Credit: ESPN
By Sean Keeley on

Watching the Little League World Series offers a unique perspective into the minds of today’s youth. Along with their penchant for playing baseball, we learn so much about each player’s hopes and dreams: the things that are much more likely to carry them into adulthood than a three-seam fastball.

The Little Leaguers are often asked a series of questions that offer insight into what’s important to them, sometimes providing a good sense of trends about who their favorite (or least favorite) Major League Baseball players are and what they want to be when they grow up.

Brian Palazollo was on the mound Sunday for Fairfield National, the Metro Region champions, who defeated Aruba 4-2 in the consolation game to win third place in the Little League World Series tournament. At one point, a graphic including Palazollo’s dream job appeared on ESPN’s screen, which read “actuary.”

Typically, you might expect to see “MLB player,” “firefighter,” or “doctor” as a child’s dream job. But, actuary, that’s the kind of job choice that begs questions. And the ESPN broadcasting booth was full of them, including the question, “What does an actuary do?”

Announcer Karl Ravech quizzed Todd Frazier and Jessica Mendoza on whether or not they had ever considered being an actuary, to which they responded no, before noting that this might be the first time he’s ever seen that.

“I think that’s a first in about 20 years that I’ve seen somebody say actuary,” said Ravech.

He then asked Frazier and Mendoza if they knew what an actuary actually does, to which they also responded in the negative.

“The actuary is the person that kinda goes and puts a value on particularly, generally a piece of property,” said Ravech. “You need an actuary to determine what the damage would be, that’s one example.”

Unfortunately, Ravech’s definition was a little bit off base, and some actual actuaries chimed in to let him know.

So enamored and confused were the ESPN broadcasters that the actuary conversation continued, eventually arriving at Frazier, where it was used as an opportunity to complain about analytics.

Not sure how we ended up there, but consider this a massive day for actuaries, who finally have something exciting to talk about in the office on Monday for once.

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

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