positive judgment** with regard to tenacity)

- "He tried in the infield but . . ." (**negative judgment**, capacity)

- "He tried in the outfield, but . . ." (**negative judgment**, capacity) [moreover, in this instance, other outfielders are, by contrast, evaluated positively which has the effect of focusing more tightly the negative judgment of Harold]

- "Harold tried to make up for it as a hitter, but . . ." (**negative judgment**, capacity) ["he tried" is positive judgment with regard to tenacity, but the contrast counters the positivity and replaces it with negativity]

- "He [the coach] put Harold on the bench" (**negative judgment**, capacity)

Clearly, negative judgments with regard to Harold’s capacity to succeed at baseball dominate the first part of the story. The middle of the story alleviates this negativity a bit by judging Harold positively for taking care of the team’s bats and bringing the other players cold drinks. These two positives are followed by Harold’s negative self-evaluation, "I’m tired of being so little." Together, these move the story’s implied readers to feel sympathy for Harold. But it is clear the other players don’t feel the same sympathy:

When coach Lombardo goes to eat dinner with Harold and his family, he tells Harold, "You’re letting your size bother you." Here is yet another betokened **negative judgment** of Harold’s behavior, but this one is different than the others. The previous judgments all pertained to Harold’s (in)capacity to play baseball; they were judgments related to social esteem, but this one is a judgment related to social sanction. In effect, the coach’s statement is a chastisement of Harold for what he believes to be wrong thinking. Instead of thinking about his size negatively as a detriment, the coach believes Harold ought to think about his size positively; he should consider all the short players who not only were successful baseball players but who were given the high honor of induction into the Hall of Fame. This is precisely what Harold does even though the season continues with him on the bench: "He just kept sitting there, thinking of all those short players in the Baseball Hall of Fame."

When Harold’s opportunity finally came (when Big Leon injured himself), Harold seemingly reverted to his former way of thinking, trying to "stand as tall as possible" as he stood at bat. This resulted in two strikes (tokens of **negative judgment**). But then Harold "got an idea" and "crouched at the plate as small as possible," which resulted in Knuckles throwing three balls (tokens of **positive judgment** of Harold). Then on the final pitch:

- "Harold . . . swung with all his might and —POW!—he connected" (token of **positive judgment**, capacity)

- "The ball was . . . over the fence for a home run" (token of **positive judgment**, capacity)

- "Harold ran around the bases . . ." (token of **positive judgment**, capacity)

- "He crossed home plate" (token of **positive judgment**, capacity)

- "His team mates picked him up and carried him on their shoulders" (token of **positive judgment**, normality)

- The last line of the story is Coach Lombardo saying to Harold, "… you may be the littlest leaguer, but today you were the biggest leaguer of them all!" (token of **positive judgment**, normality)

So, the story ends with positive judgment dominating the discourse. What’s interesting is that the last two appraisals are judgments of Harold with regard to normality. These are judgments about how special (or not) a person (or their behavior) is. In the end, then, the value position being put forward by the story may be summed up with the phrase "one doesn’t have to be the biggest to be the best." In short, the implied readers of the story are positioned to adopt and live by the values of positive attitude/outlook, patience, and resolve.

* * *

I hope this post makes some semblance of sense. One of the rules of the 500-word challenge is "do not edit." I really want to edit, but I certainly don’t want to break the rules. :)