What’s Next? Chico Bail Bonds?

Remember how funny the original Bad News Bears was?  And even though Billy Bob Thornton tried, that iconic movie of the 70s with Walter Matthau and a young Tatum O’Neal could not be touched.

Remember the profanity spouting little tough guy at shortstop, Tanner?  The cigarette smoking, beer drinking, motorcycle riding, centerfielder, Kelly Leak?

Remember the sponsor?  Yea, the venerable Chico Bail Bonds.  And why not?  Getting sponsors for youth teams has never been easy.

Well, here’s another reason why that movie could never be made in the same way of the 70s.  Chico and his bail bond company would not be allowed to sponsor a baseball team.

In Maplewood, NJ, a father and owner of a gun store was not allowed to sponsor his son’s little league team.

MAPLEWOOD — Matt Carmel is a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association who lives here, a left-leaning suburban basin with annual “Be About Peace” days.

He has had polite differences of opinion over the years, evidenced by signs on his front lawn reading “I’m the NRA and I Vote.”

But now he’s really miffed. Carmel, a licensed gun dealer, applied to sponsor a team in the local Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken baseball league, using the name of his business — Constitution Arms.

He was rebuffed.

“Arbitrary, capricious and unfair,” Carmel said of the perceived slight. “I don’t like being pigeonholed.”

This is interesting to me.  He’s not selling the guns out of the trunk of his car and it’s not like he pulled three benjamins off a wad of bills and handed them to the committee.  He’s a father who runs a legitimate business and was rebuffed because he happens to sell guns legally.   It’s his constitutional right to do so and I guess it’s the baseball commission’s right to vote against Mr. Carmel and his $300.

Kate Schmidt, deputy director of The Baird, South Orange’s recreation agency, said the rule book for the Trenton-based Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken league “strongly advises meticulous care” in the selection of sponsors for the “welfare of youth.”

“It’s pretty broad,” she said.

Somehow, that community has decided that guns are bad.  And in the wrong hands they are. 

Cigarettes are bad and legitimate businesses sell them.  So, sorry 7-11. You may not sponsor our teams this year because you sell smokes.  That’s a bad message to our kids.

The local VFW Post?  Oh sure, they do a lot of good stuff, but it’s essentially a bar.  And we can’t have bars and taverns sponsoring our kids.

Liquor is something we don’t our kids to be using, so sorry, no liquor store sponsorships.

Beer and wine?  Same thing.  Here in FLA, grocery stores sell both beer and wine, so sorry, Publix, you cannot sponsor our kids unless and until you do a major clean up in aisle 2, where the wine and beer are.

Soda pop?  With its high fructose corn syrup?  That’s a big contributor to obesity in our children.  Sorry, Coke.  Sorry, Pepsi.  And same to you Mickey D’s and BK.  Nope, you’re not poisoning our kids.

Chico Bail Bonds?  Are you kidding me?  In NJ they’re saying, fugettaboudit.